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