Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, garden, patience, poem, poetry, sunflowers on September 30, 2017| 2 Comments »
They are dead,
the sunflowers,
all petal-less and brown,
and I almost uprooted them
from the garden,
almost tossed aside
their tall brittle stalks,
their heavy bowed heads,
but see today how
the small gray birds
flutter amongst the dead
and dive for dark seeds,
how the garden air shimmers
with dozens of wings.
Patience, I think,
with whatever we believe
is lost—
so much beauty survives
even after a frost.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Mindfulness Poems, Phyllis Cole-Dai, Poetry of Presence, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Ruby R. Wilson on September 29, 2017| 2 Comments »
This new collection of poems, edited by Phyllis Cole-Dai and Ruby R. Wilson, is an incredible book with so many of my favorite poets in it from across cultures and continents and centuries. I’m grateful to have three poems included in it, and I have been reading it every day, letting the poems do their good work on me. For more information about the book, including authors, reviews, and purchase info, visit Poetry of Presence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, Les Miserables, poem, poetry, sisiter, theater on September 29, 2017| 4 Comments »
that Sunday afternoon in Madison
when we went to brunch, then found our seats
in the theater where the French Revolution
is waging again and a man falls in love
and the woman dies and her daughter is horribly
enslaved, and my brother, a bear of a man,
the heavyweight champion wrestler who
routinely pinned behemoths to their backs
and threw keggers to “make me clean
the floors,” my brother beside me
cried enough tears for the whole globe,
a lightning rod for sorrow, as if his heart
were big enough to take on the burdens
of the whole world, how I loved him then,
his face radiant and glistening,
both of us weeping near to heaving
and holding each other’s hands, smiling
at each other in the dim light, both of us
seeing ourselves as the other as the players
built a barricade and all our walls fell down.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged confucius, flat tire, lute, poem, poetry, surrender on September 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Sitting in the rain
in the dark
with three good tires
I think of Confucius,
who, when arrested
by accident didn’t fuss,
rather sat in his cell for five days
playing lute until his story
untangled and he
was set free.
It is dry in the car,
and though the radio works,
I do not turn it on.
I never learned
to play lute,
but sense that perhaps
I am being played, what
with this long neck,
with my deep round back,
with my body still learning
to open.
The rain keeps
inconsistent time
on the windshield.
It is not deliberately
that the world
throws rocks
in the road.
Or is it?
The dark is only
the dark.
I feel a lessening
of the tension,
a tuning,
and who is it
that pulls
the strings.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, poem, poetry, song, time on September 27, 2017| 2 Comments »
I sing to my daughter
in the dark and discover
I am nine again, and
hear the voice of my own
mother, singing
from outside the window
the river fills in the spaces
where the song ends
before it begins again, and then
there is only the river
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Boulder, David Lee, poetry conference, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Steven Nightingale on September 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »
For years I have wanted to be on the faculty at the Cliff Notes Writing Conference in Boulder, Utah, and this year, my dream comes true! If you’ve not been to this tiny town in the midst of Utah’s immense splendor, it’s past time for a road trip.
I’ll be teaching with the phenomenal David Lee, Utah’s past poet laureate, and all-around amazing Author Steven Nightingale. Workshops and performances all weekend long.
For more information about the schedule, lodging, and Boulder, Utah, visit here.
To talk with a real person about it, contact Cheryl Cox at 435-335-7550.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, poem, poetry, punctuation, semi colon on September 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »
the semicolon,
ever winking, ever promising
two independents can come together—
a tiny constellation
glittering beneath my pinkie
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, cold, frost, neglect, poem, poetry, relationships on September 25, 2017| Leave a Comment »
I return to find the basil dead,
wilted and browned, dull limp flags.
And the cosmos, bent and spent
and dead. And the beans, dead.
And the marigolds, still brilliant,
but the forked tongues of their leaves
say they are dead. What a difference
one night of cold can make, how
no matter how warm the season has been,
it irrevocably changes things.
It doesn’t matter I knew it would happen
eventually. The petunias fall all over themselves
in profuse bloom as if to say, it’s okay,
not all is lost, but it’s enough to make a woman
decide to pay attention, to be warm
in every garden she enters.
Some blooms defy the seasons.
There’s so much beauty at stake.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged knots, letting go, monkey fist, parenting, poem, poetry on September 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »
I’ve spent years learning to tie the monkey’s fist,
wrapping the long working end of the rope
around the fingers of my hand. While rocking
and nursing and feeding and soothing, I’ve held
the first set of turns in place, then made three more turns
with the rope. While reading and chasing and
swinging and catching, I’ve learned to pass the end
through the inside of the knot, to make turns inside
other turns. And pull it all tight, just so.
I have wanted to perfect this heaving line knot,
something I might use to throw to my son
to save him when he drifts away.
I have practiced the art of the throw, but it seems
I have tied my own hands by accident.
And now that it’s time to untether the line,
my hands want only to practice what they know,
holding on, holding on, holding on,
how clumsy this new art, letting go.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, shortcut, surrender on September 23, 2017| 1 Comment »
Surrender is not like this highway
with its dotted lines and passing lanes
and its well-marked exit signs.
Surrender is more a dirt country road
where you’ve taken a turn
that doesn’t show up in the map.
And then run out of gas. And
get a flat. And then, when you think
it can’t get worse, you start
to giggle, then full belly laugh.
Yeah, surrender is something like that.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dress, holding on, poem, poetry on September 22, 2017| 3 Comments »
Why do I keep you
I say to the dress
that doesn’t fit
that never has
and hold it up
to admire its sheen
then hang it up
in the closet again.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beer, learning a language, poem, poetry, Spanish on September 21, 2017| 6 Comments »
Say, “I want to drink a beer,”
says the man in the speaker.
It is seven thirty in the morning,
and I have been practicing,
for twenty minutes, how to say
Jo quiero beber una cerveza,
only sometimes the man tells me
to ask for a cold beer, una cerveza fria.
And I do. I ask for un sandwich frio,
too, and repeatedly query, Quanto questa,
how much will it cost, or else I insist,
Hablo un poco de Español, or
No tengo mucho dinero,
I don’t have much money,
but mostly, the man
with the low, clear voice prompts me
to ask for beer. Cold beer. And though
the sun has just barely risen
over the mountain, and though
I only rarely drink beer,
and though I am sipping on a latte,
driving my children to school,
I find myself craving a cold,
cold beer, preferably with a lime,
preferably served on a beach
with a breeze, the sun a giant
glittering peso, the bottle slick
with its own cold sweat,
and some man I don’t see insists
in a low, clear voice, voy a pagar,
jo voy a pagar, I’m going to pay,
and in my perfect Pimsleur accent,
I say to him, gracias, señor, muchas gracias,
and sip my cold beer, waiting
for the next lesson.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gray day, light, poem, poetry on September 20, 2017| 2 Comments »
next time it is overcast, gray
a little soggy and damp,
go for a walk, notice
how little light it takes
for the world to shine
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged patience, poem, poetry, Ralph Waldo Emerson, ripening, waiting on September 19, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Wait until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves of your lips.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Essays and Lectures”
I believe in ripeness, the wisdom
of waiting. Here on my counter,
the melon sweetens and softens.
The peppers slowly turn from green
to red. The tomatoes become less
like stones and more like kisses.
Terrible to taste an early grape,
the way its sharp juice rucks
the soft lips. Terrible to eat
the berry before it’s earned
its blush. And still, the misery
of waiting—how eagerness
rises up in us, a surge of please,
a tide of want, a rush of now.
Yes, to the wait, the awful wait,
how this trial of patience
brings us closer to ourselves,
how it makes the future inevitable
ever that much sweeter.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, smile on September 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, friendship, poem, poetry, problem on September 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »
for Barbara Ford
We sit on the couch in the low lamplight
and talk for hours about the heart,
its longing to know and be known.
I watch your hands as you speak, how
your long fingers dance. And sometimes,
my eyes catch on a moth amusing itself
at the edge of the room, content in shadow.
We are both well aware that pain
can also be a blessing, that just because
something is not going right doesn’t mean
it is wrong. There are problems
we will never solve, but tonight, it is not
about the solving of things, it’s about the feeling
of them, the willingness to lean over the edge
of the well-lit world, the thrill of fluttering
in the darkness together.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, poem, poetry, snapdragon, usefulness on September 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »
All morning, I make myself useful—
mow the lawn and vacuum
the carpet and scrub the potatoes
and slice the melon and straighten
the shelves and look out the window
and see the snapdragons I planted
last spring not because they were useful,
but because they are so beautiful.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grammar, past, pluperfect, poem, poetry, present on September 15, 2017| 2 Comments »
I’m now going to dazzle myself with the pluperfect.
—Jack Ridl
And isn’t it dazzling, the notion
that an action not only began in the past,
but was finished in the past, or,
as they say in Latin, it was perfect.
Not like these leaves, that began
in the past as green flags, but now
transform into gold flame. And we all know
what happens next. No, not like
the boy who once fit in my lap
and now looks me in the eye.
Not like the dream I had for my life
that changed before it could
be achieved. What really ends?
What do our cells not remember?
Even the dead are here in this room,
on the streets, in cafes. We carry
our history with us everywhere
we go, and it wriggles out of its
perfect cage and dances through the ending,
though we thought we’d shut the curtain,
though the director has long since yelled “cut,”
though the audience has already left,
see, here it is, even now, progressive
and as present as these cut sunflowers,
spilling their pollen all over the table,
hardening their seeds into future gold.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fruit flies, joy, poem, poetry on September 14, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Once there’s one, you know
that there are hundreds to follow
hiding in and amongst everything,
next to impossible to eradicate—
some things seem to come
in great abundance.
May joy be one.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alya Howe, Basalt Library, James Nave, poetry, poetry workshop, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on September 13, 2017| 2 Comments »
