It's time

Last night, I did not think I would make it

in a world that offers no consolation for lapses into loneliness.

I did not think my next love would be sprung

from what now is keeping her from me.

I only saw the sky darkening,

as if it was my first night,

the first time I saw the day's curtained death.

But now, I hear the birds chatter their evening gossip.

I see the robin poking the grass for worms.

The petals of the petunias are perked

and turned to the west last light.

The church bell dongs the hour,

a fat squirrel shimmies down a wrinkled bark.

A whirligig spins itself to find a seeding soil.

An eastern breeze is reminding the old silver oak

of its roots, its ability to bend a bit.

And so too, I am hungry,

leaning into the last slide of the sun's shine,

as I feel a stronger self tonight,

unafraid as night descends.

three hugs

The first, from Jakiah, without any thinking or hesitation.

She liked what we did in class and so she walked me to the door

with her arm looped around my waist.

Like the seedling tree, mixing her green with mine,

something alive and growing.

The second, like the wall, hard and guarded,

at the end of a church meeting.

Dick put out his hands, not in a welcoming gesture,

but as guardrails, so that he controlled how close

my body -- or any body -- would get to his.

The third, a not hug, between me and a her

who are not ready to say good-bye that way.

Like the sunlight, the crease of the blue sky within the trees,

the air that cannot be photographed.

There, but not there, yet.

Out of control

I was in a meeting, a meeting that I had called, and when I walked in right on time, someone else had started the session and was handing out materials that were not what the group had previously committed to using. I felt a twitter in my gut, an agitation really. Who did she think she was?

Under the auspices of needing more space for my computer, I moved from the circle to a nearby desk. Mostly, I was trying to get me out of the direct assault of the energy I was receiving and sending out so close to my competition.

And, then, seeing that she had no idea what she was doing, I gave it over. Changed who I thought I was supposed to be. And then, even more interesting to me, I saw myself in this other person. Ten year ago, my boss told me that no one else speaks in meetings because I am always leading and generating the ideas so quickly. By trying to help, I was shutting the process down.

So, today, in that room, I let her be who she needed to be. I gave her all of the power she needed to feel, and I watched myself relinquished my desire to be in control.

Then I noticed how something loosened. How something widened. How it felt to be the river rolling, not the source. How it felt to be the window looking out, not the room that holds the window.

I am too old to be learning these lessons, I know. I am too old to still be figuring this out. I remember thinking, when I was eighteen, that I could see 36. I would be married, I would have a couple kids. My man and me would live in a small charming town. I would drive a Volvo station wagon and volunteer at the local school. I just knew that I would know it all. I distinctly remember thinking that I had no idea how I would get from 18 to 36, but that I would make it. To this me I saw so clearly.

But, here I sit, 12 years past 36. Writing this in a coffee shop. No man. No woman. No children. No Volvo station wagon. No time spent volunteering. Just me, still trying to understand a tad bit more than I did the day before. Giving more and more away, in an effort to finally meet the skeletal truth of me.

When will the object simply be the object?

Today it was making a hummus wrap for lunch.

The Havarti cheese from Whole Foods

warped into the same cheese

from the West Side Market,

which zoomed into traveling sandwiches

of room temperature Havarti on potato rosemary rolls,

which slid into driving to Tybee Island,

the white cottage with the pool,

reading to each other in the water.

Which then sunk into night, kissing and kissing

in the water, the way her lips felt bigger,

wider, wet as the whole world.

Then, the teal painted porch,

the French doors.

the white bed.

Our skin darkening

at the same rate,

from cheese color cream

to earthen brown.

Tulip bed

There are dormant times in all of our lives.

Our bulbous hearts wait, then wait,

until the temperature

and the nourishment are just right.

Or perhaps it's inconsolable rain

that causes us to decide again

to try again. And when we do,

there is nothing more beautiful.

What I knew in Grand Rapids

I used to think that events were discrete:

the picnic, the talk in the chapel,

hiking in the Chagrin Reservation.

And then, maybe, I saw one linked to another:

they asked and I went;

she left and I am sad;

the rain falls and the peonies grow.

Then, with age or mercy,

I could see them all strewn out like chess moves,

one linked to another:

the post, the email, the quick, the yes, the longing, the love.

I could trace my life back choice by choice,

retrospectingly connected.

But now, right now, I see it all,

just maybe for today, as a bridge.

One thing taking me to the next,

moving from one side to the other.

And there are only two sides of my life:

what was and what is better.

Even the darkness, the doubt, the desert wandering.

All of it before: one form of glorious goodness.

All of it to come: a wider form of more glorious goodness.

Some miracles are small

No one will know but the three of us,

you and me and her in that room.

It could have teetered either way

(aren't so many things one nudge away from disaster?)

She could have said that one last thing you could not bear.

You could have said nothing at all.

You could have left in a huff,

her pride shredding behind you.

But you stayed and she stayed

and word by word you worked your way to truth.

After the sharp eyes, the serrated consonants,

then softening, the heart's voice in each of us

finally brave enough to stand up on wobbly legs,

and say, I feel. I ache. I feel. I never meant.

To feel. To you. Sorry. So sorry.

No bread multiplied into loaves,

no water turned to wine.

No one walked on water or calmed the sea.

We were not draped in holy vestments.

A cancer did not suddenly disappear,

the chain of lottery numbers did not reveal a winner.

No one named Saint Somebody was within miles.

It was just you and me and her

letting the goodness steam up through the boiling,

cleaning the pores of the skin between us.

A miracle metastasized from cells run amok

because we lasted through the pain.

Until the words that were fists

became fists that were hands,

and the hands turned to palms,

until our love lines and life lines were exposed,

belly up to healing.