same fingertips pattering on the grand timpani?
erratic rain on the roof, the red steady pulse inside me
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged humanity, pulse, rain, rhythm | Leave a Comment »
It scared me and thrilled me, the quick spider,
a gentle light gray, like midnight midsummer
in Finland. It was unusually large
for this part of the world where spiders
tend to be smaller than a dime. But this
spider had long, elegant legs,
I carefully gathered it in tissue.
You belong out here, I said, as I walked it to the lawn.
Slow as you please, it let out a length of dragline silk
to dangle from my hand like a pendulum.
Two nights ago, I held in my arms a newborn girl,
eyelashes barely visible, little bubbles forming
between slightly parted lips, her eyes moving
in sleep. What could be in the dreams of a three-
day-old child? I cradled her head in one hand,
her whole body in the other, astonished by how
much preciousness fits in a being so small.
All around us, so many kinds of beautiful lives.
And inside us, so many invisible strands of astonishing
elasticity and tensile strength that weave us together
through the chaos, beauty to beauty to bittersweet beauty
to innocent beauty to unlikely beauty to beauty.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged beauty, life, spider | 1 Comment »
for Vivian on her 18th birthday
like six thousand five hundred seventy notes
springing out of the steps of the scales
into new surprising arrangements
she is becoming
her own ecstatic soundtrack
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged birthday, daughter, growing up, mother, parenting | 1 Comment »
I love your big green yard,
love walking in your low cut grass
in the early morning when it’s
dew-lush and cool. Love
seeing my sister crows across the lawn.
Of course, I call out to them.
That’s what we crows do.
That’s what you do, too, honey,
when you walk down the street,
say hello, even to strangers,
because that’s what intelligent,
social beings do.
And those big juicy worms
your grow here? Five out of five stars.
Would recommend.
Of course, I want all my friends
to know where to find them.
To sing is to survive, sweetheart.
And the sun’s up. Time to live loud.
Come walk barefoot in the cool, wet grass.
Feels so good, doesn’t it, the earth so moist,
the dawn light so soft.
Doesn’t it just make you want to sing?
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after Muriel Rukeyser
Because two years ago,
another chipmunk ate all our birdseed;
because that same chipmunk
ate all sixty of my sunflower sprouts—
munched the entire row to the ground;
because that same chipmunk
devoured every bright-faced pansy;
because some part of me believes
that what I have planted should grow
for my pleasure and not for yours;
for this, I have decided to despise you,
little chipmunk that took up residency
last week beneath my porch.
I see you dart across the boards,
cheeks full of something,
then empty-cheeked running the other way.
You leap up onto my window sash to watch me
in my rooms. You scurry into the shadows.
Scowling, I point you out to my daughter.
She says, Oh, how cute! I think, Cute?
What? Little vermin isn’t cute.
Except you are. Except your soft, pocket-sized body
and small rounded ears are the actual definition
of cute. Except when I watch you stand straight-spined
on your back legs, front paws held at your chest
as if in prayer, little St. Chipmunk, I soften.
Except when I see your cheeks bulging
five times their normal size stuffed with seeds,
I laugh out loud. In my eagerness to revile you,
I had let myself not see you. I wasn’t interested
in your survival, your story. I wanted only to erase,
to other. To see you beyond what I expect to see
is the sort of transformation that could not have happened
if I were alone. Generosity is how we save each other.
How long would I have gone on in my clenching?
The taste of conceit is bitter.
I had filled my cheeks with it. How sweet it is now,
added to the mix, the taste of curiosity.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged chipmunk, curiosity, descrimination, frustration, judgment, new lens | 6 Comments »
The sky is already past deep rose
verging on bruised plum by the time
we enter the cemetery gates
and walk up the hill to the grave
where the ashes of the boy I love are buried.
I’ve never been here so late.
Didn’t know the flag pole was lit
from below so it looks like a candle,
a tall slender flame, flaring up at the end
of a long, dark canyon. Didn’t know
how the night itself makes a quiet cocoon
for meeting the dead past the limits
of light, a shadow so generous it makes
equal room for sorrow and love to move in.
It’s not a voice, but it is, that says,
You can never lose me.
It’s not a touch, but it is, the invisible hand
that leads me back toward home.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cemetery, grief, love, mother, night, Telluride | 2 Comments »
long ago the door came down,
still I stand at the threshold
of spaciousness, hand raised,
wondering how to knock
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged faith, quatrain, spaciousness, threshold | 1 Comment »
We wandered through green gentians higher than
our heads. Vast fields of larkspur, monkshood, paintbrush.
Sour scent of hemlock, earthy scent
of osha. Stones upturned by bears in search
of grubs. A hundred times we gasped, enraptured
by the aspen’s greens. And every step,
a blessing. Every step a chance to praise.
Some days we can’t remember what it is
we wish we could forget, rare days when ache
can’t find us, days when we wade deeper in
to splendor, oh the largess of such days
when we know well the frailty of life
but feeling held, forget our helplessness.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged being held, blessing, mountains, nature | 1 Comment »
The language of grief is silence.
—Maggie Anderson, “What Grief Does”
No one can translate the language of grief.
No verbs properly express how it collapses
past, present and future into a single tense
in which all becomes unswimmable wave
and at the same time immovable stone.
No way to explain how in my grief lexicon
the word cello can only be spoken in sob.
How the single word shadow is somehow
an entire prayer, equal parts praise and lament.
How there are as many translations for loss
as there are losses, and each phrase mutates
into infinite local dialects spoken fluently only
by the individual who grieves. So perhaps
it is true, the language of grief is silence—
a mother tongue we are all gifted from birth.
Though sometimes the language of grief is wail.
Sometimes sniffle. Howl. Murmur. Hum.
So different, this language, for everyone.
And every moment, a new nuance unfolds.
It’s a wonder we understand each other at all.
Except we do. We share it, this language
we can’t possibly translate and yet we know its
expressions by heart. For this, we offer each other
our ears, knowing full well we can never
wholly understand, knowing full well it matters
that we listen anyway to gurgle, moan, silence, cry.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged connection, grief, language, silence | 3 Comments »
The Mystery of Grief: Writing into the Loss
Wednesday, July 8, 5-7 p.m. mountain time
On Zoom, recorded, hosted by Evermore
For anyone meeting a loss or grief, no writing experience necessary. Please note that your confirmation email with your link for the workshop will come from Zoom. To register, visit https://secure.everyaction.com/jlxVP8TH2EOWc8nVxvuJuw2
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July 16
Curiouser and Curiouser: A poetic invitation to write into wonderment
Hosted by ONE ART, Zoom, 4-6 mountain time
$30 (sliding scale)
A generative workshop based in play. For more info or to register, visit HERE.
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July 18 & 19
Let the Beauty We Love Be What We Do
10 a.m-4:30 p.m. mountain time, both days, zoom
Join beloved eco-dharma teacher Susie Harrington and poet Rosemerry for two days of possibility and reality. Sliding Scale $80 – $250 Suggested Donation To register or for more information, visit here: https://desertdharma.org/retreats/retreats/poetryretreat.html
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The Alchemy of Soul Making: Writing with Jung and the Poets
July 22, 29, August 5, 12
11 a.m. – 1 p.m. mountain time
Zoom, recorded
Join cultural historian Kayleen Asbo and poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for four weeks of exploring the alchemical stages of inner life through the works of Jung, artists and poets from across the centuries. $100-$200, for more info visit here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/wordwoman/2269936
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