From the category archives:

Poetry

Summer Poem

by ingrid on July 14, 2010

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I have a friend who came to see me,
who danced naked under the stars.

She brought a friend who is now my friend,
and who laughed with ease and joy.

Sweet unity.
This is what we had.

Today my heart is full
of moonlight and sunlight and dancing.

Today my life is brimming
with laughter and ease, and stars.

~Ingrid

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Poem: Love Aware

by ingrid on March 16, 2010

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Give me a story

with a gorgeous

ebbing shoreline

a few green fields

a modest house

a garden and

enduring love

not the

Hollywood heat

that could

burn a village

down but a

love steadfast

faithful

aware

of its own

good fortune

love that is a

lamp unto

itself

trusting willing

longed for

and held

an inner ember

glowing

triumphant

in its knowing

told and retold

perhaps simply

offered given

received and

understood.

 

~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

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Sometimes a Kiss Can Do That

by ingrid on February 12, 2010

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Sometimes A Kiss Can Do That:

 

unhinge a rusted gate

to let the moonlight in;

 

send rain to a parched field,

to play the dust like a drum;

 

release a hollow ache;

warm a stubborn chill;

 

build a bridge, a raft,

a momentary trust.

 

Sometimes, through a kiss

we open

 

to the infinite world

that holds us.

 

I’m not saying all the time,

but sometimes.

 

And sometimes

this is enough.

~Ingrid

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Light Verse for my Valentine

by ingrid on February 5, 2010

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You, Love, are my earthly joy,

My village and my song,

My reason, my belonging,

And the good that makes me strong.

With your arms around me

My heart knows blessings, blessed.

With you here beside me

Is how I love life best.

~Ingrid

 

 

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I love you like a fiddle tune.

I love you like a jig.

I love you like the month of June.

I love you like a fig.

I love you like a hoppy brew.

And a warm down feather bed.

I love you like a dream come true

And berries and butter and bread….

 

( Ingrid’s note: I don’t actually love figs…but it went so well with jig.  Now my secret is out, I promise I am still sincere.  … These wonderful candleholders are made by The Mad Potter on Martha’s Vineyard.  The video below was sent to me by my friend Heather.  It’s so joyful and free and, well, it made me cry happy tears.)

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Sabbath Poem

by ingrid on February 5, 2010

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I rested into the morning, caressed,

deep pleasure, measureless being,

I rested until I heard

the song of the day call me out.

Come.  Take joy.  Awake.

Come and see my treasures. 

Only then did I rise to take

my pleasure into the world.

 

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First Winter Poem

by ingrid on January 6, 2010

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I love how Winter takes me
in its cool white arms, and
holds me in a seduction
of silence and elation;
full emptiness hangs in the air
after a night of heavy snow:
the breath of morning comes
a promise, or desire.
And I open as if haunted
for this deep and rich receiving,
inviting the seeds of darkness
to enter the mud of my womb
for a time of fertile waiting
I can not push or name, until
flows a spring of emergence,
celebration, birth, or fire.
Sometimes after months it flows.
Sometimes after one hot prayer.

~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

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The Medicine of Poetry

by ingrid on December 4, 2009

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“Poetry is a life-cherishing force.
  For poems are not words, after all,
but fires for the cold,
ropes let down to the lost,
something as necessary as bread
in the pockets of the hungry. 
Yes indeed.” ~Mary Oliver

 

 

 

Our poem which is Infinite

(A love poem for my husband)

 

 

Tonight your words draw me back

into the poem in which we are living.

It is a rich and merciful poem

and it spins its warm story around us

drawing our bodies down

into the urgency of our belonging.

How is it that we, neither holy nor wise,

could live in this beautiful poem?

It is the fire we tend with our kindling,

the table we cover with bread,

the altar we make bare for offerings,

the pitcher we empty and fill.

~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

     This week I have been savoring Kim Rosen’s Book, Saved by a Poem.  If you love poetry, even if you fear poetry, this is a beautiful invitation to enrich your life through poems.  I am tongue-tied, in awe, and cannot recommend her work highly enough.

 

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sdc10864“Birdsong brings relief
to my longing.

I am just as ecstatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!

Please, universal soul, practice
some song, or something, through me!”

~Rumi, from Birdsong, translations of Coleman Barks

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I stumbled across Rumi’s poem this week, and it captures my sentiments exactly.  In autumn, my attention often turns from the manufacture of books to the writing of them.  I long to sit, idle, and have poems come tumbling in.  I long to wander the landscape in intimate conversation with the soul of the world.  And sometimes I do.

Last week I sorted through all of my starts and false starts ~ scribbled notebooks, interrupted reverie- to harvest a few poems if I could find them.  I tore out the complaints, tossing many pages entirely.  I had a splendid fire in the outdoor pizza oven.  To release the old; the unsatisfactory; the ineffective; the mediocrity….I could go on.  It was exhilarating to turn the burning pages with a spade, feeling the heat on my face.  It felt wonderful to let it all go in plumes of ashes and smoke.

Now I am ready, open, and empty- longing for the universal soul to practice some song, or something, through me.

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the summer whirl

by ingrid on August 19, 2009

sdc10601I blame it on the summer whirl- that my latest Joy post-card contained a typo.  It’s a small thing really: too many of the word “for”, when the word “to” was intended.  As a poet, I am disconcerted.  The lines don’t sound pleasing; the repetition is jarring- the blessing becomes much less somehow, and easily dismissed.  And so, here it is as it is written in my book, Eternal Song, Blessings for the Path o f Love

                                                                               BLESSING

Do good things for each other ~

small kindnesses every day.

Be a comfort to each other ~

a calm shore for turbulent times.

 Be good friends to each other ~

remain compassionate and tender.

Lend a thoughtful ear, a gentle shoulder,

an open heart, and a strong hand.

 

And do good things for each other.

Thank you!

Ingrid

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Questions, a poem

by ingrid on August 18, 2009

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                   Questions

 

I would like to lean with you on a dune

overlooking the voluptuous sea, and ask

what wind called you to this place?

Was it hunger, or a song?

What are the worlds you left behind?

Have you ever known a paradise?

Could you tell it to me now?

What pleasures do you count living here?

What foods are most delicious,

what aromas most divine?

How do you prefer the shape of the moon?

Do the seasons hold equal beauty,

is there one you favor more?

Who did you trust

riding through your tender years?

Do you envy the bliss of others,

or long for it,

equal to your own?

What do you court, worship,

gather to hold dear?

In my mind I’d like to kiss you,

but I’d ask these questions first.

 

~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

from the Chapbook of Poems,
CALLING FORTH THE RICHES

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