After the frost,
the sweet peas
rise from the dirt
like little green angels
with bowed heads
and tiny green wings—
it’s enough to make
a woman believe
small miracles can happen
if only she plants
the seed.
Archive for May, 2017
Like Forgiveness, Like Happiness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, gardening, happiness, poem, poetry on May 31, 2017| Leave a Comment »
One Communion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, love, poems, poetry, spirit on May 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »
on the shores of you,
finding a place through the overgrowth
where I can let fall everything
and slip in and
stay
One Nod to Anarchy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anarchy, gardening, poem, poetry on May 29, 2017| Leave a Comment »
After Winter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, present, seasons, spring on May 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Sometimes in spring
I forget it is ever
not spring, forget
that there will be a time
without hummingbirds
and the raucous call
of the geese. These lilacs
and their purple scent
are forever. Forever
is this deep green field.
I almost resent
the voice that writes this poem,
the part that notices how already
the apples have gone
from ecstatic white bloom
to small hard fruit.
One Inevitable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged future, inevitability, poem, poetry on May 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Adrift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged home, poem, poetry, tune on May 25, 2017| Leave a Comment »
A tune with no words
weaves through the day.
All day I let it find me,
do not try to turn off
the imaginary dial
that would make things
quieter. It is a comfort,
this tune, knowing
there are still words
to be written, still harmonies
to be found. The song
baptizes me, brings
beauty to what I fear
is a dark time.
It is a home inside
I take with me
everywhere I go.
One Humbling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, poem, poetry, spring, work on May 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »
in seven days
the radish sprouts
push green through earth—
every job on my list today
seems quite easy
Dear Dad,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged affection, daughter, epistle, father, green, love, poem, poetry on May 23, 2017| 3 Comments »
Out the window the world is reassembling itself. The shades of green begin to emerge in the field—so many greens. Some part of me wants to name them all—emerald, sage, Kelly, lime, avocado, moss, spring. I want to name them not to organize them, but to celebrate each one.
Last week I did a training on how to assess parental affection. It’s a funny idea, the quantification of affection. It reminds me of the way children will sometimes fling their arms back behind their shoulders in an awkward joy and say, “I love you thiiiiiiiis much.”
One of the markers for affection is parental use of endearments—honey, sweetie, pumpkin, darling. As the evaluator, I am asked to mark if this is absent, present or emerging.
I don’t think you ever called me honey or sweetie, Dad, in fact, no generic terms of endearment. You always had your own special names for me that emerged out of play—Penelope, Reesmorie, Rosamarinipuscavazini, Roxanne the Foxanne, Rox. I always knew I was special to you, branded by your love of silliness, your love of me. And sometimes, when I was down, I would call you, and just hearing you say your special name for me made life seem just a little bit better.
The greens outside the window are brighter now. They seem to suggest an infinite potential inside a finite range. I know it is just the bending of light, but it thrills me.
This morning, I would like to give you this sense of infinite possibility, offer it to you while you are far away in a hospital bed and it feels as if the options are closing. Inside that finite window of options, there is an infinite potential for healing. We couldn’t possibly name all the available outcomes, though I suppose we could rate them as absent, emerging and present.
What is present is the enormous love I have for you. I’m not interested in measuring it, really, just in giving it to you, letting you know how I celebrate you. As if with love alone I could take away the pain you are in.
Who am I kidding? I guess I do wish I could express the extent of love so that you could feel the infinite ways it unfolds in the finite space of my heart. And though the only name I have for you, Dad, is generic, I wish that by saying your name on the other end of the phone, things might feel just a little bit better.
Dad, I love you, thiiiiiiiis much,
Roxanne
Dear Christie,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, change, death, epistle, orioles, poem, poetry on May 22, 2017| 16 Comments »
Yesterday I found a bird on the ground outside the window. Remember how I had told you about the two pairs of Bullock’s Orioles at our feeder? It was one of the females. I was too squeamish to pick her up with my bare hands. Someone at some time told me about the bacteria on birds, and like so many other stories, I let it define my actions even though I don’t know that it’s true.
I did pick it up, however, fashioned a little stretcher out of cottonwood sticks and carried the bird to the deep grass.
Though it was at the feeder the day before, already it was gone enough to have lost its eyes, now two little sunken spaces where the head pulled in on itself. But the small body was not yet rigid, and it hung, limp, over the sticks.
I sang a death song, as I always do, sometimes out loud, sometimes in my head. It was taught to me by Art. “Nothing lives long, nothing lives long, nothing lives long, not even the mountain.”
I remember the day Art changed the lyric. For many years, he had sung the final phrase, “nothing lives long but the earth and the mountain.” Perhaps like all things
that are new, it trembled something me. The old words were so comfortable and familiar in my ears, my mouth. I suspect the real reason they shook me was the truth of them. Nothing lives long. Not even the mountain.
How small we are. Sometimes, like yesterday, I let my sadnesses and worries become so big, much bigger than my body. I can’t contain them and they spill. It was beautiful to watch how, on that flood of my sorrow, you found a boat and sat in it and showed me it was possible.
Why did I think the deep grass was a better place for the body of the bird? I didn’t question the voice that told me to take her there. Perhaps we are all heading into the unkempt field, a place where we are open and hidden at the same time.
I watched the other three birds all day as they flew from feeder to cottonwood. They were a braid of song, seldom staying in one place for long.
Nothing lives long. It’s no revelation, but sometimes an old truth finds wings in us. And so it was when you told me yesterday, just before you drove away, that I needed to stop hoping things would change—that I needed to decide if I could be happy with things just as they are. Only minutes later I found the bird. Though the two events didn’t seem connected at the moment, now they are like two drops that become one water.
And so this morning, I join you in the boat. Although it is just a metaphor, I notice that it changes things not to be swimming in the waters of wishing things were different. I notice how there are no oars in the boat, and how part of me longs for control and part of me has already found the freedom to stare at the sky.
And there they are, the three orioles, their yellow feathers flashing as they rearrange the air. And there she isn’t, the oriole now laying in the field.
Later today I will fill the feeder. There are some things we can do.
Your friend,
Rosemerry