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brooking caldwell
poems & ponderings



​Featured Essays & Blog Posts

Most of these posts deal with some aspect of the struggle to find sanity and sacredness in a insane and commodified culture. ​

American Labyrinth
First gate: Best Western. I grab my key and depart room 103, where stale air stinks of something I’d long forgotten to notice...

Gratitude for Gratitude
Every once in a while I get a glimpse of the inner mental misery that most people seem to subject themselves to on a day by day, moment by moment basis...

The Arc of Remembering

Untitled. Blank. Nothing is here but the soft subtle wind that moves through. But I am not talking of weather....

Getting that Growth Junkie Fix, at Work
Hi, my name is Brooking, and I’m a personal growth junkie.  Unlike the average bear who sees emotional discomfort and runs for the hills, the personal growth junkie seeks her fix with edges...

On Vastness, Identity, and Being Useful 
"Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable." - Nisargadatta Maharaj. This quote was a bit of a lighthouse for me for a long time...

All the Single Ladies
Every self-proclaimed ‘awakened woman’ I know spends half her time at home alone lighting incense at her altar and ‘calling in the one’. She and her awakened girlfriends talk over Kombucha and...

To Be or Not to Be Good
I have been struggling a lot lately with my internal ideas of what it is to be good - recognizing how much social and familial conditioning have primed me...

The Heart of Power and Politics
Last week I visited D.C. for the first time in many years. I went for evening walks around the capital, and felt blown away by how differently power shows up in Washington...

The Power of No
Lately, I have been somewhat obsessed with the energy of “No”. Much of this fascination of course stems from my own continued challenge with it...

Why Facebook is Saving the World
I take a radical stance on Facebook: I love it. I think it's world changing and a powerful force for courage, learning, remembering, and experiencing a level of support from community...


 The Heart of the Problem of Social Change
I have been struggling lately with a sense of misalignment in the tech accelerator social change world I'm embedded in...The strongest thread has been this sense of a lopsided headiness...

The Vulnerability of Having Opinions
I have a dirty secret: I don’t like most poetry. Even the supposedly ‘good stuff’, the classics, the greats... 

Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken
This morning I encountered a tiny dog. One of those itty-bitty purse sized fluffy things that has been bred to look like a puppy it’s whole life. It was cute, and it was pathetic....

Moving in Worlds Beyond Words
This past weekend, after more than seven years of dancing, I finally attended my first multi-day dance intensive....









​Poems

This is a small selection from my growing collection of poems - you can find a few more scattered on the offerings page. 

Her Cathedral
Butterflies still frolic in the meadow beyond the playground...

A Song for the Newborns
Child, tiny miracle, tender form, Anchored wings – you are here
Because love carries forward...


The Laws of Lift
There is still joy on the other side of the breathing shadow, where a faithful moon rises over microchip skyline... 

​In the Wake
A gay man in Santa Monica was beaten on election night.... 

Everyday Eros
"Did you sleep well?", he asks, 

Synesthesia
Full moon in the orchard... 

Empty

Like returning alone to a quiet home... 

Vespers
It may first seem arduous, awful, strange to slow yourself down after doing all day... 

Nowness, with a Splash of Chai
Breathing, in a way that says "yes, this is it!"... 

Like Whoah
A life constructed for entertainment. This has just been revealed... 

Higher Ground
I was surprised to find it helped somehow to walk a stretch outside my comfort zone... 

The Opposite of Blues
Work to do, people to love, worlds to explore here both inside and out in this blessedly sensate body...

The Spaces Between
It might just be that time again, when the pothos is ready for pruning...

No One Said It Would Be Easy
It’s April in New Hampshire. The earth is feeling fickle... 

Rusted Innocence
“The moon tastes sweet” while the key hangs aloof from it’s shadow...

From the Inside
Tread the churning belly waters, dance your fingers’ grasping song...

Seasoning
As a girl, I ate my sandwiches slow... 

Eleven Spiders, Somehow
I counted eleven spiders in the shower just now, but at first glance
I only saw seven...


Home From the Holidays
This weekend you flew so you might be together, a brood of blood pilgrims gathered round baggage claim....

A Red Dawn
Shame waves lap at the shores of her bed while her toes compose lines in the sand....

The Pond
The lotus grows from mud to sky. Prepares in the dark, reaches up through the wet,and blooms soft in the clear, open air... 

Finding Yes 
Kind of in love with these sentinel pines who sing her awake as she walks on cement and she sips roasted beans...
​

anyway
today i let go of yet another held something and all sorts of feelings
moved through....


The Guru has Claws
When did simple get so complicated...

Burnt Greens
They say, “It should be easy, “like the buttering of bread”....

The Smiling Moon
Two bananas, two bottles of wine, two blocks to the seven-eleven...
 
Everyday Conversations
There is a grace that rests in the underneath of things. It peeks out in the shine of the maple outside...

This Moment Asks for a Poem
Golden tea seduces me as it slides inside my cup...

Can you hold the beauty...
...so gently that she deigns to unfold in your hands... 

Let it be Enough
Let it be enough to quietly sit and sip your coffee, staring out at rolling hills...

Learning to Lean
Walking in the woods. The sun beckons- Pause. Root. Hands to earth... 




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