17. THE HOSPICE NURSE INSTRUCTS

The body, when it’s finished,
Knows exactly what to do, and
Will do it with efficiency and grace
If you have the grit and guts to let it.
It knows it doesn’t need to eat or drink.
Even when the mind no longer
Understands, the body’s wisdom
Stays intact and goes about its business.
It simply won’t be thirsty anymore
And will no longer let you give it water.

You’re relieved that you won’t have to
Wonder if you’re forcing fluids
Down your mother’s throat because
She simply will not drink when that day comes.
As you protect her wishes and avoid the thoughts
That seek to make some sense of why it is
You cannot help her in the way she wished for
When she still could speak about such things, you
Remember that the day will come when you will 

Understand the grace in how your mother died.

16. THE PRACTICE or EVERYDAY ZEN 3

All there is:
The cushion,
The breath,
The body.
Returning thoughts
To their rightful status: 
The mouth waters,
The gut farts, 

The brain thinks.
There is no
Primacy here
Only
The cushion,
The breath,
The body.

15. EVERYDAY ZEN 2

Out to dinner with a friend,
You notice that your heart’s not broken:
Sushi, the simple beauty of the
Ginger pile, wasabi mound, the
Little dish for dipping. And
Companionship: its
Warm embrace, the
Depth of conversation,
Topics ranging from
What bike to buy to
Sitting meditation and to
How the kids are doing.
This moment, when you notice
That this is all there is.


*******************************

Note to the Reader: For those of you who wondered, here's 

"Everyday Zen 1," written a few months back.

Trust me when 

I tell you that
Today’s the day
That everyone will
Wake up sane, when
All the problems
Of the world will
Disappear and
Peace will come to
Heal the planet.
    Writing this poem,
     I stop the war. 

14. YOUR MOTHER'S KEEPER

From the Alzheimer’s Diary

Because it wasn’t ever really what you cared to do,
you do it badly. You see to all the paperwork,
prescriptions, petty cash for laundry and
the odds and ends that keep things running.
Her aides see to her body’s needs, but 

no one's in your mother’s house to
sit with her and love her, to feed her heart
which keeps on beating, feeling, knowing that

it’s lonely. You wish you were the kind of daughter
who could care for her because she'd taught you how.  

Instead, you pass her building every day, in disbelief
you are still wounded by the ways she failed you,

clenching teeth to try and stop the tears, 

you go to dinner with a friend, as if your heart’s not broken.

13. DO-OVER

You never even knew you’d made the grade.
The handbook you were given at your birth
Made clear that times you get it wrong
Would cancel out the times you get it right.
You make your way through childhood’s bootcamp,
Oftentimes confused when what they tell you
Doesn’t measure up to how things feel. 
And now, as you re-write the stories of your life,
You realize you never knew you’d made the grade 

Because it wasn't ever really what you cared to do.

12. HEART'S DESIRE

These waking heart-dreams, things the body knows
That mind would like to highjack, add a storyline,
Encase inside of concrete boots, weigh down with certainties,
And truths about the meta-message.
What they really want is freedom, riding up-drafts.
Following the currents of the winds and tides,
Till they find their own way back as dreams made manifest,
Wishes that you never even knew you'd made.

11. THE DREAM

1.
Long before I knew I’d be a mother,
I dreamed of beauty and of a girl (myself, I thought),
running free and even wild, adored by parents
for the brilliance of her being, given tools
that matched her passions: canvasses and paints,
footballs, bicycles and dress up clothes, knitting needles,
clocks to take apart and reconstruct, terrariums,
extra large bandaids for torn up knees and elbows,
cooking spoons and pots, swiss army knives,
clay and stone for sculpting. 

2.
Above my desk there hangs a picture of my daughters.
And though I am their mother and could
rightly be accused of bias, few would contradict me:
they are radiant and dazzlingly beautiful. 
Women who are whole, inhabiting worlds
that I will neither understand nor ever live in.
Yet as I let myself completely open to their presence, 
I allow the possibility that when 
we wish things from our deepest longings, 
these waking heart-dreams actually do come true.

10. THE CHOSEN ONE

I couldn’t know what it would mean,
That day I sat there by your bedside
Witnessing your labored journey into Death.
How I’d be left here at the center of my life
To face the turning of the years without you.
How I’d be the one to tell our children you were gone,
To comfort them and let them comfort me.
How I’d become your Widow and,
Because of all the love you’d left behind,
There’d be so many who would come to me
In hopes of feeling some small speck
Of how they’d felt when you would sit with them,
How, with your magic, you would make the world seem
Safe, abundant, clean, and filled with love.
These ways you had, I think you left some with me
When, some moments past your final breath,
I felt you cut a path right through me,
Open up a portal, change me, finally,
If too late for you to be the beneficiary,
Into the one you’d chosen 20 years before,
The one you knew was there so long before I did. 

9. SEASONS

What I remember is
The way you’d kiss the water
Just before you’d dive below the surface.
Summertime, the kids away at camp, while
You and I discover who we are without them.

What I remember is
The way you’d keep on wearing sandals
Even though the temperatures are dropping.
Autumn, apple-picking, lesson-planning
As we snuggle closer in the cooling nights.

What I remember is
The way you’d catch a snowflake on your tongue
As you’d step outside our home and make your way to work.
Wintertime, when you are free from overheated torment and
Together, we explore the simple pleasures of life’s dailyness.

What I remember is
The way you died, your last in-breath
Before the letting go, and then, incredibly, you smile.
Springtime, gentle months, the daylight lengthening
And I, to face the turning of the years without you.

8. HOMAGE TO A WEEPING WILLOW

Across the lakeside meadow,

Where the grasses meet the woods,

I used to sit upon a tree stump

Watching as you stood

Majestically at water's edge,

Slow-dancing with the breezes,

Branch-tips lightly skimming

Lily-padded pond.

Now that you're gone,

The unobstructed view

Gives little comfort

For the loss of

How you married

Earth to Sky, and

How you kissed the Water.

7. PLAYMATES

Unblemished by judgement 

(Her own or anyone else’s),
The raucous-patterned butterfly
Goes about her business.
Her work and inclinations
Keep her unaware of the
Human child hiding there
Among tall grasses
Shrubs and wildflowers.
Paying rapt attention
To the flitting and the
Flying and the lighting
On the leaves
The child slowly
Spreads her arms 
And starts to flutter them
Her spirit taking flight 
among the flowers,
shrubs, & grasses. 
Only then the butterfly
Can see the child and
Joins her in some 
Raucous-patterned
Flitting, riding currents,
Skimming surfaces,
And drinking nectar.
Together, they fly off
Across the lakeside meadow.

6. LOVER'S JOURNEY

As you remember it
You came into this life
Consumed with Passion—
Loving loudly and with gusto
Many things that
Made their way across
Your newborn path.
Choosing for a mother
One whose passions
Were expressed
In raging at her children
And in playing
Chopin etudes
On the piano,
Your passionate
Expressions often
Triggering her
Homicidal fury,
You learned to hide
The things that gave
You pleasure. Hid them,
Then forgot where you
Had put them, then
Forgot you ever had them.
At the gateway to your
Elderhood, as memory returns,
You pray a prayer of gratitude
That though there was
Some heartache on the path
You’ve hung on long enough
To get to feel how sweet
Life’s been to you so far
You eagerly anticipate
The full reclaiming of your
Birthright: a life infused with
Loud and raucous Passion,
Unimpeded by propriety
Unencumbered by shame,
Unblemished by judgement.

5. FIRST DATE

Before you get there,
You pull over,
Take a breath, then
Looking in the
Rearview mirror, you
Fix your hair so
That the curls
Regain their
Random sauciness, and–
Though you want to
Only pay attention to
The way things really are –
You wish the last
Ten years hadn’t
also happened
to your face.
As you park your car
And make your way
Into the restaurant,
You remember
In a burst of
Images and song
The life you’ve lived
So far: the people you
Have loved and
Who’ve loved you.
You can feel them
Celebrating that
You have, perhaps,
Embarked upon the
Next leg of the
Lover’s journey.

4. TRAVEL PLANNING

Because you can’t

know anything

more than what
you know right now—

This “now” a rich

compendium of

everything that’s

come before—

Because your best guess

has you referencing

the way things used to be

which only can

approximate

the way things are,

You think perhaps

the time has come

to look down

where your feet

are standing.

note particularities

of terrain,

feel into the

energy of this

time and space

and only then,

with care and

great intention

will you take a step

and then another, and

another, keeping on

until it’s clear

you’ve reached

your destination

of the moment.

In this way

you think you

may avoid the

pitfalls of the past
when you’d get
someplace before 
you had arrived.

3. MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH

To be awakened

From a dead sleep

By a ringing phone.

To hear your older brother

At the other end

Repeating to you,

Till you get it,

Till your mind

Discerns that

This is not a dream:

“He’s saying Kivi’s dead,”

You hear your own voice

Speak the words

So that your lover

Can perhaps explain

To you what’s going on

“He says a heart attack,”

As yours feels like

It’s going to beat a hole

Right through your chest.

Dead. The brother who

You haven’t spoken to

For years, the one

Who hurt you,

Shaped who you’d become --

No more the brother

You’re not speaking to,

Because you won’t, is

Now the brother

You won’t see again

Because you can’t.

2. WAKING UP

At the dawning of the day

Your cat, an urban stand-in 

For a crowing rooster, 
Bats your glasses 
From the nightstand 
To the floor. 
And just in case 
The message 
Hasn't reached you, 
She makes her way 
Imperiously 
Across your body 
Plops down
On your pillow 
And loudly purrs 
Directly in your ear. 
You stretch, 
Recalling that there are 
Worse ways 
To be awakened.

1. BREAKING TRAINING

With Gratitude to Julian of Norwich, died c. 1416

I let myself believe

that all is well, and

all is well, and all

manner of thing

shall be well.

How contrary to

my upbringing,

this notion is,

as if to see

this troubled

world and feel

around inside it

for the healing,

is to be

boring, vapid,

born without

imagination, or,

worse yet,

a traitor to

my ancestors.

But I take comfort

in the certainty

that we mystics

have no need of

adjectives, and that my

Sister Julian

would recognize me

not as Jewish mystic

but as a fellow celebrant

at the dawning of the day.

(Thanks also to Joanne Rose, fellow Type Rider Writer. I've launched this collection using a phrase "I let myself..." from something she wrote. And while I'm about the business of acknowledgements, special thanks to my friend and teacher, Maya Stein.)