Dear Beloved

This page contains weekly updated poems I've been writing to Love and the Beloved. In the Sufi tradition, God or the Divine is experienced and worshiped as the Beloved who can be found in everything and everyone: in the eyes of a lover, a stranger, and in the currents of your own longing heart.

/Dear Beloved/
8 09, 2016

Saying no

By | September 8th, 2016|Courage, Depression, Desire, Relationship, Therapy|0 Comments

Every now and then I have a client who doesn't show up for a scheduled session and I don't hear from the client again even after I check in. What I do "hear" though is a no. It may not be an openly communicated no, but it's a no nevertheless. A choice was made, and [...]

5 09, 2016

Perfect alignment

By | September 5th, 2016|Depression, Love, Pain|0 Comments

Where did you ever get the idea that you are not enough that you are woefully inadequate, not measuring up to the yardstick of perfection?   Does your heart not beat with Great Love in your chest, tireless, dependable, and in Perfect Alignment   With the heavens above and the earth below braced by the [...]

26 08, 2016

Bulls eye

By | August 26th, 2016|Body, Courage, Pain, Poetry|0 Comments

"How much do I owe you?" you managed to ask, almost choking on the nose around your neck And the man named his price and released you out of this god-forsaken room on legs that obeyed a command long forgotten.   Or forbidden because of the fear they've felt and the shame they've been dealt [...]

22 08, 2016

True story

By | August 22nd, 2016|Desire|0 Comments

No, she couldn't sing. Her pitch and intonation were off, but she was the last to be embarrassed. Not that she didn't care what other people thought of her, but she sang anyways, loud, proud, passionate, and off key. I'm talking about Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy New Yorker woman of the 1930s and 40s [...]

6 08, 2016

Approximation

By | August 6th, 2016|Desire, Poetry|0 Comments

This, you could count on- that the church bell every quarter hour meters out Day and night. Singing metal claimed from within the sheltering hills around town By men, poor and plain, with nothing but the sigh of a light the size of a matchbox, Three hundred years ago.   How did they find what [...]

28 07, 2016

The weight of the world

By | July 28th, 2016|Grief, Poetry|0 Comments

As of yesterday The weight of the world has increased by Untold secrets Careless speaking Held grudges Blatant judgment Missed opportunities Unspoken apologies Wounds unattended Unremitting shame.   This measurement is proportional to the radius two people could comfortably inhabit with outstretched arms multiplied by seven billion But don't.    

22 07, 2016

We had it all wrong

By | July 22nd, 2016|Grief, Poetry|0 Comments

We had it all wrong. The battles, the stories, the justifications Yellowed pages in a history book we're embarrassed to admit we once committed to memory.   This is the curse of the still living in tailored black suits lined up at the grave. The role of the villain, the saint, the victim, the convict [...]

22 07, 2016

The morning after

By | July 22nd, 2016|Grief, Pain, Poetry|0 Comments

They said the sky was blue with no trace of a cloud Drunkenly pure A sea of summer prayers.   They also say as above so below As the Father the Mother heavenly, an unbreakable promise joined at the heart.   Who can blame us then, the surviving, for making up stories that suit our [...]

13 07, 2016

Tell me about your losses

By | July 13th, 2016|Grief, Poetry|0 Comments

Tell me about your losses what has brought you sorrow what alienated, robbed and wounded you and tore the veil of time, irreparably.   Tell me about the wound that doesn't heal that refuses to close, stubborn, like a nail on a cross.   Did legions of darkness enter besieging your sacred heart? Did you [...]

30 06, 2016

Transitions

By | June 30th, 2016|Anxiety, Fear, Therapy|0 Comments

Last month I ended my job in community mental health after five years of service, so I've been thinking a lot about transitions. Transitions can be exciting (getting married, welcoming a child into the family, starting your own business), but even the most exciting (and "self"-promoted) transitions can be daunting. Transitions bring us into direct [...]