When words wash over you like waves at the beach, make you laugh out loud, or gasp in astonishment, or choke back tears, you know you are hearing a good poem. That’s the beauty of poetry – it’s music to your ears and to your heart.

I write poems in order to hear the music of the language building inside me – and so that  I can share that song with others in call and response.

 

Last Sunday, April 27, I was in the Sierra Foothills listening to ten amazing poets read – and reading some of my recent work. This was my second invitation to the Spring Poetry Series at the Unitarian Church in Grass Valley, California.

The brainchild of artist, writer, and psychotherapist, Ruth Ghio, “An Afternoon of Poetry” was so rich it almost made my head explode. Most readings feature two, or at most three poets. This one showcased 11 poets, and felt like running a marathon decked out in metaphors and similes – instead of running shorts and shoes.

Lines are still echoing in my head like these from poet and writer Maxima Kahn.

You have permission

to want beauty, to press it into the bone
to love our aching bodies, to gather
in the storm, howling into the wind

to want manna and a heaven to shelter us
to long for home and the warm tide of arms
to believe in the broken bones mended

the healed and annealed
to love the spell of words

Max is a dear friend and a master teacher, as well as a gifted musician and dancer – she is an artist through and through. I recently completed an Artist’s Way class she facilitated and so her poem giving permission rings so powerfully in my heart. I felt both challenged and liberated by what I learned in the course, and I can say, with no irony, that it has changed me to my core. For the first time in my life, I am giving myself full permission to be an artist.

Last Sunday’s reading was my coming out party. Two other participants in the class were there as well, and the three of us yakked our heads off at Tofanelli’s restaurant before the reading. Max facilitated the class via telephone, so this was our first chance to meet. I felt held in a circle of support as I read my poems to old friends as well as my new creative “buddies.”

Author of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron, says that art happens in tribes. Before taking the class, I might not have understood that fully. I do now. She also says, “Making art requires a safe hatchery,” and that is exactly what Max created.

So I read to my tribe, including poems I wrote during the class. Here is one of them for your reading (and listening) pleasure.

Meditations on Water

Mineral pregnant, magic,

it sloshes over the side of the blue bucket

I tip over thirsty plants on my deck,

Nourishing with clear licks of its tongue.

At a crack in the concrete on Rand Street

I observe a small miracle:

A blade of grass with five perfect drops

Lined up like buttons on a sweater,

Giving forth green in tiny translucent mirrors.

That afternoon at the Piedmont community pool

the guy next to me churns up a wake,

his webbed feet slap the surface.

I duck under,

begoggled and taut, lean into the lap lane,

trusting water to hold me.

Entombed in liquid silk,

I stare at the honeycomb of light

under the surface,

alive in a long-held breath,

my heart throbbing in my ears.

 

 I emerge dripping, 

Washed clean, lightened of whatever I carried here,

My limbs like that one blade of grass

Beaded with holy water.

If you’ve read my memoir Swimming with Maya, you know I’m obsessed with water as an image that captures the fluid connection between the worlds. Water is magic, and along with trees, an important totem for me. I try to read a poem a day. One of these days, very soon, I’ve vowed to start writing one a day too!

 

 

 

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