11.17.2012
Things That Don't Belong on Twitter or Facebook
I have the tenderest heart and I can't figure out how to protect it from always being broken by people who claim to love me but actually misunderstand me or want me to be something different than I am. I just get to feeling like myself is good when I get knocked back again by being told I'm too aggressive, or too honest, or too sensitive, or too....everything. Where on the planet do I go to not be received as just too much?
11.02.2012
postmortem (a poem)
when I am dead
wash my body
run your hands slowly over the parts
recognize and discover
tenderly clean my pallid, stony skin
then smooth oils scented with geranium into my skin
and my hair
spread fresh rose petals across my body
and wrap me in linen
carry my body, wrapped this way
carry my body through the streets
let the parade form behind me
let them sing and cry out loud
let everyone know I am dead
call them into the streets
dance beside them and all around me
let ribbons fly and drums be beaten
when I am dead set the dogs to howling
and open the bird cages
let time stop when I am dead
10.13.2012
Tiny Ways (a poem)
Tiny Ways
The threat of a long arc of forgiveness
raises questions for me
Mainly, is the steadfastness of your love
tethered to the consistency of your morning ritual?
If your eggs are runny,
will I pay in a thousand tiny ways, long into the future?
A thousand tiny ways
one would be silence
another would be noise
a third would be distance
maybe chatter would be on the list
and absence
persistent drunkenness
wandering eye
revealing arsonist tendencies
subterfuge
sending postcards when traveling for work, but only writing
famous, vaguely applicable quotes on them instead of your true sentiment
teabags in the sink
water on the bathroom floor
dirty dishes beside the bed
interfering with my crossword puzzles
getting a cat without telling me
letting the garden die
never fixing the broken stair
not reading my work
keeping the good wine for yourself
your leaving taking me by surprise
7.15.2012
Letter to a friend who lost a friend
Dear G_____,
A couple of years back one of my closest friends died. A touchstone, a measuring stick, a bawdy, brave, beautiful man, a craftsman, a wanderer, a gentleman, an intellectual, a collector, a dandy, a hobo, a trickster, a voice of reason and a bottomless well of unconditional love for me. He died suddenly.
A few years before that my dad died. Well, my stepdad, but, you know, my dad. It was awful and eviscerating. He was sick for three years.
When my dad died, even though we'd had so long to get things up to date, he died with lots of anger and much unresolved between us.
When my friend died we were up to date, we knew how much we loved each other, and had no stone left unturned.
My mom and I had an interesting conversation not two days ago, about dream visits from our dead friends and family, and how lovely and how hard they can be. We were talking of the kind of dreams where they come back and tell you they'd never died, but hadn't told anyone, and we wondered whether we'd be mad or happy or what if they came back. I realized if my friend came wandering into the room, I'd be so blissed out that he was back, I wouldn't care if he'd died or not died, I'd just be grateful. But if my dad came back, I'd be furious. Where had he gone, why hadn't he told us, etc...etc...
I am not clear on the exact root of the different feelings, but I know this. My friend is deeply embedded in a beautiful place in my heart, and when I need him, I can hear him. He is with me all the time, and sometimes I have felt his physical presence so strongly, mostly in the form of a hand on the small of my back, encouraging me forward.
I am so so sorry for your loss, G_____. These friends that we count on, that we carve out space for in our lives, when they leave us before we are prepared it is a devastating blow, and leaves a hole the size and shape of them that can never be filled. But we also store their love in us, and I am surprised and delighted to report that he feels as alive and present to me now as he did when I could touch him. I miss him terribly, and still really crave holding his rough hands in mine and trading dirty jokes with him, but I am constantly amazed at how much of him lives in me.
I hope you get to have a dream visit from your friend, and I hope you find some solace in the piece of him that lives in you, and that can't be dulled by time or experience, because he's part of who you are now.
Love,
Riel
A couple of years back one of my closest friends died. A touchstone, a measuring stick, a bawdy, brave, beautiful man, a craftsman, a wanderer, a gentleman, an intellectual, a collector, a dandy, a hobo, a trickster, a voice of reason and a bottomless well of unconditional love for me. He died suddenly.
A few years before that my dad died. Well, my stepdad, but, you know, my dad. It was awful and eviscerating. He was sick for three years.
When my dad died, even though we'd had so long to get things up to date, he died with lots of anger and much unresolved between us.
When my friend died we were up to date, we knew how much we loved each other, and had no stone left unturned.
My mom and I had an interesting conversation not two days ago, about dream visits from our dead friends and family, and how lovely and how hard they can be. We were talking of the kind of dreams where they come back and tell you they'd never died, but hadn't told anyone, and we wondered whether we'd be mad or happy or what if they came back. I realized if my friend came wandering into the room, I'd be so blissed out that he was back, I wouldn't care if he'd died or not died, I'd just be grateful. But if my dad came back, I'd be furious. Where had he gone, why hadn't he told us, etc...etc...
I am not clear on the exact root of the different feelings, but I know this. My friend is deeply embedded in a beautiful place in my heart, and when I need him, I can hear him. He is with me all the time, and sometimes I have felt his physical presence so strongly, mostly in the form of a hand on the small of my back, encouraging me forward.
I am so so sorry for your loss, G_____. These friends that we count on, that we carve out space for in our lives, when they leave us before we are prepared it is a devastating blow, and leaves a hole the size and shape of them that can never be filled. But we also store their love in us, and I am surprised and delighted to report that he feels as alive and present to me now as he did when I could touch him. I miss him terribly, and still really crave holding his rough hands in mine and trading dirty jokes with him, but I am constantly amazed at how much of him lives in me.
I hope you get to have a dream visit from your friend, and I hope you find some solace in the piece of him that lives in you, and that can't be dulled by time or experience, because he's part of who you are now.
Love,
Riel
6.12.2012
Oh, Country That I Love
Dear Canada.
I love you. So much that today I am in a funk over your imminent descent into a dark place, thanks to the Harper government. I still believe, Canada, that you have all the potential in the cosmos to be an innovator, a leader on the world stage. Your youth, your open space and rich stores of fertile land and raw materials, your well educated population, all of this positions you so well to be great - to gather the world behind your skirts and show them the way forward into a future we have only imagined. Instead, though, you are being dragged under a rock. Held hostage by fear and greed.
Do not despair, Canada, even though my own visage may be clouded with worry and stress, with the strain of concern for my entire nation. Do not despair, my beloved country. Though we are about to be plunged into an ideologically dark time, we can plan and plot and organize and never stop making noise. Let us not let bill C-38 deflate and disarm us, but let us use it to fuel our certainty, focus our energy, and bind us together as one force, one voice, one engine of change and forward momentum. We have been set back, but let it only be the curtain that is pulled back, revealing to us all the blights, that we may begin to cure the ills, and build a country that reflects us, impresses us, represents us.
Love,
Riel
I love you. So much that today I am in a funk over your imminent descent into a dark place, thanks to the Harper government. I still believe, Canada, that you have all the potential in the cosmos to be an innovator, a leader on the world stage. Your youth, your open space and rich stores of fertile land and raw materials, your well educated population, all of this positions you so well to be great - to gather the world behind your skirts and show them the way forward into a future we have only imagined. Instead, though, you are being dragged under a rock. Held hostage by fear and greed.
Do not despair, Canada, even though my own visage may be clouded with worry and stress, with the strain of concern for my entire nation. Do not despair, my beloved country. Though we are about to be plunged into an ideologically dark time, we can plan and plot and organize and never stop making noise. Let us not let bill C-38 deflate and disarm us, but let us use it to fuel our certainty, focus our energy, and bind us together as one force, one voice, one engine of change and forward momentum. We have been set back, but let it only be the curtain that is pulled back, revealing to us all the blights, that we may begin to cure the ills, and build a country that reflects us, impresses us, represents us.
Love,
Riel
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
