Our Beating Heart

Passing through,

deep-down reckonings with

our place in a world

made perfect with

our humble imperfections.

The sun, which does not dim

in our darkest days,

the sky, never once lowering

as we dive into our every shadow,

the view, always changing,

the light speckling magic

where we least expect it

before it continues its dance

across the spaces

we inhabit,

between us,

passing through,

moving toward what stills us

past change,

past commotion,

in our truest space:

our beating heart.

 

Two Minds, One Love

The side looking left, then right,
Lowered to the ground, skybound,
To the child inside, the world wide,
Here and there, this ever-motion,
For every turn, a revolution awaits,
The answers around every corner.
But what do we seek? What ails us?
What needs persistently plague us?
Can we make our two heads one,
Our two sets of eyes, ears, our two minds?
Will we stop pinning on the world
Every last desire and hope,
All our sadnesses turned to blame?
Or, can we see how we’ve become,
and find some peace with our two selves,
And try to find all the ways
They copulate, love, hate, entwine,
And dive right into the middle of things,
And become the war we want to end,
Until at last, it turns to dust,
Leaving our most bare self exposed,
And tarnish it will, though gold remains?

– tammy takahashi

A Perfect Love

Welcome to your Garden

Welcome to the garden of your life.

It’s so pretty here, if you find yourself

taking it all in at exactly the right moment,

when the flowers are in full bloom,

and the sun glints just so through the treetops

and into the lush, verdant space around you.

There is someone praying, maybe it’s you,

for relief from the feeling that everything should stay,

that the worst thing that could happen

is that all of this is going to change.

It is a deep and earnest prayer

that brings tears to the eye

and a deep rattling within the heart cage.

Maybe your eyes were closed, so you open them,

and the sun’s rays have shifted just enough

that the flower petals, as you take note,

have changed their direction to follow

the source of their nourishment.

It’s still your garden; you are still

in its endlessly deep, luxurious confines,

and you’ve never felt more free,

letting the changes do

what they were always going to,

and these transitions around you

are the heralding of life,

it’s coming and changing and going,

and fear that it will all disappear

is the golden emblem of your humanity.

It is your gorgeous humanity,

singing and haunting and taunting,

crying and pleading and laughing.

The garden takes it all in,

has only love to give back.

Take note of your garden; take it all in

with the time you’ve been given.

There is so much being offered,

and it’s all for you.

 

– TT

Me Too

I, too,
feel sad and confused,
I, too, dive into the sea of hurt
that weaves through
our collective past,
as the trajectories come to this,
a great unearthing,
a volcanic hurtling of
old stories churning
around and around,
maybe with nowhere
they can yet go
to be free.
I, too, do not want
to succumb to a
place without hope,
I do not want make the dance
that asks to be danced,
with powerlessness.
I, too, though, am here.
And what I would like to do
is bear witness,
to every one of you,
whose stories have mingles
over time
with my own,
and not just to the stories
that are clawing for visibility,
but to the glory of you,
who are more than your stories,
not less than … never that.
You whose pathways have helped
carve every beautiful line,
curve, and contour of you,
have given your eyes
their stunning inflection,
your heart,
its majestic endurance.
I am here, and I say,
Me too.
Me too.

– TT

Make it So (for Life)

Make it so,

the way an umbrella shelters

without removing the

experience of rain,

the way the flags flap

in the breeze,

giving away just a little bit

of their colour

with each passing moment,

so that we may pray

through and with them,

and it’s amazing

how long they hang on.

Make it so,

a full, bright, hope-filled

life. Take it all in.

Feel the breath

moving through you.

Know, too, that  the

fading of things

is also a reminder

of the fullest

expression of beauty,

at birth, in life,

and in the passing

of all things.

• TT

 

 

For Las Vegas (a poem)

A life defined by loss,
whose very parameters
involve a known closing,
does not make it feel
any softer, or less shocking,
does not make death
smooth and silky on the skin;
the knowledge that
we are here, on this plane,
for such a short duration
comes as a surprise,
every time, and the sadness in this,
in the dawning of a realization
of our own mortality,
it’s a sorrow of deep wells
and hard, splashing tears,
because we are never ready.
Here, maybe, we can begin:
how will we choose to be
on this short journey
between moons, from
one to the next, how will
we will fill the days between
sun’s gracious ascent and her
regal return to the other side
of the world?
Will we allow ourselves
to be horrified to the core
when the sanctity of life
is violated?
Will we do everything we can
to storm against the unruly,
the unjust, and the terribly
violent, and work for truth
of our equality, for our equal
right to live freely, out of harm’s
way? Is there anything else?

– TT

Stars and Shadow

Soft
enchantress of day
casting her shadows,
gentle, fluttering,
as though to ease us
into the specter of night,
where shadow is subsumed
by the Great Dark,
and we sit in this for a time,
and the stars appear,
teaching us not
through the language of shadow,
teaching us, maybe not
at all, instead,
rewarding our tired eyes
and aching hearts
with a sea of
nocturnal
possibility.

– TT

 

Don’t Say My Name

Don’t say my name,

see what else falls away,

which words drop off

the tongue in light

of this new consideration?

 

I think of the moon,

and the image changes,

the word alone

conjuring faraway

tapestries of night,

 

also forbidding, in their

very distance from

here. Why not place

faith, instead, in their

colourful inevitability,

 

should we do the work,

here and now, of filling

ourselves with the kind

of light that fills the

contours of tomorrow?

 

Why not remove the

name, the idea, as the

serpent sheds her skin,

the very sheath that

gave her a body, her

 

movement, knowing there

is more to come, knowing

that the movement itself,

which is life and love,

will take us there?

 

– TT

Let Me …

If I can’t ease your suffering,

Let me listen to you speak,

 

If I can’t remove your pain,

Let me hold it, gently, with you,

 

If I can’t walk your path,

Let me walk alongside you,

 

If I can’t inhabit your body,

Let me cast my love on it,

 

If I can’t efface your self-judgment,

Let me be your gentle touch

 

If I can’t forage for your treasures,

Let me share my own with you,

 

If I can’t get you out of the dark,

Let me be your reservoir of light,

 

And,

 

If I find myself in your shoes,

If I need the same kindness as you,

 

Let me remember to find you,

Let me allow you in, too.

 

– TT