the night asked me
to read its poetry, all that ink
scrawled across the world—
reading late without the light,
I, too, become page, poem
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ars poetica, dark, poem, poetry, solstice | 3 Comments »
And usually, at some point
in the tree trimming, when the living room
is covered in twenty-year-old tissues
and my fingers are raw from the needles
and the rest of the family
has long since tired of the project,
around then, I start to wonder
what it’s really for, all this bustle
and embellishment and then,
like today, I’ll pick up an ornament—
say the one my grandmother made
from a metal cookie cutter trimmed
in blue ribbon and angel hair,
and inside it sleep two baby figurines,
a pink one for me, a blue for my brother—
and I am weeping,
remembering how I would stare at this ornament
as a child, how beautiful it was
dangling so high on the tree
where all the more delicate ornaments would go.
I was small then, but I knew
my grandmother made that ornament
with me in mind and I loved her for her thoughtfulness.
She is gone this year, and I marvel
at how present she is in this room
as I sing “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem”
with Aaron Neville and remember singing
carols with her in the church loft,
her soprano warbling and true.
And I climb the ladder to hang
the ornament high on the tree,
where the more delicate ornaments go.
And suddenly I see it is my son and daughter
sleeping in that ornament,
there where I thought it was my brother and me.
And I think of my mother’s hands
all those years she hung that ornament
reverently, and how the spruce needles
would have pricked her, too, and I
sing with Aaron about peace to men on earth,
and some of that peace slips into me,
so silently, so silently.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christmas, grandmother, mother, ornament, parenting, poem, poetry, tree | 7 Comments »
for Sherry
in a time of thorns
finding the smallest joy—
making a room in it
big enough
we can all slip in
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged connection, joy, poem, poetry, room | 2 Comments »
finding a hum
on the air, letting it
land on my lips
all the blue day
it sings me
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged hum, improvisation, poem, poetry, song | 3 Comments »
And after the boy
hugs his sister
and tells her
she did a great job,
after he wipes
her tears and holds
her and wraps her
in his awkward arms,
after she leans
into him, their
sapling trunks
sloping toward
each other,
I want to tell him
how proud I am
of the ways
he is growing,
want to affirm
how much depends
on love, want
to say I see his tenderness,
but the soil beneath
them is unstable,
precious, and my voice
is full of heavy clouds,
so I wait until
they sway apart,
then I walk closer
and manage to say
through invisible rain,
It’s time.
Let’s go home.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged brother, communication, daughter, kindness, parenting, poem, poetry, sibling, sister, son | 2 Comments »
Hi friends,
the poem from a few days ago about the Voyager 2 leaving our heliosphere, “By the Numbers,” was accepted last night by Rattle.com for their series Poets Respond, poems about the news. Here is a link to the text and audio!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged math, numbers, poem, poetry, poets respond, Rattle, space, Voyager 2 | 2 Comments »
And do nothing, she says.
I think about that as
I shuffle the kids and
make doctor appointments
and edit the pages and
drop off the gifts and reply
to emails and shovel the drive
and read to my daughter
and peel the carrots
and hang up the coats
and all that time, I imagine
sitting for five minutes.
Doing nothing.
Yeah, I should add that
to my list, I think,
as I open the cat food
and stack the bowls.
And there, on the shelf,
between the bowls
and the salad plates,
I feel the nothing
waiting for me, feel
its infinite patience,
feel how it is always here
supporting all this everything.
How generous it is,
I think, suddenly unable
to feel anything
but a longing for nothing,
a longing that lasts at least
fourteen seconds
before I remember
that call I am supposed
to make, that plant desperate
for a drink.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged meditation, nothing, poem, poetry, sitting still | Leave a Comment »
bird in the cage
so intently singing
its sad, caged song
never noticing
the door long ago opened
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bird, cage, change, entrapment, poem, poetry | Leave a Comment »
Forgive me. I do not mean
to be sharp, stark, sterile.
I’ve read of the salt mines
at Salzburg, how if you throw
a stick, leafless and dead,
into one of the abandoned workings,
then return months later and pull it out,
it will be covered in crystals,
“a galaxy of scintillating diamonds,”
writes Stendahl, “the original
branch no longer recognizable.”
I want to be like that stick.
Take my winter soul
and throw it into the mystery,
though it’s dark and cold
and easy to get lost.
What knows how to attract
the light will grow, will change me
until I barely recognize myself.
I do not mean to be short,
but I hear it in my words.
Stranger things have happened.
What is dead is sometimes
a chance to find new life,
to become a thing shining,
something the same, only fresh,
a thousand times more brilliant.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged forgiveness, poem, poetry, salt, transformation | Leave a Comment »
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