Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, late spring, love, poem, poetry, tanka on June 11, 2012| 3 Comments »
beside you
I am in late spring
all my petals
opening, quickly now,
no fear of frost
*
moss
that softens the rock—
your words
*
the mountain
also opens—
ask the sky
*
in the tall grass
a nest—
let’s meet there
*
before you find it
it finds you—
scent of wild rose
*
the world is, perhaps
drawn black and white—
still our blood so red
*
we both
orbit you,
the moon and I
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing things to be, gardening, love, poem, poetry on June 9, 2012| 3 Comments »
I plant the seeds
and the wind
carries them away.
They were small,
the size of
the word love
typed 12-point
in this poem,
and the beauty I imagined
would come from them
so great.
*
Where does
longing come
from?
Nothing wrong
with it,
says my teacher,
as long as
it is opening
us.
*
I plant the seeds
and the critters
I never seem to see
nibble the green shoots
in the night
until there is
nothing left.
*
It is not true
that there
is nothing
left.
Here I am.
Love.
There you are.
*
Now the edamame
on the other hand,
they leap
from the dirt,
bless them.
*
Into a bowl
I sing
a blue song.
*
Just as the seed
buried in the dark
seeks light,
the light
too,
seeks the dark,
seeks everything
that is not
light.
*
It never
comes
the way
I will expect
it will.
Look at
these melons
volunteering
in every corner
of the garden.
*
I tell myself
the dirt
is also
beautiful,
the dirt
where the flowers
would have been.
I almost
believe it.
*
Not quite.
*
If a woman
sings in a bowl
and there is
no one there
to hear her,
did she
make a sound?
*
In my hand,
more seeds.
I plant some of them
just the way
the directions say.
Some of them
I throw
to the wind.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cherry, love, now, poem, poetry, presence, sweetness on June 8, 2012| 2 Comments »
Standing in the cherry trees
all one has to do is reach
and there is sweetness,
red sweetness, dripping
sweetness, sweetness.
It will not last, but
standing in the cherry trees
this blazing moment
all one has to do is
open the hand, and reach
and there is sweetness,
not just pleasure enough, but pleasure
more than enough. It is not
a cure for whatever aches,
but it is sweet standing
in the cherry trees tonight, so sweet,
so red and so sweet.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, happiness, love, poem, poetry, quietude on June 7, 2012| 2 Comments »
Sorrow happens, hardship happens, the hell with it, who never knew the price of happiness, will not be happy.
—Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Just as the splinters
slip in a bit deeper
beneath the bruise, just
as the clench in my
chest clenches tighter,
just as the tap roots
of ache push lower
into my groin and tease
new depths of darkness,
it occurs to me, soft
as sheepskin, weightless
as being swung off my feet,
how lucky it is to love, and though
the roots still reach
their terrible reach,
and the splinters slip in,
oh please, not so deep,
there is a strange
joy that blooms
in my cheeks
like cherry stain,
like joy.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cold, jumping in, parenting, poem, poetry, smile, swimming on June 7, 2012| 4 Comments »
If one windy day
you find yourself
beside the pool
with your three-
year-old girl,
resist the urge
to stay dry. She
will laugh at the way
you pull her through
the blue chlorinated
water with such real
joy that it will catch
in you so wholly that even
strangers in the grass
watching you play
will comment to you
on how sweet that you,
like your daughter,
delight in being wet. Someday
you will forget the chill—
the body cannot
pull the back the memory
of cold anymore than it
can bring back the red
pain of labor.
But her smile, the memory
of that as it flashes
above the refracting light,
it will forever bring a smile
to your lips, a real smile,
no matter how
tired you are,
how old and dry.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cliche, poem, poetry, positive thinking, spilled milk on June 6, 2012| 4 Comments »
The spilled milk?
I am not crying.
This is me kneeling
on the gray stone tile
to lap up the puddle
the way a grown woman
should never do.
It may be a mess,
but it’s not spoiled yet
and I’m thirsty enough
to lower myself,
and look, how the cup
is still half full.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, expectations, haiku, poem, poetry, shoes on June 4, 2012| 4 Comments »
these big shoes
though they have long been mine
they still don’t fit
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, letting go, loss, love, nothing, poem, poetry on June 3, 2012| 2 Comments »
Our steps interlocked,
Michelle asks me, “What do you need,”
and it occurs to me that everything
I love can and will be taken from me.
The wind that fills the sail
will eventually shred it.
The child who curves her body
into the breast will wean, will grow,
will leave. It is not true that I need nothing,
Oh Maslow, you gave us the map,
but an affinity with nothing is
perhaps what I need.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged halloween, poem, self knowledge, superman, very silly on June 2, 2012| 3 Comments »
That was the Halloween
when Superman decided
to dress up as me. He wore
a wig with long brown hair,
black yoga pants, black Dansko clogs,
a solid pink shirt and no makeup.
When he arrived at my door,
Trick or Treat, he said,
just like everyone else says,
and I had a hard time guessing
what he was. Um, a teacher?
He had ink stains on his fingers.
Nope, he said. A mom?
I was looking at the drool
stains on his shoulder
and the wrinkles under his eyes.
Kinda right, he said. Um, I give up,
I said. Who are you? He said, I’m the person
you most wish you could know.
Even after he told me,
I am still guessing.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chant, poem, poetry, song stuck in your head on June 2, 2012| 2 Comments »
There is only one reason.
Of course, I do not recall
what it is. I am too distracted
recalling the tune to a chant
I heard yesterday, nine notes
that now float incessantly through
all other thoughts, so that
while making pasta or making
the bed, while drinking sake
or sitting quietly or answering
the question Why, there they are,
nine notes, stringing like garland
on the mind’s door, decorating
every thought with a rising, a soaring,
a lingering high before the tune falls, the resolve,
oh oh oh oh aaaa, oh oh ooooh oh,
festooning each breath, as if the only
reason to inhale at all is to
sing it once again, nine notes,
oh oh oh oh aaaa, oh oh oooh oh …
and there is, I am sure,
something else I am supposed
to oh oh oh oh aaaa, um say.