a waltz of owls

we walk in an infinite world --

at any moment
a thousand
golden ghosts

swirl
around us....

•

summers ago,
in my father's home,
sifting through the legacies
of my ancestors....

making off with sepia portraits
long coveted
long denied....

tossing away sticky
space-age plastics
from the fifties....

marveling at the aesthetics
of a curious,
yellow-and-white
art-deco
cocktail shaker....

the longings
and the dreams
of my ancestors
swept over me --

awash this incapable form....

•

oh grandmothers....
mother....

what would you have me do?

grandfathers,
father,

old ones....

what is it you want from
my wild and bounded life?

•

i drove away,
my u-haul packed with
viscous treasures....

simultaneously
relief and exhaustion
made themselves known....

tears and i poured
together
over the
state line....

at that moment,
i swear --

i felt the spirits of my grandmothers
fly to join me....

their forms
streamed off of my shoulders
like wings

you have done the sacred work
daughter....

all is well --
yes, horrific!

but all is well....

work....
love....
play....

this is your sacred waltz....

•

i am happy the owls own the night --
their quiet announcements shake me....

they are my secret call to order....

to inventory my dreams....
and requisition grace....

and remember
that i dance

with golden ghosts....


____________________
©2011
beth anne boardman

starlight and capes

~for joyce~

once
a white-haired man told me
to imagine
that
at any time of day
starlight showers down
over my head
like invisible
love....

(because we know,
he said,
even though sunlight
outshines the stars --
nevertheless
they twinkle on
in disguise
and behind....)

•

some mornings
i swing despair on
like a cape,
i realize,
or a robe....

sometimes it is the tablecloth i sit down to --

sometimes
resolutely
i hang it back
in the closet
with the old clothes --

the ones
i really need
to give away....

i take out hope
shake the dust out of its folds
and try it on
awkwardly....

•

right now,
it seems,
neither one fits!

so i take them both off, and
they lie in small heaps on the floor --

i stare at them,
mystified....

how do you live without one
or the other?

yesterday
in the blazing heat
a (wise) young man said:

true peace happens
when you give up
both hope
and despair....

•

tonight
i walk out into the quiet
warm air --

the fireworks
have blown themselves out....

the revelers
have gone indoors....

and up on the hillside,
out from under the trees --
i hold my skirt with both hands
like a basin

for catching stars....


______________
©2011
beth anne boardman

feather rain

some wounds
would take the whole earth
to heal....

last night
rain danced softly,
like feathers

through my open window....

delicate drops stirred still air,
drawing my attention
to their sweet secrets....

quietly,
like shimmers
through a web,

i heard whispers
of comfort,
reassurance....

i remembered how once
i had heard
the great one
speaking to me
through desert rocks....

i had leaned my tired head
against their warmth--

they radiated a whole day's worth
of desert sun
into my fearful heart....

listen:
i have been here since the beginning.
i've seen everything there is to see.
you are no worse
and no better
than anyone....
keep going....

some wounds we carry our whole lives,
like amputations....

what was torn out
exists only in the other world....
in ashes,
in dream....

i listen and remember--
this soft gentle rain
falls on everyone,
everyone....

if i turn my face up to it
and stay very quiet
and listen very deeply,
i can feel love
seeping right down into
this suffering heart....

everyone
everyone
is worthy of this
deep and private love....


________________
©2011
beth anne boardman

reconciling grey

sometimes all the beauty
in the world

seems to vanish
in one whoosh....

death bookends life

fate turns on its dime

and rugs shift
under our feet....

poems, words, colors, disappear
metaphor leaves....

shall we hope for no more happiness
if gifts come
on the sharp edge
of a knife?

•

perhaps i have fought the grey too long....
perhaps grey needs to be my new favorite color....

do i lose color?
do i merely note loss?

do i thank god for
this opportunity to
find myself alone in the dark?

to reach out to something
more powerful than my own humanity?

i don't know:

everything i think i know
is really everything i can't ever understand....

•

this morning

i stood on my front steps
and this foreign wind
played in my hair,

ran all around my face
and made me dizzy

birds sang confusingly
of nests and mates
and territories....

the sun shone strangely
springlike

and i brought in the laundry....



_____________
© 2011
beth anne boardman

einstein and rumi are laughing

one day
i saw myself through another's eyes....

....and paris lay before me....

sparkling like a thousand diamonds
alive with a thousand breaths

vibrant with history
shaped by love, and death, and joy....

oh, this world, this world....

how can every day not be a celebration of the
great rite of trees?

of the amazing birth of new grass?

of babies, of passion,
of death and tears?

we are alive at a wondrous time --

learning to see
through mists of illusion
into the universe
of the mere twenty amino acids we all share....

science and love are merging....

einstein and rumi are laughing....

that we can even entertain the thought
that we are anything other
than diamonds....


______________
©2011
beth anne boardman

piano

life whirls --

blowing in
through open windows
and doors....

in the puff of air against my face,
i am sometimes halted --

i sense a cadence
within the rush
and routine
of daily living

a sort of miraculous rhythm
of comings and goings

haves and haven'ts

old age and death

uncomfortable pregnancies
delirious births

iridescent joy
rending grief....

pausing at the threshold,
i become aware of life's notes --

running and chasing and loving
each other across
the keys of a distant piano....

despite despair
abreast of beauty

i stand enwrapped
by eternity....

•

once,
on the way up into
an indelibly still
exquisitely soft
grey whispery dawn....

up, from deep
peaceful
midnight blue
dreams --

i heard the river rushing by me again....

it was like waking
to god....

or to a lover's touch....

i and the river
--and the wind
and the sound--

and

the air
the light
the dark
the depth

we lay blended into
one moment....

i couldn't tell if i were the river --
or was i by the river?

when the night-current
softly buoyed me up
to full wakefulness,
the lovesong of the river merged

into whooshing tires
on a distant motorway....

i lay bereaved....

oh my river....
what incandescent cruelty
in this life

turned you into

a highway?

•

yet inside me these things dwell:

the silence the river the dawn
the darkness the light....

and now and then

singularity

re-expresses itself

through a puff of breeze
across a sunny expanse of pavement....

through voices joined in friendship
wafting up from sidewalks below....

through a single piano note
wandering through the air --

dropped delicately

like a curtsey

upon my delighted ear....



_____________
© 2011
beth anne boardman

singing the spring

lately i have noticed
the frogs
singing springtime
out of mystery....

so busy!
so admirable, how devoted they are
to their nightly work....

i wonder
a little
whether spring might not come
if they stopped....

but then i see it's a group effort --

because the geese also fly it back in
out of deepest south....

trailing it on their wings
like wordsworth's
clouds of glory....

the lizards tug it gently out from under
the rocks where
they've been wrapped in it --
snuggled
right up against it
all winter long....

oh sometimes it seems so long
that we must journey through
the dark
alone
forlorn
brave and
hopeless....

sometimes it seems we drift
in a vacuum
of space and time --

our souls ashiver....

but beating hearts
seem to continue....

feet seem
to keep
inching
forward
to the next step --

then

unsuspected

a flash of
the green!

oh those shy tips!
how they peer and peek
out of the mud....

but doesn't their green
delight you?

and then
somehow
the air softens....

and our scrappy hearts
expand
with our
evolving breath....

i have noticed that
though frozen,

we also
soften
in the dark....

and when we are all soft enough,
the frogs begin
to chant....

slowly
slowly
their singing
turns the earth
back toward the burning sun....

stirring us gently
out of the fertile mystery....

are you ready to ripen?

to blossom with
the star-flowered plum?

to linger in sun-warmed disguise
under sheltering leaves,
and transform?

are you ready to burst with
your juicy life?

oh my friend!
imagine the frogs' delight!

___________________
©2011
Beth Anne Boardman