the rose and the pearl

the instructions were:

you will be given a heart --
inside that heart is a rose --
within that rose
lies a pearl

visible only

with your
blossoming....

•

for this to happen,
you must plant your feet firmly
into rich earth....

open your arms
to the caressing sun....

breathe deeply
when the winds race to meet you....

bathe daily
in the warm salty water
of your own tears and sweat....

•

in this way
will you grow enough

and grow
strong enough

to
unfurl....

to discover the pearl
that is only yours
yet not
for you....


__________________
© 2011
Beth Anne Boardman

the golden web

when i was born,
i was given a cloak --
a cape --
knit of radiant feathers
and woven with cords of strongest silk....

at night
my mother wrapped me in this cape
like a blanket --
like the wing of an angel,
she said....

mornings, she folded it carefully away --
a secret protection....

as i grew
i told no one about
my special
feathered cape....

when i threw it around my shoulders,
i filled with clandestine joy....

on days when the
wind rode over the hills like wild horses,
i slipped out with my cape --
and ran to meet it....

running across the grassy fields,
the cape rippled and snapped
from my shoulders,
and i'm pretty sure --
on some level --
i flew....

climbing onto the lap of the earth --
warm round boulders
became the platform
for childish imagination....

but as life loomed and stretched
its looping fingers
around my throat....

and in the hustle
and rush
of saving and being saved --

i left it behind....

•••

the day i felt my daughter
prepare to make her appearance
on this earth,
i remembered that cape....

i imagined those mornings
and afternoons
enveloped in feathered radiance
laughing and leaping
from rocks too big....

and when i held her in my arms,
i saw that tucked in
with her blankets
lay a glowing cape
of her very own....

i wrapped her in it
that first night....

and thought no more of
my own....

•••

until one day she came to me
enrobed
all by herself --
resplendent....
dazzling....

piercing me with a glory of grief....

at that moment
i began the hunt --
to assemble the materials
to reknit my own....

and i did....

after many
many
years....

•••

i have it still....

i have danced with it
and traveled with it....

wrapped myself and
my loves in it....

i have been
to my mother's grave in it....

modeled it for my daughter
to remind her of hers
when she forgets....

and though i want desperately
to keep it --
to feel its soft airy feathers framing
my face and
throat forever....

i see that feather after feather
floats away
from grasping hands....

so i give it up....

the beauty and softness
the graceful blush of it
flow in a slow ebb
to the ones who come behind me....

i show them,
the little ones....
the young ones....
the ones who want to know....
how to weave the feathers
into their capes....

but i am not left empty-armed....

because though once i wept
at the loss of my pretty cape,
after all the hard work of
knitting it again....

i find that the silken cords
underneath
remain....

and those that do not wish
to know,
do not see --

that by moonlight and starlight
i glisten --

and dance

wrapped
in a golden web....

________________
© 2011
Beth Anne Boardman

another six months....

it's been shown to me that i must wait....
i must wait longer than i can even imagine waiting....

i am learning a new vocabulary of waiting....

i have been told that time is completely meaningless in the other world....
they dance and sing while we wait....
they forget what it's like to be human --
to feel the bindings of gravity....
the churnings of the hours and minutes....

by the time they finish their favorite song,
and take a breath,
and turn around,
six months have gone by, and
we are lying on the bottom of the valley of the shadow of death again....
to their great surprise....

just when our last ragged breath shatters our aching lungs,
they laugh and flow back in through golden threads....
scooping us up in their light, loving arms....
reassuring us of the simultaneity of perfection and imperfection....

while we writhe and moan, they hum and knit....

and another six months go by....

it's nice to know that there is dancing and singing in the other world,
while we flail around here with our plans and our will....

until we understand the grace of loving....
we can fight and fall down all we want....

the dancing and singing do not stop
just because we're caught in the webs of desire....

some days i skip down this sticky web, pausing, balancing,
massaging a sore toe, then skipping on....

equipoise.... for a while....

other days i find that sore toe has caught somewhere and
the more i struggle to extract myself,
the more intractably i am wrapped....

trapped, a fat fly in a gossamer coffin....

release comes when i cease those frantic efforts and become still....
dehydrated and red-faced, waiting....

silence descends....

and far too late, but absolutely on time,
angels come tripping in....

and another six months has gone by....

closer and closer to whatever's next,
i am learning to dance and sing....
to laugh,
to love radically,
and without explanation or excuse....

it's easier to do all this waiting
while in love with everyone....

anguishing....
languishing....
embracing....

another six months....

and once in a while,
in the silence....

laughter --

like golden bells through summer windows....

_________________
© 2011
Beth Anne Boardman

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