adding dandelions
to the bouquet of red roses—
the whole room oddly brighter
after Saint Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell
And when my daughter
runs to greet me, charges
me with joy, I am like
the great thick sow Saint Francis blessed
with his touch. For though
I look in the mirror
and see only what I wish to change,
my daughter sees differently
and bulldozes me with love,
a ferocious blessing,
reteaching me in a vigorous rush
that there is something
beautiful here, though
she wouldn’t name it as such—
and a small remembering
takes root in me and
vines throughout my thoughts,
and I flower there in blue surprise,
my own soil, again, enough.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged beauty, daughter, mother, poem, poetry, saint francis and the sow | 1 Comment »
trying to see me
the way that cloud sees me—
disappearing as it does
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cloud, poem, poetry, self-perception | Leave a Comment »
Summer travels beyond itself and
warms the stones and gives
the flowers more of what they love.
it is like a lover who, though he
has told you he is leaving, returns
and kisses you until you are panting,
makes you believe he will always
hold you. But then, even as your lips part
and you lean in, he is gone again,
taking his warmth with him,
leaving your skin somehow more fragile
in the thin autumn air.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged autumn, parting, poem, poetry, summer | Leave a Comment »
At the edge of the cliff
the wind tousles the snakeweed
into a riot of waving fronds.
They dance and still, and dance
and still, resettling into their natural state
before being danced again.
All morning I have been thinking
about resilience, or more rightly,
resilience has visited me,
not as a thought, more as
a mandate. And here, the snakeweed,
golden flowers lit by sun,
leads me to the edge of the cliff
where the wind whips everything
that dares show up,
and the snakeweed—
stirred, disturbed and rearranged—
has never been more itself.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged poem, poetry, resilience, snakeweed, wind | Leave a Comment »
staring at numbers
hoping to find, hidden in percentages,
a trap door
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blood test, escape, medicine, poem, poetry, reality | Leave a Comment »
pulling on my mask
as my nom de plume
unbuttons her blouse again
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ars poetica, paradox, poem, poetry, vulnerability, writing | Leave a Comment »
Sewing the ribbons
onto point shoes for the first time
I again feel clumsy
in this art of parenting.
Angle the ribbons,
or stitch them on straight?
How far from the back seam
does the elastic go?
How snug the fit?
How secure the stitch?
It was not so long ago
I didn’t know how warm
the bath. How tight
the swaddle. How
to soothe when the babe
was unable to say
what was wrong.
So little has changed,
me in the late hours
puzzling over lack
of instructions,
wanting so badly
to do it right, wishing
for some elusive grace,
astonished by how enormous
the love, the ribbon
running through my fingers.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ballet, daughter, parenting, perfectionism, poem, poetry | 2 Comments »
Then comes the day
when whatever street
you’re walking on
has you on one side
and your never
on the other and
the two of you meet
right there on the dotted
yellow line and there’s
not a damned thing
you can do to
stop it put its arms
around you, and
you don’t even
have to say yes,
it just happens.
It just happens.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged inevitability, never, poem, poetry | Leave a Comment »
in the same hand
I hold the rope to bind you,
the scissors to cut you free
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged paradox, parenting, poem, poetry, rope | Leave a Comment »
Sign up for my daily poem!
Archives
Meta
