I was dancing all day,
So I could not write,
Perhaps if I’m lucky,
I will have time tonight.
My body exhausted,
My mind is a blank,
My fun all used up,
And my dance shoes quite rank!
But, I don’t want to!
•June 28, 2012 • Leave a CommentMy mind screams and whines, not unlike my 6 year old.
The tantrum may not be visible to others, but it is just as loud in my head,
And just as persuasive.
“I don’t want to be still!”
“You can’t make me!”
Pay attention to the storm or suffer the consequences.
But just like my child,
If I wait long enough my will releases, and submission arrives with a sigh.
So now what?
What am I feeling?
It feels like a tummy ache that travels into my throat.
It feels like a hunger pang, frantic and unnerving.
“Something must be done.
Or I will wither away!”
When nothing is done, except for the feeling of it,
It morphs into magnetic trembling in my chest.
Pulling me towards something, anything,
To feed this NOT-WANTING-TO.
I choose not to feed it for half an hour
In the end neither the not-wanting-to nor I have died.
Open
•June 26, 2012 • Leave a CommentRhythmic creaking door
In this darkened silent space
Is the room breathing with us
Are we all secretly attempting to get out
Even while we appear sure as statues
Is the world out there trying to get in
Futile as it seeps in through the open window
In the sudden sounds, with the tempting smells, as the dancing shadows, on the stirring breeze
mingling with our attention, our senses, our thoughts, and our breath
Bathis Praxis
•June 25, 2012 • Leave a CommentI did not intend to meditate today…
…it settled over me as I lay floating in the tub.
A day of writing and mothering…
…the bath was meant to be a practical punctuation.
I breathe and float and let go of the day…
…it becomes an important point of reference, an endnote.
The water is warm and mostly enveloping…
…my exposed skin is goose bumped from the cool air.
I am comfortable with both temperatures…
…equanimity where before there would have been aversion.
My hands float just below the surface…
…until I will them to rise and rest on my abdomen.
My stomach is stable, unwavering…
…strength where there once would have been jelly like cowardice.
After a time of breathing and feeling…
…my mind returns and has something important to reveal.
My practice is finally my own.
It feels as much mine now as my body finally feels to me.
I am not mimicking another’s practice or following their dogmatic instructions.
I am floating in my own meditation.
Created at last, with the words that pour out of me each day.
A smile, an exhalation, and a tear are added to the subtle waves around me.
Poetry Speaking
•June 24, 2012 • 1 CommentLook at me
Read my words
Fold me up
Place me
In your back pocket
Or your shirt
Closer
To your vital organs
Or crumple me
Throw me
In the trash bin
Either way
I will still be here
Giving you words
Of (dis)comfort, strength
Waiting for you
To notice
Something valuable
To you
From me
Stuff
•June 23, 2012 • Leave a CommentInanimate objects are not out to get me,
A corner, a cabinet, a clock.
They do not jump out and they do not play games,
But they certainly bug me a lot.
I have learned to stay silent and not to react,
I continue my chores as I ought.
Still, those quaint little pieces fake mischief,
And, “Damn you!” still flings from my thoughts.
The Cat, The Coach, and the Catholic Priest
•June 22, 2012 • Leave a CommentSteaming, stinking, piles of crap
On my carpet and in the courtroom
My GOD how could this happen again?!
I desperately want to ignore them both
But find my attention drawn in their direction
While my stomach quietly lurches, wretches toward my throat
The longer they sit there, immovable
Their outer layer darkens and hardens
Bacteria seeping down and infecting once clean fibers
To spite myself and my well-trained demeanor
I want to run sobbing, screaming, willing to sell my soul to end it.
Instead I use my will, swallow my reaction, fall to my knees
Steadily go about cleaning the small reachable areas that lie directly in front of me…
The Farmer
•June 22, 2012 • 4 CommentsOne must have a mind of summer
To regard the haze and the rain showers
That cascade from the clouds with rumbling;
And have been hot a long time
To behold the flitting of insects on the job,
The tickling and matting of perspiration
From the mid-August sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sting of mosquitoes,
In the feel of your own breath lingering.
Which is the feeling of all breath
That lingers during all seasons
Arising from the same living place
For the observer, who observes in the heat
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and nothing that is.
— April Resnick
(In the style of Wallace Stevens)
(For Alan and my Grandfather)
And Yet…
•June 19, 2012 • 3 CommentsOverreacting and heavy metal
Deeply rooted parts of my personality
That meditation may never solve
A deep drumbeat rising to a scream
Shaking specks of stagnation from my soul
Leaving me lighter, liberated, and alive
I like it, and that is that…and yet still I sit.
If The Monks Had Small Children…
•June 18, 2012 • Leave a CommentMy daughter seems to find the ways,
To set my meditative fruits ablaze.
Out the window leaps my dignity,
Taking with it equanimity.
It takes just one more “mommy please,”
To bring this non-self to her knees.
I have no peace or patience left,
Oh shit! I could just take a breath.
sometimesihatemycat 