the cliff accepting the sea told him

that to smooth and be smoothed

is the covenant of love.

After Mira

AFTER MIRA

One day, we think we dare to love

but find we’ve already given our heart

and have no choice but to work our fingers

in that unexpected garden. And unimaginable

things grow. However long the entwining of

aliveness lasts, we feel blessed, like the one

dragonfly allowed to light on the one lily pad

floating on the one calm patch of lake. And

in some moment below all we’ve been

taught, we know Heaven is wherever the

heart gives itself away. Then, after what

seems a lifetime and always too soon, what

we love dies or goes away and the tectonic

plates on which our life stands heave and

break and the heart we so freely gave, now

entangled with the world, is ripped apart.

Nothing makes sense while in this rearranging

pain. Nothing. No matter what

others say, nothing is of comfort while

the heart is reforged in the furnace no

one asks for. Under it all, some infinite

part of us knows that this too, painful as

it is, is the inexplicable continuance of love:

how fires become the bed of seeds yet to be

sown, how mountains crumble into valleys,

how lovers are stilled into their wisdom,

how those who reach for the stars become

their own light. Against our will, our heart

is remade by the angel of grief who grips

the center of our life, shaking everything

dead within us from our branches, until

the heart condenses to a diamond.

Hard as this is to endure,

this too is a miracle.

Still

STILL

After so much pain,

I still want to be here,

the way a minnow tossed

in a puddle wakes and

flips itself silly.

Somehow we go on,

loss after loss, like seeds

drowning in their possibility

under all that snow.

From a distance, stars

are pins of light pushing

back the dark.

But inside, each

is a world of light.

And the Spirit we carry—

that carries us—flares like a

star, everywhere we go, pushing

back the pain and loss.

Still, a star can’t be seen

without its covering of night,

nor a soul without its

human skin.

I don’t know why.

It has nothing to do with

optimism and pessimism

or with triumph and defeat.

More, the irrepressible reach

of a beam of light entering the

darkest place it can find, because

that is how it fulfills itself.

How we take turns, as the star

and the dark place, how we

complete each other.

What Can I Do?

WHAT CAN I DO?

I was surprised when John,

who helped save my life, came

down with liver cancer. He had

no interest in going through this

the way I did. He didn’t want to

talk. He just stared at me for hours.

I so wanted to be there for him. All