Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gardening, patience, poem, poetry, work on June 19, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Push again the small dried peas
one inch into the earth. The gaps
in the rows where they did not grow,
do not take these personally.
Not everything comes to fruition,
but that is no reason to stop planting.
In fact there is every reason to believe
that not so long from now
the sweet green song of fresh sweet peas
will serenade your impatient tongue
if only your hands keep doing their work.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, father, Father's Day, poem, poetry on June 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »
It began as my father cheering for me,
he’d count it off, then chant low and bright,
One, Two, Three, Yay Rox!
He used it often—for curtain calls
and piano recitals and catching fish
and semester finals. And he’d use it,
too, when I’d come in blue
with rejection letters or a broken heart,
and he’d say it softer, with a squeeze and a hush,
One, Two, Three, Yay Rox.
His is a heart of sun.
All moments are moments worth honoring.
What does not makes us more wholly ourselves?
And then, I don’t remember when,
he changed the rules and made me join in.
Made me say the five words together with him,
whether I wanted to or not,
One, Two, Three, Yay Rox!
How my own tongue stumbled, still sometimes does,
but always, his voice is there beneath my own,
steady and confident, tender and clear.
After years decades of cheers, I daily
harvest the wealth.
How wise, the father, who gives
a girl herself.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged camping, poem, poetry, travel, Yellowstone on June 17, 2017| 2 Comments »
blue flax beside the highway,
ten thousand bridal bouquets—
each moment of the journey
saying, “marry me”
*
said the mama heron,
no more crawling
when you were made to fly
*
surprised by the mama grizzly—
one hand on the car door,
the other focuses the camera
*
in a field of avalanche lilies
each one
the most exquisite
*
clapping for Old Faithful—
thrilling at predictable
astonishment
*
sleeping in a puppy pile
between my grown children—
oddly glad for cold nights
*
morning alarm—
raindrops on the tent
each one pressing snooze
*
june snowstorm—
the morning takes its bikini for a drive
and slips into a hot springs
*
searching every meadow for moose—
missing it like that kiss
from the boy I never kissed
*
a whole week
with no blue—
relying on the places
I’ve tattooed sky
on my inner walls
*
seventh day in Yellowstone—
just another glorious herd of bison
and their perfect golden calves
*
the sing-along of a thousand miles—
even Julie Andrews asks
are we there yet?
*
said the desert,
you can’t smell the sage
going sixty
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, news, poem, poetry on June 8, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Full of seed, the bird feeder hangs
from the cottonwood tree
we planted years ago.
Even without the birds,
it is beautiful—
dangling midair
with its copper perches
and glass column.
This morning in the news,
we are going to war with each other—
either with words or with missiles.
It seems clear
that we are our own problem.
No wonder we try to bring beauty in close—
the garden with its open faced pansies,
the hummingbird feeder with its hold
of sugar water.
The battles are not
what will save us,
it’s beauty—not just
outside us, but in us.
All day, let us look
for ways be like this brown bird
at the feeder, see
how it gathers light
in its open wings.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cricket, curiosity, music, poem, poetry on June 7, 2017| Leave a Comment »
He sings in the corner,
the invisible cricket,
and each time I look for him,
he stops—
I don’t wish
to frighten the cricket,
I only want
to watch.
What is it in us
that wants to know details,
wants to analyze
how it is done?
And what is it in us
that says, close your eyes
and let the song
go on.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, life, pests, poem, poetry on June 6, 2017| 4 Comments »
I apologize
as I squish
the green worm
that’s been feasting
on the basil leaf.
It does not change
the fact that the worm
is dead. And the basil
now will live.
Yesterday, my friend Carl
stopped me on the street
and wondered aloud
how we die
to the moment,
then greet the next.
He did not,
of course mean
a literal death.
The basil leaf
has a hole in it now
where the green worm
is not. I pick it
and eat it myself,
not out of spite,
perhaps
to feel how the worm
and I are not
after all
so different.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dead heading, gardening, poem, poetry, success on June 4, 2017| Leave a Comment »
I snip off dead flowers
to trick the pansy
into blooming again
wonder which
of my past
blossoms
to cut
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged empty gas, poem, poetry, self forgiveness on June 3, 2017| Leave a Comment »
thank you to gas gauge
for being so low
I had to turn around
from the mountain pass
and drive a half an hour back
to the last town—
no way to blame anyone
but myself,
to ask my own forgiveness
for an hour
through the narrows, the curves.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged certainty, math, poem, poetry on June 2, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Odd joy in the pink eraser rubbings,
joy in the silence just after the timer says start,
joy in the turning of the inner cogs
and the way that the numbers
sprint across the page,
joy in the scratch of the pencil, the stumble
of confidence, in the scrapping of the route
so that a new route can emerge,
joy in arriving at an answer,
an answer so certain you can label it
with units and circle it and know
that tomorrow it would turn out
the same way again, not like any
other part of your life.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, poem, poetry on June 1, 2017| 2 Comments »
On this gray morning,
I want to give you
the yellow of the oriole,
the way it weaves through
the invisible weight of the air.
So much touches us
we cannot see,
and we wonder why
we feel heavy.
I would give you, too,
the gray whirr of the wings
of the hummingbird,
their improbable accuracy
as they negotiate the world
in search of what is sweet,
and I would give you joy
your own fine feet
still learning to master
this art of moving
across the world
one step at a time,
this art of living into the pause
between footsteps—
that moment when
the body lifts
as if we, too, could fly.
we feel heavy.
I would give you, too,
the gray whirr of the wings
of the hummingbird,
their improbable accuracy
as they negotiate the world
in search of what is sweet,
and I would give you
your own fine feet
still learning to master
one step at a time
and the long pause
in between.