Category: Violence

• What love could learn from fungus if it would only listen

  I wish you could spread in that restless, vindictive, ambling way — to not be held back, to spew spores whenever someone tries to uproot you, sloppy, lazy enough to reproduce anywhere. How I wish you did. It would all be so much easier if you did. ——— Something along the lines of Hafiz.

  Jenifer

  June 8, 2017

  From Hafiz, Love, Meditation, Muse, Nature, Violence, Yoga

  poetry

• When the cold wind blows

  Does it startle you, shake you from oblivion, draw you to attention, to your fear? Or do you turn away huddled, covering your head and shoulders, shrugging to save all the warmth you can in that last instant before you are swimming in the frigid air, overtaken by a wave capsizing, ripping even your feet…

  Jenifer

  April 12, 2017

  Art, James Taylor, Memory, Muse, My window at night, Seasons, Violence, Yoga

  poetry

• On healing and revolution

  Gazing up this terrible mountain, you say, love is not enough, though when I add together everything else and stack it high above my head, everything else is not enough either. So I fall back on love, and it nudges me back to the task of gathering everything I can find – a pick ax,…

  Jenifer

  December 3, 2016

  Bite-sized sampler, Chicago, From Hafiz, Love, Political struggle, Violence, Work life

  poetry

• Your body is returned

  i. I know because you are me. You came here afraid, chased by storms. You huddle with spare, odd friends who you doubt you can trust. As the noise kicks up all around, you hunker down, raise strong the barriers, but they are cracked, indifferent. I know, because you are me. You curl up in…

  Jenifer

  November 17, 2016

  Childhood, Dying, From Hafiz, Grief, Pain, Political struggle, Violence

  poetry

• Waiting for the doctor

  hazy dry, as if in midair distant beeps, rattles, blood pressure cuff wheezing up, releasing, hour after hour, day may become day Of all possible recollections, you pick the one from December twelfth, thirteenth or fourteenth, you revolve, nineteen-fifty-three in ice cold Korea showering down in luxuriance, soap, frigid water trailing over your skin after…

  Jenifer

  November 10, 2016

  Aging, Death, Dying, Meditation, Memory, My family, Parenting, Veteran’s Day, Violence

  poetry

• Wondrous grit of life

  o’ wondrous pain, illuminating discomfort — how you have painted this earth to suit your ease, the slow swing of your step it is perhaps a sign of your privilege that you praise cuts and bruises to small children who do not know to defend your princess could not sleep with even a pea under…

  Jenifer

  November 4, 2016

  Death, Dying, From Hafiz, Grief, Love, Mother, Muse, Pain, Tanka, Violence

  poetry