You would think only my ears went for a walk,
because all I could focus on this morning was
the constant putter and drone and rumble and whine
of the steady stream of cars on the highway below.
My ears were bothered. Mightily so. Bothered
enough they drowned out the woodsy scent
of spruce and the dry earth perfume of late summer
so I could focus on a backfiring engine.
Bothered enough I had to force myself to notice
how soft the trail was underfoot, how easy it felt
to stroll on the flat surface. Had to force myself
to see how some leaves in the understory were
already turning red, how beautiful they were,
how good the warm sun felt on the bare skin
of my arms, how a crisp breeze made
my arms rise as if in praise to receive a brief
and welcome chill. Surrounded by so much
beauty, it’s a wonder I could be fussy at all,
but wow, was I fussy as those cars roared by
and I dreamed of a different, better trail where
I wanted to be right then, some other trail where
I heard only birds or wind or blessed nothing.
Hours later, sitting on the couch, it’s obvious
what I heard loudest was not traffic, but my own
fussy thoughts as I longed the world to be different
than it was. By some grace, a sweet self-compassion
floods me, quiets me, stills and softens me,
helps me befriend myself just as I am, a human
who is sometimes fussy, sometimes compassionate.
For a grounded moment, I am so content I think
a whole highway could thunder right through me,
and I might just be okay.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged fussiness, hike, misophonia, self compassion, sound, traffic | Leave a Comment »
The way a robin or oriole
might weave string or yarn
into its nest to create integrity
or an anchor, that is the way
I weave an imaginary red ribbon
through each square
on the zoom screen.
My friend has just invoked
a Japanese legend
about how we are all connected
by a red thread, and though
I have not heard this legend before,
I can imagine a deep crimson stitching
moving even now through all
of our backgrounds,
making of this gathering
a most wondrous nest,
a sturdy place made of wet poems
and fresh music, song and mess,
a durable creation in which we might
all rest, a sturdy, safe place
to find spaciousness.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged community, connection, nest, red thread, zoom | 4 Comments »
Here, there is highway heading east and west.
A great basin we have named The Great Basin
is rung by mountains and filled with low brush
and not much that man has touched except
this small roadside stand that describes how once
the Pony Express riders would use this rugged route,
changing horses every ten to fifteen miles.
In the car, my daughter sleeps while my husband
and I stand in a merciless wind, reading how
it took only two days after the first transcontinental
telegraph was sent for the Pony Express to shut down.
How much of what we rely on now will become obsolete
in a heartbeat? The postage stamp? The satellite?
When I return to the car, I squeeze the solid hand
of my husband, trace the soft skin of my daughter’s arm,
grateful for gestures no technology can supplant.
Later, we tell inside jokes. Later, we ooh and ahh
as lightning bisects the Great Basin. Nothing can
replace this, I think, as my daughter tangles her hand
mindlessly in my hair and I lean in toward her touch.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged daughter, mother, Nevada, pony express, road trip, touch, travel, wife | 4 Comments »
I wish she would. I wish she’d breeze in
with her big white smile and her big blonde hair
and her sing song voice saying, “Hi, y’all.”
I wish she’d come over and sit at the counter
so I could serve her a tall glass of iced tea
or a cool lemonade. Serve her stories of times
when her songs met me in dark hours
or lonely hallways, times when I sang
“Coat of Many Colors,” but heard her voice
instead of mine. Times when I sang about
how wildflowers don’t care where they grow,
somehow feeling so seen by her as a wildflower.
I would serve her stories of the children
I used to work with who lived in a small, dirty house
far from town with an angry dad and an earnest
mom, and how they got books in the mail every month
from Dolly’s book club, how those kids and I would sit
on the old plaid couch and read aloud for hours.
I would want to serve her huge platters of gratefulness
for showing a nation what generosity looks like,
for being a role model for kindness. But I bet Dolly
wouldn’t want a huge platter. My guess is she’d want
a few honest words, so I would say, Thank you,
and she would probably smile and do that shrug
she does. Then we’d walk out to the porch
and sit in the shade and watch as the grass in the field
tells stories about the shape of the wind.
It was never going to happen, this meeting,
but now that Dolly’s gone, I walk outside
with a burgeoning bouquet of many-petalled thank yous
and toss them into the air. I imagine the wind
taking them to her, a colorful, fanciful folly.
I imagine a world where we’re all as generous,
as loving, as impossible yet possible as Dolly.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dolly Parton, generosity, hero, imagination, kindness | 3 Comments »
too tired to wake
too excited to stay in bed—
one bright slant of light
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged exhaustion, light, waking | 1 Comment »
It was cold, the water, and clear, so clear,
and we swam through the center of a secret cove
in the calm, blue water, my daughter and I,
surrounded by pine trees and smooth white rocks.
The morning was new and the lake water still,
and no matter how far we swam, we saw
to the sandy, white bottom. In a world of chaos,
currents and swirl, I longed for my heart to be that clear.
For a moment, it was. For a moment, I understood
the magnitude of the gift of clear blue water
and smooth white rocks, a strong able body
and a secret cove. I may not know what holy means,
but I know I want to give back to this world that gave me
a gray and glorious morning swimming with my girl.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged daughter, gift, holy, Lake Tahoe, mother, swimming, world citizen | 4 Comments »
not one thing growing
in the vast salt flats
but beside me my daughter sings
and I know, right here, heaven
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged daughter, heaven, mother, road trip | 2 Comments »
driving straight toward the lightning—
did you think I’d forgotten about you?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged connection, lightning, storm | 5 Comments »
One summer’s evening, when a woman was sitting
with friends at a table in a fine establishment,
her daughter announced it was the one hundredth
anniversary of Winnie-the-Pooh. “Well, Hallo,”
said the woman, as she remembered how oftenishly
she and her son would play a game in which
they would guess at what character a person would be
if they lived in the Hundred Acre Wood, so,
scratching her ear in shy sort of way,
she suggested they play such a game.
One woman at the table, being a good adventurer
and liking to stay at the edge of the action,
knew at once she would be Christopher Robin.
Another was mostly Tigger with a dusting of Eeyore
and a share of Piglet-ish nervousness. And the woman,
who had long known she was part Tigger and part Rabbit,
seeing as how she was both exuberant and rather fond
of control, was not keen to discover that perhaps
she was also a bit of Owl, somewhat of a know it all
who is most likely wrong, especially, as it turns out,
about which character her daughter might pick
for herself, which made it Awkward when the woman’s
inner Rabbit took notes and scoffed, and her inner Owl
went on believing it knew best. But her inner
Friendly Tigger soon felt Bouncy and Boffish again,
just enjoying the night. “Perhaps we all have a bit
of all the characters in us,” one woman suggested.
Such a Pooh thing to say. And the evening went on quite right.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged community, control, exuberance, identity, Winnie-the-Pooh | 15 Comments »