Courtney Bolton / ©B0E.

WaveField, by Maya Lin. Storm King Art Center, 2009.

“I tend forget that my body is like piece of machinery, with a limit to how much it can be pushed and pulled and thrown hither and thither. So I’m always surprised when it doesn’t the work the way I expect, when there’s an ache or a tightness or inflexibility that makes doing something more difficult. I tend to ignore it, or try to, thinking that the kinks will simply work themselves out and I’ll be just like new again, bouncing back into the bones of the 12-year-old girl I imagine, in my mind’s eye, perpetually inhabit. But maybe because it’s spring, or maybe because I’m about to turn the big 3-5, or maybe it’s that I’m finally getting it that I’m not indestructible, but right now, I feel like I need a serious tune-up, or an oil-change or one of those 50,000 mile check-ups, or maybe a few of my parts replaced.” (via Maya)

eternity, by Maya Stein.

Of course, we haven’t been promised a thing,
not forever or next year or even tomorrow.
This moment, this half of a half of a second, 
is the only thing we can ever truly call 
ours.

It’s not that I don’t want 
the sun’s full capacity, or the waterfall at it’s boldest roar,
or a forest of birdsong and deer prints, 
or the ripest apple from the season’s first harvest.
One could always imagine a lighter, fresher version of here,
dream a little wider, fashion more art from the long,
grey sidewalk. 

But this is what happens when I allow time
to slither by instead of muscling it forward:
The peanuts on the flight to Miami, lunch.
The serpentine line at the bank, rest. A crowded bar,
heat and kinship. Your kiss,
one lucky eternity.

vaguely, by Maya Stein.

she hadn’t been happy for more months
than she cared to remember.
it wasn’t that she hadn’t felt
anything coming her way,
but it came her way in degrees,
with conditions,
a love that had limits, laws.

she wasn’t good with that
never was
didn’t want to know her limits
always strayed outside the lines
and i don’t mean fucking around per se
although there was that
who are we kidding
but i mean lines as in
the kind of threat a promise creates
between two people,
this “i will never” or
“i will always.”

and what with her lopsided heart,
a heart that wanted, somehow,
less than it had been awarded.
not the brandishing of roses, poetry, song, or spectacle,
but a heart that believed in the beauty
of the unspectacular, the smaller movements
of dinner and sleep and a glass of water
a lover could give, like an afterthought,
when she looked at the slightest edge
of thirsty.

so whom should she thank for this
great, unbidden gift
of a glass, appearing at her bedside?

before what monumental god
should she supplicate herself
for the blessing of this shared meal?

what glorious disaster
coerced such sound, delirious sleep?

it doesn’t matter.

at last
she is drinking again.
and in the mirror
a reflection she recognizes to be
the one she must have started with.

finally
each day, passing itself,
is beginning to look vaguely,
and then less vaguely,
like happiness.

(No. 1/ Saturday, July 16, 2005; via one paragraph at a time)

how to let go, by Maya Stein.

Maybe you just do it, unclench from the lip of the great, wide
unknown, whatever you envision as the cataclysmic drop into total
failure, or disappointment, or disaster, some precipitous nothingness
where you refuse, in your hardest heart, to locate yourself. But
what’s better than nothingness, that blank and soundless freefall?
How is it possible to enter, gracefully, a room
already crowded with furniture?

Here are your feet, your hands, your skin.
Here is the sound of your breathing lungs.
Here is the way you manage to make a meal
out of the castoffs in your cupboard.
Here is east and west. Here is 6 o’clock in the morning.
Here is midnight. Here is a piece of notebook paper.
Here is your history.
Here is your wisdom.
Falling will not change any of that.

one paragraph at a time: how to let go, by Maya Stein.

i wanted the birds to tell me something, by Maya Stein.

I wanted the birds to tell me something.
Two birds, pre-coital, on the wire,
their wings in a frenzy, while we ate,
nearly silent, on the deck.

I chuckled at their brief but passionate display,
the metronomic tilt the wire made
as they whipped through their routines.

I thought about how simple love is
for certain creatures. How sometimes all it takes
is to say “I see you. Do you see me, too?” 

The birds didn’t stay long, through two or three bites
of steak, our forks scraping the white plates,
but sometimes it’s brevity that’s most exquisite, 
that leaves the deeper mark.

I didn’t know whether, later, your hand
would reach for mine, or if I would call your name
with new tenderness. 

I wanted the birds to tell me something,
but they flew away so quickly, and the wire, eventually,
returned to itself, and I finished
the last of my dinner, still
a little hungry.

let each gift take hold, by Maya Stein

Stop moving so fast, racing past street signs like a runaway. Don’t abandon your luggage at the nearest depot. Unclench from the desire to diminish, then disappear. Come inside. Take off your shoes. Stay for dinner. Here is a cup of tea, an oatmeal cookie, a novel. Here is a fireplace, a pair of slippers, bed. Here is the moon, and above that, the heavens. Here is a good dream you might wake up from. Here is everything you see, and everything you can’t quite. Now lift your head up, with your hands if you have to, and let each gift, singly and in its own time, take hold.

how to get everything you’ve ever wanted, by Maya Stein

First, you must believe yourself worthy.
This is not the same as deserving.
This is not a promotion, a raise, a graduation.
This is not the prize you win after countless attempts at winning.
This is you standing naked in an empty house at midnight,
the street below dark and silent, the fruit bowl in your kitchen
brimming with oblong shapes that eventually you recognize
as bananas. This is you aligning yourself with the stationary and the shifting:
the broken light bulb, the foghorn, the water tower, the power cord,
the orange chair you write in, the carpet stain that won’t disappear,
the sound of morning cars on Guerrero, the swaying palm tree, the laces
on your basketball shoes, a stack of paper, a water bottle snapped to your bike,
a piece of lint your lover removes from your cheek, that cheek, that lover,
the new blossoms on the lemon tree, the toilet that needs to be flushed twice,
the grooves on the coffee table, a calculator that needs only sunlight
to turn it on, the man who cut your hair, his pierced lip, his quick scissors,
the letters your grandfather sends, the gas pump, neon, frozen waffles,
a stack of martini glasses, doorways, picture frames, kitchen remodels,
long white envelopes bulging with receipts, a backpack filled w dirty gym clothes,
an apple tree in hibernation, empty check boxes, the steps outside City Hall,
a balloon escaping the clutch of a 3-year-old, tears barreling down her cheeks,
an anchor, a crossing guard, a detour, a yield sign poised on the highway’s lip.

Forget the pulverizing mirror, that blistering microscope of discrepancy.
You are not less than but equal to.
Throw away the movie reel casting you as the villain, the buffoon, the mistake.
You are not less than but equal to.
Turn from the narrow dead-end road book-ended by barbed wire.
You are not less than but equal to.
When he tells you you’re beautiful, say thank you.
When she holds your hand driving across the bridge, say yes.
When the morning opens, say hello.
When the light flickers out, say _sleep.

Storm King Art Center - Maya Lin