Words to Say When Walking Out the Door
Yes, you will be damaged.
You will fail sometimes
in blindness.
Grief may snag its antlers
in your branches
before it leaves you,
before it finds its way.
Life, my one life,
can you hear me?
Someone in the sleep they call their waking
will crush your wonder,
and you will crush their wonder.
Bring your wonder; bring it anyway.
*
To a Poet in Despair
“wild to be wreckage forever” — James Dickey
Look at her,
the swan caught
on the fishing line,
wrecking herself into splendor.
And haven’t you done that with your one life?
And haven’t you done that with your name?
Though the changes
come
and undo you,
though your life
is ruined
to be loosened,
there is still one thing
you can do with it:
Make the ruin great.
*
To a Friend in Recovery
I know. I know
what hunger does to us:
the shadowy spoon, the glass
that holds the light.
I promise
they are not the light, those glowings.
Come home again.
Come break the bread
that trembles.
I will sit with you
through the hardest part
in darkness—
not always,
not forever,
not in rescue,
but until you taste the first taste of your life.
***
