after Gayle Brandeis
The poem you’re going to write tomorrow
is somewhere in your cells, is made
from language you’ve been learning
and forgetting since your birth.
The poem you’re going to write tomorrow
will ask you to go beyond who you are today,
will invite you leap over the edge of the known
and may or may not offer wings or a parachute,
may in fact stuff stones in your pockets.
It promises no net.
The poem you are going to write tomorrow
will certainly be more wise than you are,
drawing as it does on infinite potential,
something you can only touch for a moment
before the words on the page become solid
and stuck in their serifs, trapped in their
clever cages of metaphor. But the poem is there,
it’s always there, that poem you will write tomorrow,
with a promise that if you show up, it will come to wrestle,
will let you glimpse its latent thrill, that thrill
you’ve tasted before that keeps you coming
back tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ars poetica, potential | Leave a Comment »
On this gray morning, sitting on the porch,
my whole self tunes and re-tunes to a single
swallow stitching figure eights above
the field, attunes to garden marigolds
all radiant and red, and wetland rushes
wicking gold, the river currents thick
and brown from mudslides after last night’s rain,
the sour scent of autumn in the air—
and for a time, I’m charged with raw contentment,
visceral and deep. How is it true
that if I could, I wouldn’t change a thing—
this moment forged by ache and grace, this hour
that knows no striving, this wet-winged astonishment,
this quiet koan: nothing’s missing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blank verse, embodiment, gratefulness, nonstriving, presence, sonnet, what is here | 4 Comments »
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 | 2 Comments »
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 »
for Mom and Dad on their anniversary
Mostly I remember them holding hands.
Not swinging over rivers filled with crocodiles.
Not passionately kissing on the edge of a canyon.
Not jumping from planes, though they did scuba dive.
I remember them peeling and chopping
thirty pounds of carrots they bought bulk
so they can freeze them. I remember them
cleaning the boat. I remember them stopping
for rummage sale signs on Saturdays and sitting
in the back row of the church on Sundays
and sitting on the couch holding hands
on most days. And even so Dad isn’t here
today on their anniversary, he is here.
I remember how they shaped each other with their love
in an everyday way, year after year after year,
then offered that love to me, to the world.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged anniversary, love, marriage | 13 Comments »
There is the moment when the woman
is deciding what to make for dinner—
a tofu curry with beet greens from the garden?
Or maybe guacamole with all those avocados
she bought on sale. When she reaches
for the greens, that’s the kind of moment
when a Greek goddess doesn’t appear beside her
and shake her head as if everything depends
on the woman choosing the guac.
Something wonderful about a choice
with so little consequence. Red socks or blue?
The low green vase or the clear vase from Finland?
The woman has read about the butterfly effect,
trusts a life—in fact all of civilization—is built
on every smallest choice and inaction.
But tonight there is peace in the way she presses
water from the tofu, then slides the white cubes
into the pan. Six seven, as the kids would say.
The scent of turmeric fills the room.
If a goddess were to show up, she’d probably
just ask for a glass of sauv blanc and join
the woman for a bowl of curry. They would
sit at the kitchen table for hours, laughing
as the cats chase each other across the room,
talking about the three-hour movie they just saw.
Tomorrow, the choice. But tonight,
the goddess nods at the sunflowers on the table.
“I like your low green vase,” she says.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged athena, butterfly effect, choices, decision, food, goddess, odyssey | 2 Comments »
There is a slip of time before the foot
missteps and twists and breaks, that moment when
the bone’s still whole, the woman still upright.
And from that slip, well, then there’s only after.
After, when the bone is cast. After,
when the child has left. After, when
the callous words can’t be unsaid, the missing
ring can’t be unlost, the train can never
be unmissed. And now, and now, and now
is both before and after and a tip-
ping point on which we cannot pause or stand.
But if we did trip off the tip of time,
what would we find beneath it all? A chance
to play in the infinite? Or would we simply fall and fall and fall?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged sonnet, time | 14 Comments »
so soon the pink dahlia petals
begin to shrivel and dry,
and look at these hands
that cut away what is dead,
they, too, are dahlia
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged aging, dahlia, garden | 4 Comments »
The way the cellist smiled at the first violinist,
that is the way I want to smile when I die,
a joyful smile that says, “I am all in on this song;
and here, let me now toss the melody to you.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged chamber music, memento mori, mortality | 13 Comments »
I know I like to keep my secrets close. It’s who I am.
That doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Doesn’t mean
I don’t appreciate it when you plant larkspur
and roses, lavender bushes and apricot trees,
as if you believe in investing in a world years from now.
Of course, I appreciate the way you call your congressmen
to tell them about the world you believe we could live in.
I love every time you put a letter in the mail with a stamp,
every time you learn a new skill or make a ten-year-plan.
How beautiful you are to me when you dream.
It’s lonely here, of course. Everyone always coming toward
but never arriving. I’m not complaining.
Being the future has its perks. Like infinite potential.
Like hope. I know it’s hard sometimes to believe
you will ever get through this. But haven’t you learned by now
that just because you don’t see the way forward
doesn’t mean they way doesn’t exist?
That is the only promise I can make you, sweetheart.
You can’t see the path. But here it is.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged epistle, future, letter | 4 Comments »
It felt so good to walk in the rain,
to walk in the rain and not put
on the raincoat I’d carried for
over ten miles, to not put on
the raincoat and let the rain
soak into my sleeves, my
shoes, my thoughts, my
words, let rain soak in
and realize with each
squishy step each
soggy word what
a gift it is to not
always protect
myself from
the world.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged grief, hiking, rain, vulnerability | 4 Comments »
Everyone else has gone to bed.
A boy and his mother sit
at the table in the house
they are renting for a few
more days. They are familiar
the way my eyes are familiar.
He sees a large cockroach
climbing the wall, and when
his mom squeals, he gets up,
grabs it, throws it to the ground
with youthful efficiency,
then smiles at his mother,
a tender smile that says,
I like taking care of you, mom.
But the boy is not happy.
Soon he is crying. His eyes
are empty, colorless, black.
Then it is only the mother
sitting at the table, her
empty hands full of fear,
uncertainty, lack. Why
do I return to this moment,
knowing I cannot change
what happens the next day?
The closet. The gun. The choice.
I go back to slip my hands beneath
the mother’s empty hands,
making for them a nest,
then sneak up the stairs to the boy
in his room in his bed in his pain,
and though I know it will not change
a thing, I whisper in his ear,
there is nothing you can do
that will keep me from loving you.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged compassion, grief, mother, past, son, suicide | 28 Comments »