Wild Words: Ferociously Nourishing Poetry

How to Cut a Pomegranate

8/7/2022

"Never," said my father,
"Never cut a pomegranate
through the heart. It will weep blood.
Treat it delicately, with respect.

Just slit the upper skin across four quarters.
This is a magic fruit,
so when you split it open, be prepared
for the jewels of the world to tumble out,
more precious than garnets,
more lustrous than rubies,
lit as if from inside.
Each jewel contains a living seed.
Separate one crystal.
Hold it up to catch the light.
Inside is a whole universe.
No common jewel can give you this."

Afterwards, I tried to make necklaces
of pomegranate seeds.
The juice spurted out, bright crimson,
and stained my fingers, then my mouth.
I didn't mind. The juice tasted of gardens
I had never seen, voluptuous
with myrtle, lemon, jasmine
and alive with parrots' wings.

The pomegranate reminded me
that somewhere I had another home.

- Imtiaz Dharker

Self-Compassion

6/5/2022

My friend and I snickered the first time
we heard the meditation teacher, a grown man,
call himself honey, with a hand placed
over his heart to illustrate how we too
might become more gentle with ourselves
and our runaway minds. It’s been years
since we sat with legs twisted on cushions,
holding back our laughter, but today
I found myself crouched on the floor again,
not meditating exactly, just agreeing
to be still, saying honey to myself each time
I thought about my husband splayed
on the couch with aching joints and fever
from a tick bite—what if he never gets better?--
or considered the threat of more wildfires,
the possible collapse of the Gulf Stream,
then remembered that in a few more minutes,
I’d have to climb down to the cellar and empty
the bucket I placed beneath a leaky pipe
that can’t be fixed until next week. How long
do any of us really have before the body
begins to break down and empty its mysteries
into the air? Oh honey, I said—for once
without a trace of irony or blush of shame--
the touch of my own hand on my chest
like that of a stranger, oddly comforting
in spite of the facts.

- James Crews

Green, Green is My Sister's House

5/1/2022

Don’t you dare climb that tree
or even try, they said, or you will be
sent way to the hospital of the
very foolish, if not the other one.
And I suppose, considering my age,
it was fair advice.

But the tree is a sister to me, she
lives alone in a green cottage
high in the air and I know what
would happen, she’d clap her green hands,
she’d shake her green hair, she’d
welcome me. Truly.

I try to be good but sometimes
a person just has to break out and
act like the wild and springy thing
one used to be. It’s impossible not
to remember wild and not want to go back. So

if someday you can’t find me you might
look into that tree or—of course
it’s possible—under it.

- Mary Oliver

Betwixt and Between

4/10/2022

Vienna street art

Betwixt and between.
Not confused.
Conjuring a poem.
Sitting between
dawn and day,
health and illness,
the mundane and
the sacred.
But wait!
The mundane is also
the sacred,
is it not?

How do you
station yourself
in the middle
of the same thing?
The left hand and the right
are not separate entities
(though they are).
Betwixt and between them
are the body, the head, the legs.
We are positioned very securely
in the center of things,
and it is all of a piece.

Where am I going with this?
I suppose I am trying
to get comfortable with
living (and dying) all of it.
In the midst of being
betwixt and between
is exactly the place to be.
Don’t let it confound you.
Betwixt and between
is the practice ground.
Be welcome here.

- Maya Spector

Today

3/27/2022

Frozen Soap Bubbles
Photo by Angela Kelly

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

- Billy Collins

My Secret is Silence, for Winter Solstice

12/19/2021

Photo by i.am_nah.

The waves of mind
demand so much of Silence.
But She does not talk back
does not give answers nor arguments.
She is the hidden author of every thought
every feeling
every moment.

Silence.

She speaks only one word.
And that word is this very existence.
No name you give Her
touches Her
captures Her.
No understanding
can embrace Her.

Mind throws itself at Silence
demanding to be let in.
But no mind can enter into
Her radiant darkness
Her pure and smiling
nothingness.

The mind hurls itself
into sacred questions.
But Silence remains
unmoved by the tantrums.
She asks only for nothing.

Nothing.

But you won't give it to Her
because it is the last coin
in your pocket.
And you would rather
give her your demands than
your sacred and empty hands.

- Adyashanti

Tethered

12/12/2021

Huangshan, China. Photo by Maria Hernandez Gamarra.

The other day, our grandbaby Skipper
held on to her brother Mack, uncertain
of anyone less familiar, held on

like a weasel to her prey,
her teeth sunk into his shoulder,
reminiscent of a burdock seed on a sock

or a limpet on a rock--how
desperately I hold on
to what I'm already held by--tethered

like wave to water, sand grain to
beach, breath to air, held
by arms I can never

fall out of, and still, I cling
to the cliff, as if the ground
weren't what my feet are made of.

- Chuck Madansky

Holy Fire

11/7/2021

Painting by Erica Grimm Vance

Slow down....inside
I am right here
I am not where you are going
I am the place you leave to find me

I am Holy Fire
Do you trust me?

I am the One who makes your heart beat
and every heart beat
I am the Portal to the indescribable flame within you
I am every longing you have ever felt
and every passion you have ever suppressed

I am Aliveness
Open
Allow
Be danced
Do you trust me?

If you want to know bliss
to feel passion burn
You must become available
to be astonished and amazed
by the simplest things

Notice the way when you wiggle your toes
a tendril of joy quietly sprouts inside your chest

Notice how you can run your fingertips
on the edges of your skin
and rivers of desire become instantly fulfilled

You can take one single breath
and watch your body explode in gratitude for living

Then you can exhale and melt into the Great Fire
of life's fertile emptiness

You are the Portal

It costs nothing....except
everything you have ever dreamed you are

Your dissatisfaction is a dream
Your disappointment is a dream

I am right here
I have always been right here
It really is this innocent
Savor me
Enter me
Ignite

- a compilation of poetry excerpts by Maya Luna

Smooching

9/26/2021

Smooching Quetzalpetlatl
Teotihuacan Mexico, September 2021

One regret, dear world, that I am determined not to have
when I am lying on my deathbed is that
I did not kiss you enough.

There is a disease I know, it is called: being too serious.

Don't worry, you won't catch it from my poems.

I let eloquence have its say, and wisdom too and
mirth, for they can be needed companions as you
navigate this dimension and others.

Wherever you have dreamed of going, I have camped
there, and left firewood for when you arrive.

Try this someday: When you are packing or moving
any simple object around--imagine your Beloved's

hand--as yours. And it then might become thus, if just
for a second.

But a wondrous, true moment like that would be
enough for the integration to begin,

the meld of you and light . . . and then the smooching,
the wild smooching all the time. Why not?

- Hafiz, trans. by Daniel Ladinsky

somewhere i have never traveled

5/16/2021

Painting by Maria de LosAngeles

somewhere i have never traveled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

- e e cummings

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