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.