National Poetry Month, Part 3

Untitled

“I believe in the sun
though it is late
in rising

I believe in love
though it is absent

I believe in God

though he is silent..."

 -  translated from the French, the text is an unsigned inscription found on the wall of a cave in Cologne where Jewish people had been hiding during the Holcaust 

From Out the Cave

When you have been
at war with yourself
for so many years that
you have forgotten why,
when you have been driving
for hours and only
gradually begin to realize
that you have lost the way,
when you have cut
hastily into the fabric,
when you have signed
papers in distraction,
when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.

 by Joyce Sutphen

Untitled 

I don’t know about you,
but I practice a disorganized religion.
I belong to an unholy disorder.
We call ourselves,
“Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment.”
You may have seen us praying
for love
on sidewalks outside the better
eating establishments
in all kinds of weather.
Blow us a kiss
upon arriving or departing,
and we will climax
simultaneously.
It can be quite a scene,
especially if it is raining
cats and dogs.

by Kurt Vonnegut 

all that is glorious around us 

is not, for me, these grand vistas, sublime peaks, mist-filled
overlooks, towering clouds, but doing errands on a day
of driving rain, staying dry inside the silver skin of the car,
160,000 miles, still running just fine. or later,
sitting in a café warmed by the steam
from white chicken chili, two cups of dark coffee,
watching the red and gold leaves race down the street,
confetti from autumn’s bright parade. and i think
of how my mother struggles to breathe, how few good days
she has now, how we never think about the glories
of breath, oxygen cascading down our throats to the lungs,
simple as the journey of water over a rock. it is the nature
of stone / to be satisfied / writes mary oliver, It is the nature
of water / to want to be somewhere else, rushing down
a rocky tor or high escarpment, the panoramic landscape
boundless behind it. but everything glorious is around
us already: black and blue graffiti shining in the rain’s
bright glaze, the small rainbows of oil on the pavement,
where the last car to park has left its mark on the glistening
street, this radiant world.

by Barbara Crooker

today, like every other day 

today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. take down a musical instrument.

let the beauty we love be what we do.
there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

by Jalaluddin Rumi

 

National Poetry Month, Part 2

untitled

We are more than the worst thing that’s ever
happened to us. All of us need to stop apologizing
for having been to hell and come back breathing.

Your bad dreams are battle scars.
 

What doesn’t kill you cuts you fucking deep
but scars are just skin growing back
thicker when it heals.

Clementine von Radics

Stop Being So Religious

What
do sad people have in
common?
It seems
they have all built a shrine
to the past
And often go there
to do a strange wail and
worship.
What is the beginning of
happiness?
It is to stop being
so religious
like that.

by Hafez 

i thank you god for most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today;

and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth

day of life and love and wings:and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any-lifted from the no

of all nothing-human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

by e.e. cummings

Advertisement For the Mountain 

There are two versions of every life.

In the first one, you get a mother, a father,
your very own room.

You learn to walk, which is only done by walking.
You learn the past tense of have, which is hunger.

You learn to ask almost anything
is to ask it to be over,
as when the lover asks the other

“Are you sleeping? Are you beginning
to go away?”

(And whether or not you learn it, life does not penetrate
more than five miles above the earth
or reach more than three miles beneath the sea.

Life is eight miles long.

You could walk it, and be there before sundown.
Or swim it, or fall it, or crawl it.)

The second is told from the point
of view of the sky.

by Christina Davis

Untitled 

I'm never gonna wait

that extra twenty minutes

to text you back, 

and I'm never gonna play

hard to get

when I know your lfie

has been hard enough already

it's hard to watch

the game we make of love

like everyone's playing checkers

with their scars,

saying checkmate

whenever they get out

without a broken heart.

Just to be clear

I don't want to get out

without a broken heart.

I intend to leave this life

so shattered

there's gonna have to be

a thousand separate heavens

for all my flying parts.

by Andrea Gibson

National Poetry Month, Part 1! And other things.

April is National Poetry Month, and is also now known as the only month where I get in a post a week. I don't know, it just seems so much easier to copy and paste someone else's beautiful words onto my blog than to find where my own words fit. And I can't tell if it's because I'm doing too little to blog about, or too much. Sometimes it feels like both at the same time. I wonder if anyone else feels like they work really hard while they're still just running in place. I feel like I'm never quite moving at the speed of the rest of the world - it's either going to fast for me, or too slow.

I think that's where gratitude comes in. Gratitude aligns us, grounds us, forces us to become more present with the tempo of the world again. And lately I've been royally bad at it. So back to the drawing board I go - I started journaling again, under the heading Five Smooth Stones, about five things I'm grateful for each day, so that I can start to slay the Goliath that is selfishness and regret and that last one, that last little thief of joy, Comparison. Comparison, you really suck sometimes. I want to punch you in the face sometimes.

I got new acting head shots (which I'll share in a few weeks), and I've been helping out with a family wedding (my family considers me a mini-expert, having just gotten married last October. Shhhh, don't tell them I made it up as I went along.)  I started attending acting class again, and attending yoga again, and attending church again, and all that attendance is quite tiring, I have to tell you. I've been good about taking care of others, and crappy about taking care of myself. Looks like I'm in it for the long haul with that last lesson. I updated my acting reel, shot a short film, updated my website, updated my IMDB acting page, and I'm looking at going to acting workshops within the next month or so. I am busy, busy, busy. And I am tired, tired, tired. But I'm learning that gratitude is a verb too.

Now let's give some other people a turn.

another reminder

the world is heavy
but your bones
(just a cubic inch)
can hold 19,000 lbs

ounce for ounce
they are stronger than steel

atom for atom
you are more precious than diamond

and stars have died
so that you may live

you need to remember these things
when you say that you are weak
and worthless

by http://trucewiththesea.tumblr.com

for my mother when she doesn’t feel beautiful 

don’t worry about your body.
it isn’t as small as it once was,
but honestly, the world needs more of you.
you look in the mirror
like you’ve done something wrong,
but you look perfect.
anyone who says otherwise is telling a lie
to make you feel weak.
and you know better.
you’ve survived every single day,
for as long as you’ve been alive.
you could spit fire if you wanted.

by Clementine von Radics

the loneliest job in the world 

as soon as you begin to ask the question, who loves me?

you are completely screwed, because

the next question is how much?

and then it is hundreds of hours later,

and you are still hunched over

your flowcharts and abacus,

trying to decide if you have gotten enough.

this is the loneliest job in the world:

to be an accountant of the heart.

it is late at night. you are by yourself,

and all around you, you can hear

the sounds of people moving

in and out of love,

pushing the turnstiles, putting

their coins in the slots,

paying the price which is asked,

which constantly changes.

no one knows why.

by Tony Hoagland

we have not come to take prisoners

We have not come here to take prisoners,

But to surrender ever more deeply

To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world

To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything 

That may not strengthen 

Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely 

To put a sharp knife

Into the sacred, tender vision 

Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend

Those aspects of obedience

That stand outside of our house

And shout to our reason

"O please, O please,

Come out and play."

For we have not come here to take prisoners,

Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply

Our divine courage, freedom and

Light!

by Hafez

start again

...pretty sure this is going to be my manifesto for 2013. 

amplified stillness (start again) | buddy wakefield

i choose to end the compulsive habit of thinking and
speaking insecurities. these are not my insecurities. they
were habitual thoughts passed down to me. the
foundation i’ve lain for myself is noble and true of heart
and must be treated as such, with compassion and clarity.

i choose to be quiet and let forthcoming answers reveal
themselves without manipulation. the hyper
intellectualization, wordiness, passion and superlatives
(which have often driven the engine in my ego) serve to
fuel distortions of a happy life, or burn up happiness
altogether. i choose to not put another log on that fire.

i choose patience under pressure.

i choose to stay present, to unlearn how to unlove,
to love, and to practice my worthiness of it.

i choose equanimity.

i breathe deep into the center of my heart.

i surround myself with friends and professionals
achieving like-minded success.

i am led to consistently speak with good purpose, react as
a gentleman, not instigating or projecting any foul thing,
and to not internalize the negativity of others so that my
presence is constantly powered by goodwill and grace.
lead me to right choices and right action, not to
participate in any lies about love, and to leave helpful
writing on the wall so that i might pull the next one up.
lead me to pull the next one up with real peace in my
spirit, humor in my peace, and this spinal cord i bummed
off a cephalopod. jus’ kiddin’, cephalopods don’t have
spinal cords. they are bilaterally symmetrical though, and
they collectively possess nearly every super power known
to man, including shape-shifting, pseudo-morphing and
possible teleportation.

i choose to savor this moment.
i choose ending knee-jerk reactions to that which i deem
negative, including parking enforcement, cilantro and the
back-up beep on commercial vehicles. for that matter,
there is no need to knee-jerk-react to the positives either.
enjoying them is enough.

i choose an unassuming nature.

i choose to be held accountable.

thank you for the vast experiences with which this life has built me.
i am thankful for what is being built.
i know it to be a fine building.
it does not stand in vain
even when it’s riddled with mirrors.

thank you for the serenity prayer, and the courage to
follow through with right action, with listening, with
learning and with stillness.

i choose to release my hope for a better past, to discontinue
boasting past glories, and to not justify any poor choice
with having lived a hard life.

i choose to speak with kindness and acceptance, even to myself.

i choose to be unapologetic for healthy living.

i choose to be unapologetic for living.

i choose to politely ask myself to step aside if i am in my own way.
if i do not get out of my own way, i choose to call a friend
who will have me removed.

i choose to observe how i may best serve today, and then do so.
i choose to better understand service and to live less selfishly.
i choose the nature of giving not greed, stability not
desperation, safe passage as opposed to craving and
clinging.

i witness gifts in the lives around me.
you really are incredible, ya know.
good gravy just look at ya.

i choose big me big you.

i choose chin up, best foot forward, stick my landings.

i choose a safe place to land.

i choose feeding myself joy over beating myself up.

i choose not to beat myself up if i trail off course, rather,
gently redirect my breath so that these standards i’ve
accepted for myself are not buried under any unnecessary
weight of any perceived shortcoming.

“i choose to not let come out of my mouth that which
would contradict the blessing that is happening in my
life.” – michael bernard beckwith

i’m giving myself a break.
enough.
i choose to be enough.
no more ten thousand hours of more more more.
not by force.
this work will not save me.
i release me.
go and have some fun.

i’ve spent so much energy becoming better.
i choose to now live with the better, to yield to the better, to
show you the better, and to let the rest unfold.
i will show up every day.
my failures have led to successes.
it is a time for practicing these successes, and for rest, and for clear reception.

i may make no decision based on panic.

lead me away from telling lies, exaggerating truths,
bragging, or manipulating people’s perceptions of me.
these are disservices to my practice.

i choose to breathe all known and forthcoming truths at
once, deeply and consistently, inhaling and exhaling
reassurance and understanding, joy and equanimity,
wonderment and revelation, acceptance and integrity,
commitment and flexibility, balance and ownership,
staying present with the moment, observing my
environment, yielding to all that is.

and when i do not do all of these things forever without
fail, may i be banished to an unforgiving lake of lava shit
for the devil’s fat eternity.

…or, treat myself to a good meal, some sound sleep, and
another deep breath.

…or, call mom, tell her what’s goin’ on, and agree with
anything she might say just to know that i have a mother.

i release my need to be right.

i know that this is the key to living life as is.
i choose as is.
let god be god.
and let me be still
until thy will is revealed.

nothing is against me.

*****************************************

Happy new year, everyone. Clean slate, clear eyes, full heart, can't lose.  - Tracy

National Poetry Month, Part 4

Tired - Langston Hughes

i am so tired of waiting.
aren’t you,
for the world to become good
and beautiful and kind?
let us take a knife
and cut the world in two —
and see what worms are eating
at the rind.

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On the Necessity of Sadness - Mikael de Lara Co

Let me tell you about longing.
Let me presume that I have something
new to say about it, that this room,
naked, its walls pining for clocks,
has something new to say
about absence. Somewhere
the crunch of an apple, fading
sunflowers on a quilt, a window
looking out to a landscape
with a single tree. And you
sitting under it. Let go,
said you to me in a dream,
but by the time the wind
carried your voice to me,
I was already walking through
the yawning door, towards
the small, necessary sadnesses
of waking. I wish
I could hold you now,
but that is a line that has
no place in a poem, like the swollen
sheen of the moon tonight,
or the word absence, or you,
or longing. Let me tell you about
longing. In a distant country
two lovers are on a bench, and pigeons,
unafraid, are perching beside them.
She places a hand on his knee
and says, say to me
the truest thing you can.
I am closing my eyes now.
You are far away. 

-------------------------------------------------------- 

Bright Day - Stanley Moss

I sing this morning: Hello, hello.

I proclaim the bright day of the soul.

The sun is a good fellow,

the devil is a good guy, no deaths today I know.

I live because I live. I do not die because I cannot die.

In Tuscan sunlight Masaccio

painted his belief that St. Peter’s shadow

cured a cripple, gave him back his sight.

I’ve come through eighty-five summers. I walk in sunlight.

In my garden, death questions every root, flowers reply.

I know the dark night of the soul

does not need God’s eye,

as a beggar does not need a hand or a bowl.

 

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For an Album - Adrienne Rich

our story isn’t a file of photographs
faces laughing under green leaves
or snowlit doorways, on the verge of driving
away, our story is not about women
victoriously perched on the one
sunny day of the conference,
nor lovers displaying love:

our story is of moments
when even slow motion moved too fast
for the shutter of the camera:
words blew our lives apart, like so,
eyes that cut & caught each other,
mime of the operating room
where gas & knives quote each other
moments before the telephone
starts ringing: our story is
how still we stood,
how fast.

------------------------------------------------------------

The End of Science Fiction - Lisel Mueller

This is not fantasy, this is our life.

We are the characters

who have invaded the moon,

who cannot stop their computers.

We are the gods who can unmake

the world in seven days.

 

Both hands are stopped at noon.

We are beginning to live forever,

in lightweight, aluminum bodies

with numbers stamped on our backs.

We dial our words like Muzak.

We hear each other through water.

 

The genre is dead. Invent something new.

Invent a man and a woman

naked in a garden,

invent a child that will save the world,

a man who carries his father

out of a burning city.

Invent a spool of thread

that leads a hero to safety,

invent an island on which he abandons

the woman who saved his life

with no loss of sleep over his betrayal.

 

Invent us as we were

before our bodies glittered

and we stopped bleeding:

invent a shepherd who kills a giant,

a girl who grows into a tree,

a woman who refuses to turn

her back on the past and is changed to salt,

a boy who steals his brother’s birthright

and becomes the head of a nation.

Invent real tears, hard love,

slow-spoken, ancient words,

difficult as a child’s

first steps across a room.

National Poetry Month, Part 3

House of Belonging - David Whyte

sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

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A Message from the Wanderer - William E. Stafford

Today outside your prison I stand

and rattle my walking stick: Prisoners, listen;

you have relatives outside. And there are

thousands of ways to escape.

Years ago I bent my skill to keep my

cell locked, had chains smuggled to me in pies,

and shouted my plans to jailers;

but always new plans occurred to me,

or the new heavy locks bent hinges off,

or some stupid jailer would forget

and leave the keys.

Inside, I dreamed of constellations—

those feeding creatures outlined by stars,

their skeletons a darkness between jewels,

heroes that exist only where they are not.

Thus freedom always came nibbling my thought,

just as—often, in light, on the open hills—

you can pass an antelope and not know

and look back, and then—even before you see—

there is something wrong about the grass.

And then you see.

That’s the way everything in the world is waiting.

Now—these few more words, and then I’m

gone: Tell everyone just to remember

their names, and remind others, later, when we

find each other. Tell the little ones

to cry and then go to sleep, curled up

where they can. And if any of us get lost,

if any of us cannot come all the way—

remember: there will come a time when

all we have said and all we have hoped

will be all right.

There will be that form in the grass.

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A Settlement -  Mary Oliver

look, it’s spring. and last year’s loose dust has turned
into this soft willingness. the wind-flowers have come
up trembling, slowly the brackens are up-lifting their
curvaceous and pale bodies. the thrushes have come
home, none less than filled with mystery, sorrow,
happiness, music, ambition. 

and i am walking out into all of this with nowhere to
go and no task undertaken but to turn the pages of
this beautiful world over and over, in the world of my mind. 

_________

therefore, dark past,
i’m about to do it.
i’m about to forgive you

for everything.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keys - Nancy Henry

when things got hard 
i used to drive and keep on driving 
once to north carolina 
once to arizona 
i’m through with all that now, i hope. 
the last time was years ago. 

but oh, how i would drive 
and keep on driving! 
the universe around me 
all well in my control; 
anything i wanted on the radio, 
the air blasting hot or cold; 
sobbing as loudly as i cared to sob, 
screaming as loudly as i needed to scream. 
i would live on apples and black coffee, 
shower at truck stops, 
sleep curled up 
in the cozy back seat i loved.

the last time, i left at 3 a.m. 
by new york state, 
i stopped screaming; 
by tulsa 
i stopped sobbing; 
by the time i pulled into flagstaff 
i was thinking 
about the canyon, 
i was so empty. 
thinking about the canyon 
i was. 

i sat on the rim at dawn, 
let all the colors fill me. 
it was cold. i saw my breath 
like steam from a soup pot. 
i saw small fossils in the gravel. 
i saw how much world there was 

how much darkness 
could be swept out 
by the sun.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Flames - Billy Collins

smokey the bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.

his ranger’s hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.

his brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher’s mitts,
crackle into the distance.

he is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.

he is going to show them
how a professional does it.

National Poetry Month, Part 2

On  Last Lines - Suzanne Buffam 

the last line should strike like a lover’s complaint.
you should never see it coming.
and you should never hear the end of it.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Good Night - J. Bradley

 i wanted to write “stay”
on your sides, surround
your bed with oceans
of salt. i hope he folds you
into a fox, loves you
like a splintered arrow,
brandishes the kill
of your lips. may the bouquet
of your hips wither.
may the wolves
forget your name.

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what lot's wife would have said (if she wasn't a pillar of salt) -  Karen Finneyfrock

do you remember when we met
in gomorrah? when you were still beardless,
and i would oil my hair in the lamp light before seeing
you, when we were young, and blushed with youth
like bruised fruit. did we care then
what our neighbors did
in the dark?

when our first daughter was born
on the river jordan, when our second
cracked her pink head from my body
like a promise, did we worry
what our friends might be
doing with their tongues?

what new crevices they found
to lick love into or strange flesh
to push pleasure from, when we
called them sodomites then,
all we meant by it
was neighbor.

when the angels told us to run
from the city, i went with you,
but even the angels knew
that women always look back.
let me describe for you, lot,
what your city looked like burning
since you never turned around to see it.

sulfur ran its sticky fingers over the skin
of our countrymen. it smelled like burning hair
and rancid eggs. i watched as our friends pulled
chunks of brimstone from their faces. is any form
of loving this indecent?

cover your eyes tight,
husband, until you see stars, convince
yourself you are looking at heaven.

because any man weak enough to hide his eyes while his neighbors
are punished for the way they love deserves a vengeful god.

i would say these things to you now, lot,
but an ocean has dried itself on my tongue.
so instead i will stand here, while my body blows itself
grain by grain back over the land of canaan.
i will stand here
and i will watch you
run.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything is Waiting for You - David Whyte

your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. as if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. to feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. you must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
the stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. the kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. all the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. everything is waiting for you.

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

grief calls us to the things of this world - Sherman Alexie

           The morning air is all awash with angels
            —Richard Wilbur, “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”

the eyes open to a blue telephone
in the bathroom of this five-star hotel.

i wonder whom i should call? a plumber,
proctologist, urologist, or priest?

who is blessed among us and most deserves
the first call? i choose my father because

he’s astounded by bathroom telephones.
i dial home. my mother answers. “hey, ma,”

i say, “can i talk to poppa?” she gasps,
and then i remember that my father

has been dead for nearly a year. “shit, mom,”
I say. “i forgot he’s dead. i’m sorry—

how did i forget?” “it’s okay,” she says.
“i made him a cup of instant coffee

this morning and left it on the table—
like i have for, what, twenty-seven years—

and i didn’t realize my mistake
until this afternoon.” my mother laughs

at the angels who wait for us to pause
during the most ordinary of days

and sing our praise to forgetfulness
before they slap our souls with their cold wings.

those angels burden and unbalance us.
those fucking angels ride us piggyback.

those angels, forever falling, snare us
and haul us, prey and praying, into dust.

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The Uses of Sorrow -  Mary Oliver

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness. 

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

National Poetry Month, part one

Guess what month it is, everyone? And if you guessed April, NO, that's boring. It's NATIONAL POETRY MONTH! (I don't know why that deserved all caps except to express to you that I'm really, really excited about this.) If you're a newbie to my blog, what I do for NATIONAL POETRY MONTH (okay, that time I seriously didn't need to capitalize it) is post a bunch of the most gorgeous, heart-wrenchingly beautiful, inspiring poems I can find. Right here. For you.

You're welcome. 

The rules for enjoying my poetry posts to the fullest are this: Slow down. Read the poems. Think about them.Carry them with you throughout your day like a secret love letter. Let them illuminate your life.

That's it. You guys can totally do that. Let's get started! YAY NATIONAL POETRY MONTH! (just pretend I'm yelling this in Gerard Butler's voice from "300").

PS I've been in a Mary Oliver & Charles Bukowski mood lately. So if the posts favor those two poets more than others... take it up with management.

The Word  by Tony Hoagland

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”
and “broccoli,” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful. It touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent from someplace distant
as this morning—to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing

that also needs accomplishing.
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue,

but today you get a telegram
from the heart in exile,
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them
who can find the time
to sit out in the sun and listen.

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On Living by Nazim Hikmet

i mean you must take living so seriously
      that even at seventy, for example, you will plant olives—
      & not so they’ll be left for your children either,
      but because even though you fear death you don’t believe it,
      because living, i mean, weighs heavier.

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Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

if you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. give in to it. there are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. we are not wise, and not very often
kind. and much can never be redeemed.
still, life has some possibility left. perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. it could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. anyway, that’s often the
case. anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. joy is not made to be a crumb.

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God Says Yes to Me by Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I’m telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

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The Thing Is by Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you've held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief.

You think,

How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

 I will love you, again.

mid-air suspension

Do you ever feel two things at once - 1) like you are moving way too fast, and there's way too much happening, for you to be able to really take a step back and assess, and 2) that you're a trapeze artist, swinging from one pole to the other, suspended in mid-air, waiting, waiting for that moment when everything comes into reach...

That's me these days. Things are moving fast, very fast - there's a lot of change, a lot of things happening that I will catch you up on - but other times I am suspended, weightless, in mid-air, waiting, waiting, waiting.

The movement in my life includes the fact that I SUCKED IT UP and bought a beautiful, brand new car (seriously, not a used new car, which are the only kinds of cars I've had all my life, but a NEW new car), and I participated in the LA 48 Hour Film Festival, where each group gets assigned a genre, a prop, a line of dialogue, and a character that must be used, and each team has 48 hours to write it, shoot it, edit it, and deliver it back to the post-production house. We screen tomorrow, and ours is a dark little comedy that I had a leading role in, and I'm very, very happy with my work and how it turned out in general.

I am also planning an event for my church, which I'm really excited about; I increased my work hours at my job, which will mean a slight increase in my income, which is why I sucked it up and bought the car; and I booked the lead in a gritty, low-budget horror movie that's set to shoot in a few weeks, and then literally the moment I wrap the film I'm going up to Yosemite with my family and spending five fantastic days getting zero cell phone service, taking a lot of deep breaths, walking a lot, taking four thousand pictures, and eating my weight in marshmallows.

Movement, indeed. There's a lot going on, a lot of balls up in the air that I'm using every ounce of my not-so-existent coordination to catch, and there's a lot of responsibility on my shoulders to get everything done, and organized, and taken care of.

Frankly, I'm a little burned out.

And then there's the other side of it, where I'm still waiting for movement, inertia, ANYTHING, to move ahead with me getting a theatrical agent in this town, and wanting to go on more auditions, and create more opportunities for acting for myself. And it just feels like it's crawling at a snail's pace. How can one area of my life move so fast and another move so slow? I feel like I'm permanently getting whiplash. Or at least carsick.

But that's me, I'm here, I am getting back into the swing of things and I'm working out more, which means less anxiety, and I finally bought that damn tree-hugging hippy New Age meditation CD which will probably work wonders as soon as I get over myself and open the damn thing. (Remember, I'm from New Hampshire. Robert Frost musing about giving into frostbite is about as sentimental as we get.)

To quote another poet: We're clear, we're ourselves, we're sailing.