gas tank shows empty
and me in the mood
to play chicken
Archive for July, 2016
One Dare
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dare, poem, poetry, travel on July 31, 2016| 1 Comment »
One Surprise
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged appearance vs. reality, poem, poetry, surprise on July 31, 2016| 1 Comment »
When It Is Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, parenting, poem, poetry on July 29, 2016| 1 Comment »
When It Is Time
The way you held
and bathed
all those children,
may death have such tender,
such efficient hands.
Mirror
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cracks, poem, poetry, wholeness on July 29, 2016| 1 Comment »
Between the cracks of the sidewalk catches
the brown and white detritus of cottonwood.
How useless it looks, the fluff now ratty,
the stems bent and broken. No one takes notice
of it, no one stops to take their pictures
with the waste of seeds that will never make trees.
All the cracks of the world, how they gather
the unwanted, hold with no judgment,
make a home for what is lowly, what drifts.
The cracks, how they keep things whole.
This is how
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, living, poem, poetry, sun on July 27, 2016| 3 Comments »
one lives
when she knows she will die—
she sits beside the river
and puts down the book
and lets the sun
scrawl its hot verses
on every page
of her body.
On Emergence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged emergence, expectation, garden, poem, poetry on July 26, 2016| 1 Comment »
In May I planted a whole row of beans
along the back fence of the garden,
pushed each of the small white seeds one inch
into the spring-damp soil. I waited weeks.
Not one came up. Not one.
I planted them again, planted them in twos
two inches apart. I waited weeks. Three
came up. There were over 100 seeds.
I am trying to tell you that sometimes
what we wish for does not happen.
Though we do everything by the rules.
Though we have known success before.
Though we long for our plans to take root,
to bloom, to fruit. Then all through the rows
emerged this spring dozens of volunteer cosmos.
This morning, a generous riot of pink, dark pink
and white fluttering in the spaces where
I’d envisioned only the green of beans.
Speaking of Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged language, love, poem, poetry on July 26, 2016| 2 Comments »
At the headwaters, the river
is mercilessly clear. Every rock
on the bottom is visible, magnified.
The fish must find shadows
or roots for hiding. I wonder
how it would be to speak so clearly—
a tongue so transparent
we might gaze into each other’s words
and see every color,
even the colors we would hide.
I want that, I say. A gray bird
sings in the spruce tree.
I cannot translate its song,
though it’s only several repeated notes.
This is how it is, sometimes,
even the simplest utterances
are impossible to decipher.
And now thunder. This language
arrives with its charge, its dark verb.
I tell myself I don’t want it.
Then it becomes my greatness.
One New Garden
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Eden, poem, poetry, snake on July 24, 2016| 1 Comment »
Walking the Garden After the Storm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, poem, poetry on July 23, 2016| 4 Comments »
Such delicate green tatters,
the hail-shredded leaves of chard.
I am not surprised,
beneath my disappointment,
to find them beautiful,
not surprised that the heart
should recognize itself here
in the lace. The storms
come, come again.
Beauty is not what
has not been battered.
All around us, resilience,
new life emerges
out of its own destruction.
Already, only two days
after the hail,
a dark wrinkle of new green
forms in the center
of the chard.
I pull away the old leaves.
It doesn’t matter
if the heart asks for a second chance.
There is no limit to the chances,
though they may
not look like anything
we ever thought we wanted
and most of the time
we don’t notice them.
Beauty is the willingness
to offer our attention,
to wander the world
forgetting to want
something more
than what we find.
All the World Will Be in Love with Night
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged improvisation, poem, poetry, Romeo and Juliet on July 23, 2016| 2 Comments »
Driving through the canyon at dark,
I sing along with the radio.
I stumble on the lyrics
and make up the verses I don’t know.
Earlier tonight, I watched again
the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.
I knew all the words, have heard them before,
have read them and said them
and wept for them a dozen-some times.
We did not stay for the ending,
not because it always ends the same,
but because it was late and past time
for the children to be in bed.
But I wanted to stay, to watch
as the terrible knives
did their terrible work.
It is perhaps not so different
from the way we slow
when driving past an accident,
curious about just how bad it can get.
It gets bad. And sometimes
traveling through the wreck of love
I wish there were a script
I could study to know
which right words came next.
And sometimes I am glad
to be driving through the dark,
forgetting the words, humming
through the bridge, making it up
as the turns get tighter.
Radical Abundance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, present, raspberries on July 22, 2016| 1 Comment »
Every branch
of the raspberry bush bows
with the weight of sweetness
and our busy hands
pull the ripe berries
to our mouths.
It is a long time
before we remember
we have bowls,
we have tomorrow.
One in the Roar of the Box Canyon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paradox, poem, poetry on July 22, 2016| 1 Comment »
Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged broken, friendship, poem, poetry on July 22, 2016| 1 Comment »
All week it’s been rising,
this longing to fix the places
in me that feel broken—
and then your letter arrives,
a celebration of brokenness,
and I become one of those Japanese pots
in which every crack is repaired
with fine gold.
Sometimes it happens,
we hold for each other
a generous mirror,
and though nothing has changed,
nothing’s the same,
even our fear turns to shine.
One Stretch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growth, light, poem, poetry, shadow on July 22, 2016| 1 Comment »
Over and Over and Over
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged music, poem, poetry on July 17, 2016| 1 Comment »
all day a song
insists on itself
like a lover who tugs and flirts
at the hem of a dress—
I let it have its way
This Night is Such a Night
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, poem, poetry on July 16, 2016| 3 Comments »
While the onions and celery forget themselves
in the butter and low heat, I walk to the garden
and gather spinach. It’s nearly time to pull the row—
the plants have begun to yellow and bolt—
but there remain enough dark green leaves
for a pot of fresh cream of spinach soup.
The evening is warm, and swallows dart and swoop
through the air. A haze drapes the midsummer sky.
For a moment I forget there is dinner
to make, a burner inside that will not wait.
For a moment my heart is as open
as the first calendula bloom in the garden,
all its many petals peeled back. It’s now I notice
I’ve been living only half open. Sometimes
we unfold just long enough that the world
can rush in and shake us awake
before we bend back in to our daily lists.
The soup has never been so deep green,
so rich. The night has never smelled so good.
One After Terrible News
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged news, poem, poetry on July 15, 2016| 1 Comment »
After Hearing the News About Nice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Nice, parenting, peace, poem, poetry on July 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Unable to undo or reverse the destruction,
I focus on the children I’m charged with.
Hey kids, I say, come sit with me.
I cannot hide that I have been weeping.
They have been fighting, all morning,
as children will, calling each other names
such as “stupid” and “jerk.”
They’ve been refusing to share,
asserting how right they are.
It starts here, I say. Peace begins with the way
that we treat our family and friends.
They are embarrassed by my tears.
My daughter sits on my lap, but looks away.
Stop it, Mom, she says. She slouches
and curls her thin back into my belly.
My son says nothing, then belches
to lighten the mood. I am too sincere.
I almost wish to laugh at myself,
to laugh at him, but instead,
I feel the warm weight of new tears
as they gather before they fall.
The boy beside me, their friend,
takes a big breath, then nods.
I know what you mean, he says.
One of them could have the hand
that pulls the trigger, I think.
One of them could feel righteous
enough to drive a truck into a crowd.
One of them might find the words
I cannot find, the ones that could change
someone else’s set mind,
the words that might turn us toward peace.
Mine Tour
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged emergence, hope, mine, poem, poetry on July 14, 2016| 1 Comment »
We sat in the stope, a small room
chiseled and blasted into the stone
1,800 feet below the surface.
Imagine, he says, it is 1899.
First the guide turned out the light.
Then he blew out the candles.
As we sat in the dark, he told us
that only those with a good memory
of how they got in here
would make it back out alive.
Then he turned back on the light.
Sometimes in a darkness,
we feel ourselves trapped,
find ourselves unable
to grope our way back
to some beginning.
In our attempts to emerge
we become increasingly lost.
Sometimes in a darkness,
we come to believe it will always
be dark. How could we know
to hope that by some strange
luck or chance or change
a light might appear
so bright that we would never
again lose our way?
Ursa Major
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bear, hunger, poem, poetry, sweetness on July 13, 2016| 4 Comments »
Like the bear in the darkness
scavenging the campground
for chocolate bars,
I, too, long for sweetness.
It keeps me awake,
my hunger. I lumber
through these summer nights,
hunting, my senses alive.
Don’t let morning come soon.
I swear there’s a hint
of sweetness here somewhere.