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new year reflection two
(with thanks to Sam, and June) i wasn’t in a very good mood: thinking about family, thinking about all the work that didn’t get done, and the ridiculous pile of wrapping paper. then you laid your head on my lap curls jumping in all directions. you wanted me to look at your sketchbook. i was not prepared for your insistence that i look: really look. i didn’t, mostly. but tonight those teals and pinks are rioting my mind. you are eleven. all the possibilities are out there. you open their wire bound spine and hand them to me. i am officially over forty. all the possibilities are out there. orange and sienna and shocking green. something taking shape. i will dream loudly and in color.
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turning
when you open the story of your hurt you might be left alone chewing the words like sand. it’s ok. one day you will wake up and the sand will have dissolved like bread. you will sing the light back into the world. still waiting
(advent poem two) i bought all the presents careening through target three times cringing at each total. i ordered with expedited shipping. i argued with my love about what qualifies as ridiculous. i sped across town in the dark to get that one last thing. i’ve been pondering how to get my family, with their flip flops and tangled curls, into decent clothes for church. i hate christmas. i wish i could just take jesus out for beers next week, call mary on sunday. or hell, i’ll host a party with stars in the piñata, i make excellent punch. i am waiting to feel the spirit, again, the one who got lost in aisle nineteen as i was yelling god dammit because the man in the puff coat just got the last hundred dollar crock pot. and then she snuck up on me this morning at five a.m. while sleep was still stuck under my eyelids. i remembered in a few days i am going to tell a sanctuary full of children the improbable story, that i actually believe, of mary in the cold dark birthing jesus, and the light that finds the deepest cracks. i am waiting to watch their widening eyes behind the tangled curls as they fidget in scratchy dresses and too tight suit jackets. i am waiting for the opening of dangerous possibilities. teaching writing
every day i stand outside a different door and breathe. today, maybe i will make no mistakes. likely not. likely today i will misplace the file, forget her name, miss that planning meeting. today i will stare across the table after you’ve spoken your deepest hurt and all i will be able to say is thank you. thank you for opening up your mistakes so that we can see the possibility in them. thank you for damning the violence done to you without damning yourself. thank you for tossing that memory into the circle so we all taste your mother’s tamales, or cup of noodles with hot sauce, or burnt pancakes. i cry a lot. more and more as i get older i can’t contain the truth, it pours out of me saline on the page. i hold their notebooks away from my body. there are dangerous phrases in here, they could overthrow something. i sneak them out in my arms. later i put on an apron and an old shirt. working in the dirty sink i break the words so the pain comes out. advent
i am in love with the empty church an hour before the service while the chairs are still stacked and the coffee just begins to bubble. the altar is covered in a blue cloth, the spotlight is off. jesus has breath held, hoping the guests arrive. we row the chairs, stack the hymnals. they begin to enter, pressed pants and sparkly shoes. good morning. a small hand in a larger, rougher one. a cane scrapes the floor. a gorgeous hat, a wide smile. these weeks before christmas we say we are waiting for the light to be born into the world, for the first cry, the infant sigh. but mornings like this I think the light is already here. we are waiting til we’re ready to open our eyes. |
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August 2020
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