poetry by Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

October glimpses

by ingrid on October 20, 2010

 Lately I’ve been considering this question from the Zen poet Ryokan, “If you point your cart north when you want to go south, how will you arrive?”  I think I might do this often- second guessing myself, my deepest calling- trading in the inconceivable for the conceivable, which is often too small.  Does this ever happen to you?

I’ve been doing a bit of walking lately, and asking myself some good hard questions, like “Is it God I converse with on my trail, or my own wide and mysterious life?”  and “Is it a visitation I wait and long for, or the awakening of an awareness?” Must a distinction be made?  Must I choose? Could it be both/and?

These kinds of questions prompt two desires: the first is to escape into the arms of a lovely sleep.  And the second is to lean into the mystery, and see how I am held.

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Glimpses ~ September photos and poems

by ingrid on September 21, 2010

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Today I awoke

into a poem.

Everywhere I look,

another verse emerging.

Glint of sun, shimmering leaf,

dusty road along the woodlands.

 

 

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If I feel a moment of sadness,
I will allow myself to feel sadness.

If I feel a moment of merriment,

I’ll give thanks for this as well.

 

 

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It seems that I
can do nothing

to stop this poem

from unfolding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

~~~~~~~

 

 

I wrote the above poem as I was beginning to feel a new energy flow into my life.  Rose has been away at college for a few weeks, and I must admit I built much of my world around her (and Jonah and Bella.)  As with a break-up or separation, it’s quite an unravelling- quite an adjustment in the Mothering journey to have a child venture from the nest.  She seems to be doing very well.  And I am doing much better.  In the first week I was surprised by how I would be overcome with emotion at any moment.  There was no sense in repressing this- it felt very necessary and life affirming to let it move through my body.  With the poem below, I invite you- I offer tender permission- to let some of your own sorrows out.

 

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Sometimes We Must Let the Weeping Come,

 

to bring its soft relief

like a dry summer’s rain;

a small brook flowing

amid the reaching ferns.

 

Sometimes to confess

the sadness we’ve been holding
makes way for a lightness again,

or at least the hint of an opening.

 

If the heart, like a cup, is too full,

we must spill some sorrows out ~

to make room for the possible gift

of something new, or fresh, or healing.

 

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WOMEN’S RETREAT ON MARTHA’S VINEYARD ~ November 12-14th 2010

If you are longing for a weekend of renewal, refreshment, inquiry, sisterhood, and a lot of wonderfulness in between, check out this women’s retreat that I will be co-facilitating with Anne Colangeli and MJ Bindu Delekta.  We will gather at MJ’s Sacred Circle of Yoga, and allow the weekend to unfold as it will, depending on what our hearts yearn for.

Connect to your deepest self through yoga, poetry, laughter, play and relaxation…

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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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Mothering Give-Away

by ingrid on April 28, 2010

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I just hate advertising, and Mother’s day is being quite overdone at the moment.  All I can think to do is offer to give away my Good Mother Welcome Book, and my Mothering Prayer Accordion as  a raffle among anyone who comments here.  My girls are now 13 and nearly 18.  I wrote Good Mother Welcome, and the Mothering Prayer when Rose was only 2, and when I was much wiser than I am now.  Still, they are best sellers here, so you might want to know about them…

 As mothers, we pray for a world of peace.
We pray for a world of joy.
We pray for the nourishment and safety of our children.
We pray for wonder, enthusiasm, goodness and truth;
For compassion, love, and kindness.
We pray for discipline and we pray for maturity.
We pray for courage and strength.
And we give thanks.
The way we live is the way we give thanks.
Let our lives be a dance of prayer and thanksgiving.

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Poem: Love Aware, from What Holds Us

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, from the book What Holds Us

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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