the path at the edge of the sea

there is a path

at the edge

of the sea

on the southwestern shore....

it leads not over the tawny hills

burnished with golden crackling grass

and dotted with cockle burrs....

it doesn't wander the sandy dunes

flirting and playful, chasing

the inconstant breeze....

or seek for shade under the eaves of

crumbled greying bluffs....

and it's not always there....

it shifts and moves --

it rides the tides,

lifting and falling

through crystal night

on sparkling silver waves.....

when the planet aligns

so that moon and fog and earth and sea

are all in agreement....

and with no fanfare --

this rolling fountain of diamonds appears....

to any who come to the shore

and brave their inner silence....

free enchantment....

riches....

secrets revealed....

to those who look....

•

often the moon lies hidden for months on end....

muffled under wooly layers of

marine fog....

wandering the beach,

longing for your appearance....

i wonder....

when my gaze will find

your magic

your glimmering promise....

•

we stand here

all alone,

we think....

encapsulated in our skin....

our thoughts....

yet filled with

whirling energy....

electrons and protons zinging

constantly through our charged bodies....

we glow with hidden life....

we teem with what we cannot see....

like the waters....

the grasslands....

the secret standing woods....

all, even the air

is replete with life

watching us

heads tilted

curious....

but indifferent....

the merest rocky outcropping

propels a thousand lives along their days....

and every moment,

a million possibilities

swirl in our direction....

and still --

there is

longing....

•

have you once looked on

that shifting silver path?

those white-hot sparks

leaping and grouping,

dancing on the cold black liquid below?

have you never pined for it?

and for at least a moment imagined

walking out upon it....

to some undreamt-of future?

standing in the between

of earth and sea and sky....

do you never catch your breath

with the sudden knowledge

that we are as alone

as this glimmering path?

....and as full of dancing sparks....

______________

© 2010

Beth Anne Boardman

(image courtesy andrew.gd)

leaving/the riptide

each leaving
resurrects
all separations….

secret
painful
twinges riffle
our dancing spirits….

coming apart,
we know fear
and we know doubt….

with exactly the intensity
of the sweet whispers we shared….

it’s as though, sometimes,
a riptide
carries us farther and
farther apart….

and though we swim and swim for shore….
we lose sight of one another….

and so
we must float….

we must turn
and swim parallel,
softly….

•

it’s been months since you were here….

but i feel you in your absence….

mostly in the darkest hours
when the silence is touchable
and a great horned owl calls
only to me….

i feel the great love of the universe
waiting just outside my walls
waiting to rush in,
fill me where
it used to fill me….

i’ve been playing with it,
like the tide –
chasing it,
then running away….

it’s waiting for that sigh it knows so well,
that sigh of surrender,
of ‘yes’
of ‘yes and yes’….

•

right now,
floating in this gentle
undertow,
sun warming my face….

i know
that breathing
and swimming
i will find my way
to my own shore again….

•

life crashes over me
with a terrible kind of beauty….

i live and love this present….

but sometimes pictures
of our last soft morning
drift into my mind....

like gauzy curtains,
blowing on a breeze –
flickering
across my memory –

taking my breath away
with their innocent unformed promise….

igniting in me a tiny soft glow:

i am vital, alive,
i am living the mystery….

•

and so i swim softly,
breathing,
grateful,

humming a tune of love—
to this great ocean that birthed me….

finding my way to yes....

____

©2010
Beth Anne Boardman

amazement is a choice

amazement is a choice….

green leaves are not….

here are the things that amaze me:
everything.

but only if i sit still and stop worrying….

mary oliver says that there is singing in a leaf….
i believe her….

i’m pretty sure i’ve heard them singing to me….
or at least whisper….

i remember once
hearing great sheaves of palm fronds whispering over me
as i napped
in the middle of a sundrenched june,
cradling the jumping daughter inside me….

i remember hearing the soft voice of my husband
murmuring to our little son
on the patio outside our bedroom window --
and my son’s lilting voice,
asking the most adorable questions about bugs….

all these long years of happiness and disaster later,
these memories still bring sweet tears to my eyes….

and those palm fronds are still whispering….

i’m convinced
what they whisper
are blessings….

and now i know the secret to amazement --

even amid chaos
even in noisy bars
or midtown traffic….

if i can just remember to touch it….
silence flows everywhere….

it’s how the old wise ones have developed such deep laugh lines
around their eyes and mouths….

practicing their buddha smiles….

they’ve been finding amazement
in the dirt
in love
in despair and tragedy….
in rain and mud and starvation and dancing….

in shattered last breaths....

some call it magic
some call it god

and some miss it altogether
racing around in their twirling dramas…..

and that –

that, my lovely friend,

that is amazing too…..

_______________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman


[mary oliver's poem
'what can i say'
appears in
swan: poems and prose poems
boston: beacon, 2010]

washing my father's feet

[for my sister, on the eve of all soul's day]


descending through the night,
i see the new moon cradle its shrinking shadow….

it hangs suspended in the crystal black sky

above city lights
watercolored
by the first drifting wisps of marine layer….

the lights look soft and smudgy,
whiskering their pastel colors across vast empty parking lots,
and impromptu fields and wetlands….

i follow them with my eye,
their softness easing my homecoming….
like landing into a bed of cotton,
not the harsh cold real asphalt of life….

we sink and sink, coming down from
the crazy liminality of space and time and dreams and grief,

and pictures of you flitter around the edges of my
blackness….

i see your burly shoulders,
with just a little hair on them,
which used to scare me…

i see your white muscle shirt, your bermuda shorts,
your brown dress socks and old loafers
and the shock of your extremely white legs
mowing the lawn on a warm summer evening….

all the kids loved our lawn best, it was soft….
and dark, dark green….
we could tumble ourselves silly and lay on it forever
and watch the clouds
and never get itchy….

i see a white stetson hat,
a salt-and-pepper mustache,
and a sometimes silly grin
atop a grey suit
or your blue church one….
the one i asked you to wear to my wedding,
and you did….

i see your shiny brown pointy-toed cowboy boots,
and i can still smell your aqua velva…..

i see you carrying an axe in your strong
leather-gloved hands,
stomping through the snow ahead of us,
laughing, actually, amazingly,
as we children raced around running and screaming
through the trees,
completely wrecking the mountain stillness
in our excitement to choose a
christmas tree for you to chop down….

i see you angry after work,
swinging a sledge hammer with intensity,
splitting wood
like maybe you were splitting heads….

i see you powerful,
scary,
the judge, the jury, the jail….

and

i see you gather up

your rambunctious, rebellious, willful, noisy,
half crazy, half wild,
not indoor not girly daughter….

pick her up, with her bloody foot,

back from her tricycle adventure
through a construction site,
exploring piles of lumber….
and dirt clods bristling
with rusty nails….

you held me so softly
in those strong scary hairy arms
and murmured all the fatherly things i always wanted to hear….
as you washed my feet in the sink….

and i see myself,
a lifetime later

sitting on the floor

washing your feet…

you, a smaller man,
bent, and wrinkled….
still able, though,
to both twinkle and be angry….

i see our lives coursing through my blood
and my memories
as i lather and rinse and dry….

i see you still holding the power to bless me
as i gently place your feet on a soft, clean, white towel….

and say to you that i hope, in my life,
i’ve made you proud….

‘oh yes!’ you say,
in answer to my girlish question….

i see you wiggle your toes at me
and smile as i rub them with lotion….

and i wonder what miracle on earth
brought me to this moment
in my life….

that i should sit here
at the end of yours
in silence
and trust
and love….

washing my father’s feet….


________
©2010
Beth Anne Boardman

2 June 2010

photo courtesy brian boardman

dark wings

i sensed the dark wings gathering….

through the ethers things happen that we can’t control –
even through prayer,
even through supplication, or the wild twistings of grief,
even through temper tantrums and contrite pleading…

the mystery moves in its own way,
so far beyond our own ken….
which is so good….
for how often we muddle things up when we have our way!

look at the perfection that can be arranged for you if you let go
and release your grip on rightness…. on safety…. on predictability…..

a brother can turn up at his mother’s grave after eighteen years
and meet all his siblings….
and they can have ice cream and plan their secession from the city,
and laugh
and cry
and be utterly, irrevocably amazed….

and healing can flow through and around each of them
absolutely without their control….
only because they all gave in to the mystery,
and followed the promptings of the dark wings….

became quiet enough, and humble enough,
and allowed enough love into their beings,
to feel the directions,
and follow their hearts
to each other….

and all is not wild honey or thornless roses or eternal butterflies….

but the limitless magic in letting go made itself known,
and wrapped itself around them like a cloud,
like a mist made partly of tears, and partly of the sighs of a mother….

and we felt her giggled blessings,

and allowed each other’s imperfections to find a loving spot within us….

this is the great blessing
of the dark wings:

love
wild and sad
soft and flexible
accepting of imperfections
acknowledging of pain and need

and one another….

laughter
funny stories

and parting with the truth of a sharp knife…
painful
quick
forgiving….

the dark wings quietly wreak their magic
and rain down blessings on those that give in to them….
those who agree to live in love and pain….

with a side of surprise and delight….

_______
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

4 May 2010

(photo courtesy kyle harrington)

unaccountable love

there’s really no great reason i should feel this glowing,
this swelling in my chest….

there’s no reason other than that it’s a sunny day,
cold, but sunny,
and my daughter left the house with a smile….
and my son was here yesterday and made me laugh….
and the hills are growing greener, like emeralds, every day….

and there is wonderful music in my ears,
songs about romeo and juliet, and
unaccountable love,
and arriving together….

and once i loved a man….

and though we couldn’t see ourselves together,
it was beautiful and rare….

so love is here, nevertheless….
it’s a place of strength for me,
and weakness….

to close my heart would be weaker though….
staying open, i am free to love everything….
and i do….

i love everything,
even tears….

even stars on a lonely night….
even other lovers, entwined, walking,
even the empty place in my bed,
where love should be,
was….

it’s all good,
it is….
love love love is never wrong….
it’s the path of courage and pain,
it’s the path of beauty and triumph –
it’s the only choice, really….

to love takes me deeper into life,
into pain,
and thus into joy….
because i can’t know joy without this pain….

so i love

and i get busy with the business of living,
going around with this secret glow
in my chest….

this unaccountable love….

____
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

feeding frenzy

like piranhas
we gather
around those who have
what we want….

so ready to jump –
ready to feed….
ah!

•

females,
glittering and giggling,
jiggle and sway,
lean and pose
exhibiting….

offering….

a lure?
or a trueblooded mina?

in exchange….
for what?

a padded life
a cell….

infinity….

•

will these lean and shining men
to whom they ply their wears
seal them into
ziplock bags
safe
against all
threats
to their unborn children?

ah, life encased in plastic….
safe….

plastic inside them….

safety….
ah!

•

guts-y males
aswell with bravado,
and what they think is humor,

proffer wallets stuffed with power….

or with gleaming chests
and slickened hair
speak
eloquent
pheromone….

magnetic,
resplendent in their desire….

because in you, my dear….
i see my youth,
my children,
my eternity,
my future

infinity….

yes, yes, you complete me….

•

oh
how comically
we scrabble
to outwit
that
which
never
loses
sight
of us….

how long and far will we run
on these
shaking legs?

why outrun
the owl and the snake?

only the old ones know
if we should even try….

•

oh, we offer nothing, nothing
when roped endlessly into this mating trance….

we circle,
and prey….

we dance
the dance of the centuries
inside these sparkling, dream-dazzled rooms….

outside
the world whirls on….

soldiers spilling blood
for our

right to ignorance….

children
watching them

•

somewhere travellers
wonder onward

seeing feeling falling….

circling in a different dance….
gaining intelligence
and beauty
and love

while we wait in smoky, crowded darkness,
for someone to cure us
of death….

________________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

how boring to be human

i am glad that,
as it turns out

i live a life
bedazzled by mystery….

•

sometimes
walking the beach
my imagination swirls out
over diamond-touched
waves….

sometimes
tangerine
miniature roses
outside my front door
seem to give me three tiny smiles
as i walk by….

and i love them so for blooming….

is this not normal?

•

i am one of many….

one part of a vast web of feelers….
people who anchor love onto the earth
and can’t stop themselves doing it….

•

i am glad
that someone else’s suffering can keep me awake at night….
glad to care –

glad to try to learn....

these are the things that make me pray in the black night:
love,
love,
and love….

•

and whatever else
these whispered blessings do –

you can at least know,
on the next night that you turn and toss
with your human worries,

that somewhere
people are sending out good wishes –
even though it’s three a.m.,
and most likely they wish they were asleep…..

•••

even if i appear crazed,
even if i sob and can’t see myself through another moment,
because i’ve had to say goodbye to some goodness
or other….

even if suffering threatens to pound me into
a thin veil of myself,

i am glad….

because somehow
this makes me see
more deeply
into the great mystery that i live –

•

i admit, i can’t understand
what causes a child to be born….

or a seed to sprout forth a tiny rootling….

even science hasn’t found those exact neuro-bio-chemicals….

yet i know that science and i at last
must stop measuring –

must resort to metaphor
to explain the inexplicable….

•

really, nothing is completely, neatly explainable,
fun as it is to try….

seeing this, i can revel in the miracle
that suffuses and comprises this world….

even if that miracle is death….
or freewill….
or other things that hurt me….

•

because,
in the end,

each moment connects me to the greatness that is you,
my friend….

as we lie here
completely exposed to the universe….

•

on quiet evenings
i can hear the world
turning underneath its bustle –

its sweet music quivers faintly
through windows thrown open
to warm autumn air….

on evenings
when it seems
like anguish
may etch itself into my face forever….

i remember the thousand miracles,
and i am glad to see the mystery --

how boring, otherwise,
to miss all of this grandness….

________________
©2010
Beth Anne Boardman

the great conversation

yes, oh yes….
i know there is great magic in the world….

call it god,
call it science….

there are a thousand names for
this force….

and a thousand ways to deny it….

so many ways we become smaller than we need to be,
so many ways to muffle our talents and gifts….

in a thousand ways
we throw our gifts back
in the face of god….
of the world….

•••

sometimes, i need a meadow,
it is true…..

a place to lie down in the green grass
and renew myself….

a place to look up at the sky
while lying on the earth
and only be
a connection….

a place where the conversation goes on….
between god and earth,
sky and gaia,
magic and science….

•••

i am not hiding
that i am a crazy
frightened planet-walker…..

but i cannot hide
that i am crazed with love as well
for life in this
huge black void
through which we spin….

•••

at night, in my meadow, counting stars in
the sparkling black sky,
i tell myself the story of my success:

today,
i got up….

•••

let me be the place, god…..
where your conversation grows….

the place where great love lives,
reveals itself in every leaf and storm….

let me be the living result of this great
science experiment
you have set up here on earth….

let me find the way between the living and the dead,
between ardor and heartache,
courage and surrender….

let me follow in the footsteps of
saints and students
lovers and thinkers….

of those who got up each day
in the face of their own nightmares

and ran across chasms
with only faith underneath them….

beside my fear,
let me walk into the gap between the known and
the unknown…..

let me stay a part of
your great conversation....

________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

silver mysteries

sometimes the moon
runs its silver fingers through my hair
as i sleep

bathed
in its light

unknowing….

and sometimes i wake up
and catch her
or him

and feel unreasonably loved

because here i’ve been
lying face up,
arms thrown wherever….
head turned towards the window….

and somehow the moon
found its way in
through curtains
mostly closed….

but not enough….

and so i wake up
gently surprised
with silver in my eyes
and on my face

and i look down at my body
my sheets
my arms
all showered in silver
as though
moon-bathing….

and i feel touched
by the soul of the world

here in my secret sleep –

loved –

burrowed down in
a nest
so comfortable i can’t/won’t move….

during these quiet times
i wonder --
what dream did i wake out of
or into –

i wonder –

if i hold very very still
silvered in this magic light

will i find the answer
to that which mystifies me….

if i try not to change a thing,
not my breathing
or my posture
if i try not to even think….

can i keep this silence within me
forever?
this peace, this connection?

so i lay
in between the worlds….

in between breaths
and thoughts….

quietly soaking in
whatever the
silvery filaments
release
around and through me….

love

mystery

magic

sweetness

peace

loneliness

grief

silence

god

or sometimes—

sometimes when i’m awakened
by those silver fingers
in my hair

moving softly over my face

i wake up,
hold still,
and know myself

as part of the great net of
miracles
that encircles this earth –

fed by love
and gratitude
and secret joys

celebrated
in silent silver moments

alone
with all that is…..


____________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

the tightrope

we skip along a tightrope
stretched between love and fear….

looking down on one side,
we see a vision of ourselves --
alone and struggling up a huge hillside
pushing boulders, like sisyphus….

or paddling, paddling upstream
against the rapids,
like yosemite sam chasing
that ever elusive rabbit in the mist….

we imagine ourselves caught in a sticky web,
choiceless, driven, yearning,
crying out, raw, in our self-imposed
isolation….

while on the other side of this tightrope,
we see another vision….
a great connection linking the living….

we see our molecules smack and bash against
the atoms of the stones we push,
exchanging electron-sized bursts of energy….

we see that our skin sucks in the hydrogen
and oxygen that
the water generously ladles over us
in great gallumphing splashes….

our cells drink what is offered with
automatic joy….

we see a web connecting diamonds….

•••

i once heard a hopi woman laugh when
she told me the story of a ‘belicana’
who came to visit the mesas,
and was moved to tears by the
sight of children’s feet
smudged with the dirt
of the pueblo floors….

my heart, she said to me….
as we sat in the inbetween times,
between dances of kachinas
between meals of hominy
and big white beans
and fry bread and honey…..
between dawn and dusk,
between her world and mine….

i let her cry her sweet sacred tears….
her water was a precious gift to this land,
to us….

but i told her,
what makes you think that this dirt
is our enemy?

what makes you think
that this is not a
priviledge….

this dirt --
she is our mother.
we sweep her,
we live on her,
we love her….

this dirt is where everything that feeds us
springs from….

we care for her and feed her and water her and
plant her….

with our hopes, our dreams, our seed, our blood….

it’s all in where we look from our
tightrope….

•••

my poverty keeps me close to
the edges of living….
if i see it that way….

close, like my hands making bread,
kneading soil….
cradling my bloody newborn….

or it banishes me to a wasteland
of despair and un-nameable suffering….

my wealth
ripens me with gratitude,
if i see it this way….

causes me to swell like a bud –
bursts me with the awareness of
usable blessings….

or it isolates me in frigid, air-conditioned,
perfectly-appointed splendour….

i can, if i want to, see the magic
of living and dying every day….

i can see hot blood run from a chicken’s neck,
and value the gift of it’s life to me….

or i can purchase a bloodless, boneless
piece of cold white meat from the market….
and still feel the grace it gives my cells….

no path is better….

how are we to say which side of the tightrope is better?

life is the tightrope….

•••

when we wobble on the side of
connection…..
of awareness that we are surrounded by
the love of the world….
nothing seems undesirable, not even death….

tipping into fear, though,
life exerts its tragedy,
and a lost limb is
a broken heart…..

and both are true….
and how annoying is that truth
when we bob around
trying to find our balance every day….

•••

every day is different for me….

so often i am stuck by the pins of my humanity,
and i suffer inside the separation of my own thoughts….

but in those delicate times when i
stand poised on my tightrope,
balanced between gravity and the wind,
a light in my eyes, and a laugh in my throat,

arms outstretched, one leg hovering midair,

i smile into the vision of who i really am…..
which is ageless and everything….

all things that crawl,
that fly and swim,
that shout and clatter,
that sing and cry,
that love and fear….

and i hear the old ones say to me….
go cry your tears, little one,

and then…
go plant corn…..

•••

my teachers smile at me with buddha smiles….

i am glad
that my crazy tightrope dance
makes them laugh…..

___________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman



(photo courtesy kyle harrington)

between endings and beginnings (i am wondering....)

i am wondering, i must say, where laughter went
and will it come again…..

because some things strike so deeply into the heart,
into the spirit,
that one is changed forever….
forever….

maybe it’s just time that is needed….

but i feel right now that my life,
along with yours….
is over….

i am on my last chapter….
and i will write it with poetry
and longing
and love

and yes, i will dance

and try to stay lively
until the laughter comes back again….

but for now life is teaching me its dark ways again,
and i sit in the grayness and listen….
schooled in humanity
supported by grace
accompanied by spirits who love me
and sit by me without judgment…..

this is a time of hanging….

between endings
and beginnings….

a time to perfect the art of not knowing,
of listening…..
of being….
of throwing my imagination around
in a whole new, completely
unfamiliar, absolutely undreamed of way….

of becoming comfortable in this chrysalis again…..

but golden light lurks
around the corner, i know….
if i can just wait

just wait....



_______
© 2010
beth anne boardman

a gathering

a wondrous grace
envelopes
the dying --

seeps into the room
in a slow flow --

floods
in
during the
silent moments….

it doesn’t stop….

like a rising tide
it touches
all those
present….

it’s as though notices go out through
the ethers….

just like
at a birth….

a new soul is arriving….

gather….

and if you’re very very quiet
in your mind….

if you slow down
the metronome
of your heart

to a gentle meter of love….

you can sense them
coming in….

angels gathering:

the 'dark ones,'
called

by the tremendous labor
undertaken
before you…..

dying:
birthing….

the shutting down of
systems…

the transfer of spirit
from one form, one world,
into
completely
another….

there is huge movement afoot here….

•••

beneath the chaos
of bodies and functions and emotions
and people and family and procedures
and attendants and shock
and disbelief
and awe….

beneath all of this flows
a stillness
that remains always
in control….

contacting this stillness,
you draw inward,

just like the dying/birthing one…

you listen deeply
to the slow churning
underground river…

that flows
central to one’s being

and at the very core of
the world….

•••

this dying one
stands at the threshold
between the worlds,

and we who bear witness

get to peek through the door --
if we are paying attention….

get to glimpse,
sense
an unfurling….

otherwise, we are just lumbering fools,
fighting a battle we don’t understand….

•••

the angels watch us,
standing at our backs
powerless to direct our attention
if we’re distraught
or fraught
or swallowed
by self-pity
or drama
or desire….

but breathing slowly

in the silence,
amidst chaos and noise

watching
a loved one’s body
glide

from labor
into soft, silent stillness….

watching the delicate
flutters of the
throat

as silently and gently
nerves stop firing

and peace alights
with a sigh --

we have the chance to see

a golden moment
appear
and
disappear

curling and drifting upwards
like a ribbon of smoke
from a candle wick….

like a gossamer thread….

twisting and glimmering,

trembling with tiny
dewy
diamonds….

and we stand tingling
and alone

on the edge
of
the web

balanced
between time and eternity….

but with angels

always angels

at our backs…..

________________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

a walk with my father

my soul called me to the hills today,
and there i met my father,
walking among the pines....

together we turned and watched
the river tumble, almost flinging itself
down its path
in the gorge below,

past piles of white tree bones
tossed carelessly to one side,
over boulders standing pointlessly smack
in the middle of the oncoming rush...
impeding nothing....

but causing a song of reckless wonder to ring up
over the hills....

we stood this way for a long while:
his arm circled around my waist,
my head sometimes resting on his shoulder....

and he whispered words of comfort into my ears....

told me to remember the river-song inside of me;
reminded me i was raised on the scent of pines,
and the solid bones of mountain stone....

and that freedom, laughter, and love make up the
chemistry of my blood....

'my daughter,' he said, 'you are equal...'

'you are deserving...'

'you don't need to plan...'

'you don't need to be ashamed....'

and with his breath in my ear,
and the memory of his touch on my hair,
i turned my face up to the softly burning sky
and knew that

now
he could finally give me everything
my heart
has ever desired....

which, father,
has only
and always

ever been

your love....

________________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

ripped open

there is nothing to do
with that place that life
has ripped open in you….

a place so raw and open and gaping
that you feel a little naked,
walking down the street….

even though it’s day, and you’re fully dressed,
and really don’t look any different from other days….

it’s just that now,
there is this hole inside of you….

it might be a broken heart,
it might be a place that used to be occupied by
a loved one who
once walked here and now doesn’t,

it might be that your children left home,
or the job you had for twenty years just evaporated….

whatever it is,
you realize, as you walk along, that really,
any old thing might just fly in there
at any minute,

any one’s bad mood,
or cranky stare,
or that lurking despair that sits on city street-corners….

and you realize you need to remember
that you are ripped open,
and take care of that raw place….

and really, what gets ripped away isn’t
what you think you lost….

what gets ripped away, you find out,
is a husk, a shell….

loss rips away complacency….

it rips away all of those things we assume about ourselves….

it rips away what held you in,
blocked your light,

made you play ‘safe,’
but gave only the illusion of protection to you….

and it’s not really a hole
underneath, although it feels like one,

because it hurts so, and it feels
like such a big,
big part of your life is missing now….
and you may not know who you
are yet, in this newly ripped open state,

but you understand that you can choose
to be a member of the walking wounded,
and recite a litany of the hard things that befell you,

and live feeling diminished, smaller, unfinished, unfinishable,

or you can start noticing things
with this newly uncovered tenderness….

you can notice things like a black night sky
just ridiculously crowded with
impossible numbers of blue-white sparkling diamond stars….

you can notice the tenderness with which
a mother wipes her child’s smudgy cheek,
or ancient lovers whisper into one another’s ears….

you can notice a falcon circling toward its nest
high up above you in the windows of a high-rise
in the busy, bustling city….
perhaps you can even hear its cry,
a faint but haunting call, sailing above the
thrum of motors and horns….

you can notice that green leaves make you relax inside….

that a shared stare between you and a coyote in the silence of the dawn
makes you feel that you have passed between you the secrets of the universe….

ripped open by grief
and life
and love….

you are privy to a whole wider world of
tiny magic acts

like trapdoor spiders
and blossoms that turn into fruit

and maybe those aren’t such tiny acts of magic –

maybe that is the whole of life
you are now looking at….

the ancient secret of happiness
staring you right in the face,

and maybe all that time that you wanted something bigger
it was already there
right in front of your eyes…..

and you find that you can love everything,
if you choose....


______________
©2010
Beth Anne Boardman

day and night/silent wings

day and night,
my house is surrounded
by sacred wings….

two hawks call to each other across my roof
in the still dawn….

their screes grace the silence,
point to the silence….

they dance on newly lifting currents of air
caused by the difference between night and day,
cold and warm
dark and light….

they call then,
and sometimes they come back just before noon,
when drafts of air surge up off the warming hillsides….

their calls ring like temple bells:
reminding me to be still for a moment,
to stop and touch the eternal in the day,
to take a breath and offer myself to the mystery….

and there is one
who calls
as the sun turns orange
and falls slowly down
into the silent swelling cotton layer
that covers the western ocean,
drawn up over the day like a soft blanket….

this one summons the night-shift:
the ones who will soar over me as I
live on in the darkness,
as I sleep,
and dream,
and sometimes dance….

after the night is well-established,
their sounds, too, pierce the trying-to-be-silent night….

the barn owls
and the great horned owls cry
shrill ghostly gliding white cries
as they come hurtling over my roof,
tracking their crawling prey….

and if you’re outside walking in
that rare warm coastal air,
oohing and ahing over the surprising sharp blue glints
of priceless diamond stars making a
one-night-only appearance….

if you’re out there,
you can sometimes catch a glimpse
of white wings glowing high above you in the night,
coming in fast,
and soon gone –
right over your head,
without a sound….

but a sheerly distant whistle drifts somewhere behind
those silent wings,
as if to leave behind the certain trace
of their untouchable presence….

and on the very darkest nights,
there is one
who comes to the roof-corner
right by my bedroom….

and even though the window might be closed
against the damp and chilly night air,
he announces his landing
with an unmistakable, commanding scree….

I am here for the night.

I sleep and wake
under the jurisdiction
of sacred wings….

___________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman


(image courtesy
tunisia online news
http://www.tunisiaonlinenews.com/?p=3514)

and then you must laugh

yes, I know
I am a spirit
in a human body –
and yes,
I know that I am ‘not really
alone….’

and I also know that my skin
divides me from you –

and that no one here really knows
the precise wounding of my thoughts
or yours….

or the nuanced waves of our feelings….

sometimes –
life hits you
with your own humanity.

hits you with chemotherapy
with heartbreak
with death….

and one must bow one’s head
to the god of grief –
give one’s entire body over
to that wracking….

because grief will have its out….

if you don’t give grief your tears,
he will take it out of your bones –

your bones will ache for him –
your pores will weep sadness –
your body will burn with suppressed sorrow –

submit.
submit to grief.
you have lost.

you have lost love
or health
or life….

what you used to know is different now.
and you are
all alone

even in a packed ballroom –
or an airport teeming with travelers --
you are alone….

yet in bowing to grief,
you join a holy group….

and if you choose,
you can look differently at others now….

you can see them:
the ones that suffer.
and, if they choose,
they will see you.

you must grieve.

and then,
you must laugh….


____________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

cliff diving

oh, love, love, what a toll you exact on we….
the trusting, unsuspecting ones who stand
on the edge of the cliff of our lives
and jump into you….

we, like alice, feel the wind whistling past our ears for a while,
and feel like we are flying, even though we know we are falling,
and it’s rather exhilarating –
‘i did it!’ we say,
‘i jumped!’

‘go, me!’ we giggle as our hearts float up into our throats, and
the clouds and the canyon walls go rushing by in a technicolor
imax theater sort of way,
larger than life, spectacular, beautiful, distracting….

then, during one of our glorious rotations through the air,
in which we feel like we are flying, floating, free,
suspended, protected, guided even,
looking, wondering, loving the amazing preciousness of it all….
then we see the earth looming sort of hinty-like in the distance –
sort of unmoving and constant….
sort of dark, but not forbidding….
but definitely there, and not moving….

and oh, the impact – when we land, and the flying stops,
and parts of us break,
and we say to god, but god, you told me to jump, and i did,
and I trusted you!
and now i hurt, i hurt, i hurt, i can’t believe how much i hurt….

and god says, well i didn’t say it wouldn’t hurt…. i just said – try –
and through your tears you must agree,
you must agree no promises were made….

and you lay there nursing your brokenness
and wishing you’d never jumped,
and then you remember the precious beauty of those red
sandstone walls rushing by,
and how glorious the soft warm air felt on your skin,
like a rush of caresses,
like being held in the arms of something you
could infinitely trust….
like God,
and you remember the lightness you felt in your heart,
the absolute connection to all the world, the elements --
you could smell the pines clinging to the canyon walls,
you could hear the scree of the hawks as they circled high above,
watching, wondering,

and you felt connected to them too….
to the whole huge circle of things that live and die and love….
and you would not trade those moments, those feelings, for one
moment of relief
from this pain you are in now….
this pain of earth,
this sorrow of reality….

it’s living, it’s life, you did it….
you are still connected….

grief connects, too, and pain….
the hugeness of the whole place is still out there,
still waiting for you to bring it into your heart again….

and someday the cycle will come around again,
and you will find yourself at the edge of another cliff,
and god will say jump,
and you will….

and once again, unknown windy fingers that you’ve known forever
will comb through your hair, and touch you in
places you’d forgotten about….

and you will glory in it, glory….
and give thanks…..

aho…..

_______________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

(image courtesy national park service)

here is my secret

here is my secret:
love lavishly and with abandon—

anything that you can in your life….

whether your children,
the curly tendrils sticking to their sweaty necks in a fever,
their bright eyes and tiny voices finding bugs on the way to school,
their hard, acid-rocking skeleton wearing longhaired teenness,

your new black, patent-leather peep-toe heels,
your tiny denim pencil skirt,

whether it’s the way your husband’s whiskers scratch you even though he just
shaved,
whether it’s socks on the floor,
pantyhose in the shower,
the soft tender tentative fresh green tips surprising the dark, barren springtime
earth in your garden,

whether it’s cat hair, or dog smell, or fish flakes,

a golden sunny warm day complete with a gentle, caressing breeze on your cheek,
or a rainy day complete with hot cocoa and a comforter,

whether it’s the speed of a finely tuned machine,
or dancing,
or singing,
or wind,
or trees,
or deer in the snow….

love love love it

love to paint
love to write
love friends, love Jesus, love enemies,
love teachers, love Buddha, love students….

love lavishly
love with abandon

don’t hesitate

throw your love into the world fearlessly
with all the generosity you can muster

find it –
find something
find whomwherewhat calls forth your love and
let it flow from you like honey from the combs…..
this is my secret….
try it….
try love….
this is urgent….

(and don’t forget yourself….)


____________
©2010
by Beth Anne Boardman