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Archive for July, 2020

Parting Gift

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 31, 2020| 5 Comments »

Parting Gift

Friends, I will be your blooper girl,

your end-of-the-credits buffoon.

You can film me as I fall, as I fail, as I flop,

as I drop the tray of glasses,

as my strapless top slips.

I’ll make it easy on you.

At least twenty times a day

I forget my lines.

At least ninety times a day,

I trip on my certainty.

Yes, I will be the one

who will flub most every punch line.

I’ll be the poster child

for sincere ineptitude.

I know, my outtakes

are better than my A roll.

But dang, the path of failure

has always served me.

And man, most of the time

I can laugh as I blunder,

laugh until you wonder why

I am still laughing,

laugh because what else

can a woman do when

gaffes are her saving grace?

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In Times of Great Darkness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 30, 2020| 4 Comments »

I want to do for you

what the sun does for me—

coax you to come

outside, to breathe in

the golden air.

I want to warm you

and enter you,

fill you with brilliance,

make your muscles melt,

make your mind shush.

I want to prepare for you

luminous paths

that span across deep space,

thaw any part of you

that feels frozen,

find any cracks

and slip shine into them.

I want to intensify your shadow

so you might better know

your own shape.

I want to encourage you

to open, wider, wider,

want to teach you

to write your own name

in light.

Find this poem published in the amazing ONE ART POETRY

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Unheard Of

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on July 29, 2020| 4 Comments »

While listening is the core of most of our communications … most people stink at it.

—Scientific American, “Now Hear This: Most People Stink at Listening!” by  Bob Sullivan and Hugh Thompson, May 3, 2013

Perhaps they lisp like tiny orange tongues,

each slender calendula petal

as it escapes from the bud

And dust, as it settles, I imagine it sighs.

I would love to hear the lulling of shadows

as they melt into dusk.

Do they shush the grating of crickets,

the buzzing of this body before I lay me

down to steep in night?

I have wondered about the spiny sound

that pinecones make when they grow

their prickles. And the tune of bones

when nothing hurts. And the blood in the heart

when we say goodbye—does it scrape?

Or shriek? Or mewl?

It is one thing to forget. It’s another

to never even know—to miss out on

the bluster of dandelion seeds,

the honeyed pitch of sunrise,

the hush inside the temple of the gourd.

It makes me want to listen

more closely to the world,

to clean out the ears of my heart.

To sit rapt with the stone that remembers

when it was red and molten. To attend

to the stretching of the root,

to the prayer of the sprout,

to the dew as it disappears.  

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Things That Can Be Lost

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on July 28, 2020| 7 Comments »

The way, of course.

Your mind, your head,

your hope, your heart.

Face. Your footing. Virginity.

Shirt buttons. Coat buttons.

Breath. Bearings.

Balance. Your deposit.

Your dignity.

Respect. Perspective.

Quarters and pens

between the car seats.

Your accent. Your appetite.

My trust. Baby teeth.

Your innocence. Sunglasses.

Your job. Your cool.

Your shirt. Your gut.

Your grip. Your hair.

The key to the house.

The key to your car.

The key to staying calm

when something crucial is lost.

Like time. Like memories—

the ones in which we had no clue

just how much we had to lose.

Like our nerve. Like our fear.

Like this day, our only chance

to show up. Like this now,

our next chance to let go.

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Setting

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 28, 2020| 6 Comments »

In every conversation

there is a table made of listening.

Sometimes the tables are beautiful,

solid, clean—the kind

that can support anything

you put on them.

Sometimes, they’re like

the tv dinner trays

of my childhood—

a little rickety, but they’ll do

if what’s put on them is light.

Sometimes they’re so cluttered

that whatever’s placed on their surface

is almost immediately lost.

Let tonight’s table have a small vase of flowers

and a candle perhaps, nothing else.

May it be small enough we might

see each other’s eyes, might notice

every nuance of breath. Whomever

I am most nervous to invite,

may I invite them. And though

the tea is just a metaphor,

may I offer. May they accept.

Find this poem published in the amazing ONE ART POETRY

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Learning

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 26, 2020| 2 Comments »

Today the shadows

teach me to love

what is dim,

the sweet respite

of obscurity

when the sun

is too much

and a tree

yields its shape

so that I might slip

my clumsy heat

out of the bounds

of the vertical world

and find instead

a cool dark pool

on the ground,

as if I’m a boat

that has discovered

at last

a slim calm eddy

in which I might rest.

This is perhaps

the way we start

to meet our deaths—

sliding into the relief

of these dark, quiet

channels.

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One Review

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

asked to rate my satisfaction

from one to five stars—

trying to submit the milky way

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Bindweed in the Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 25, 2020| 2 Comments »

All summer it’s been twisting and winding,

twining around sunflowers,

stretching across pathways,

climbing the pea vines and the tall wire fence.

If there is a fairy godmother of flowers,

she must have said to the bindweed,

“I bless you with tenacity.” And forever since,

it has lived up to her generosity.

Why do I curse it for its persistence,

when I, myself, have made a life out of stubbornness?

Oh foolish woman who longs for beauty,

but pulls the bindweed before it is beautiful,

before its pale pink flowers open to morning

delicate as certainty.

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One Capitulation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on July 23, 2020| Leave a Comment »

walking in the drizzle—

even my longing to stay dry

shines in the rain

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Family Woman

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 23, 2020| 2 Comments »

Such awkward dance partners,

this longing to follow my own pursuits,

this longing to be ever available to you.

Both want to lead.

They step on each other’s feet.

One waltzes, though the other

has put on rock and roll.

One loves eye contact, the other

loves closed eyes to better feel the music.

And yet they whirl and two step every day,

taking turns swinging and dipping and bowing.

I used to think they were rivals.

Now I know neither wants to dance alone.

Even now, they’re pushing back the furniture,

rolling up the rug. There’s gonna be a real

fine hoedown tonight.

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Amen

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 21, 2020| 4 Comments »

Oh green, I miss you,

miss how you used

to flourish in me,

no matter how brittle,

how brown I’d become.

I didn’t know then

I took you for granted.

I miss your softness,

your tenderness,

all the promise inside you,

the sunlight you carry

in your veins.

Some days I remember

what it is to be green.

Some days, when it’s gray,

I tell myself green is possible again.

Some days, when the rain

still doesn’t fall,

I practice how to break.

Some days, I swear I’ll find a way

to become green again,

no matter how unlikely,

how parched this field.

Somedays, though I long since

forgot how to pray,

the prayers find me anyway

and my empty hands

will not come down.

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There

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 21, 2020| 2 Comments »

Digging

deeper

into the soil

of self

planting

only

seeds

of you.

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One Wheeling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 20, 2020| 3 Comments »

watching the comet

I, too, hurtle through the stars—

disappear beyond the horizon

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Together

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 19, 2020| 11 Comments »

It smacks me, sometimes,

how connected we are—

though we draw boundaries,

build walls, fight wars,

call names, and kill. All it takes

is a photo of earth from space

and I’m stunned again,

how much we are in this together.

And though we’d rather not know it,

every choice we make

affects everyone, everything else.

Perhaps this is why I weep

when the woman I’ve barely met

embroiders me a sweater

with a word she knows I’ll love

and then brings it to my home.  

Because it’s proof of kindness,

a confirmation that beauty

not only exists, it will lead us to each other.

How easily two strangers

might become friends.

It can happen anywhere

on this small blue and green planet—

anywhere two people co-exist,

the invitation to be generous,

thoughtful, to think of new ways

to be good to each other.

Each kindness a bridge that spans

the world’s flaws. Each moment,

another chance to build another bridge.

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Code

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 18, 2020| 2 Comments »

inspired by Wayne Muller

I do not love you in 0s and 1s,

some straightforward proposition—

our love, my dear, is gray, is .772,

refuses to be simplified, reduced.

There is maybe in us. And perhaps.

Wouldn’t it be easier if love were like math—

a logical answer we could arrive at,

with binary digits to map it all out.

Instead, a word, a tone, a should

makes what is certain slip off its string

and the bits and values keep changing.

Somewhere between the 0 and 1

is a meadow where we might watch the moon,

a garden where outlandish fruits still grow,

a mountain we will never stop climbing.

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Transformation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 17, 2020| 9 Comments »

You need a rainstorm.
            —Paula Lepp


I need a rainstorm
on the inside, the kind
that relentlessly pours,

the kind that rearranges
everything, leaves nothing
untouched. I need a deluge

that drowns out any voices
that would offer easy answers.
I need a cloudburst to flood

everything I think I know,
that carries me until I, too, am current.
Have I gotten so dry inside,

so brittle and sure?
Give me a gulley washer,
the kind that scours

and remakes its path as it flows.
I want it, and yet
when I feel the first drops

I scramble for the umbrella,
as if it would do any good.
There it is, petrichor—

earthy fragrance of change.
The big rain will come when it comes.
There will be no stopping it then.

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Three Slow-Moving Wondrous Things

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on July 15, 2020| 5 Comments »

The heart of the blue whale

is in no hurry, only four to eight

beats per minute. And the glaciers

move their brilliant blue mass

less than three hundred meters a year.  

And forgiveness, it can move even

slower than that. It may be months,

even years before it blooms.

But how wondrous, when at last

we recognize that, perhaps through

no effort of our own, it has released

its unhurried perfume into our thoughts—

oh sweetness we thought might never arrive,

oh surprise when it touches us everywhere.

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Remembering My Grandmother

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 15, 2020| 3 Comments »

            for Merry

I loved to sit on that green and white swirled couch,

loved even more to sit on it with my grandmother.

Everything about her was soft. Her wrinkled hands,

her sagging face, her bosom-y body she was forever

trying to slim. Her voice was cloudlike. Her laughter,

fine gauze. And her eyes ever met me with silk-strong love.

Why do I always return to that one afternoon

when she let me sit beside her, reading her poem

after poem, as if she had no garden to tend, no meal

to make, no hymns to practice for Sunday’s service.

Forty years later, in my kitchen, I’m still with her on the couch,

hoping we’ll stay that way just a little longer.

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Proxy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 13, 2020| 9 Comments »

The woman who knows what to write

did not show up today. Perhaps she’s gone

hiking amongst the blue larkspur, or

maybe she’s pulling weeds in the garden.

Perhaps she got a job as a counselor or a priest,

or decided to run for political office.

I wish she’d show up again. Sometimes

it’s not easy to face the blank, to believe

there are any words worth writing. Like today,

when I read about how the abandoned fracking wells

are leaking pollutants. How today will be

the first federal execution in seventeen years.

How there are still children at the border

still crying, “¡Mami!” and “¡Papá!”

Perhaps she was simply so sad

that she went to sit in a corner, quietly,

not to forget, but to find the strength to meet it.

Perhaps she is, even now, trying to conjure

the words that might actually make a difference.

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Those Bright Lights

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 13, 2020| 3 Comments »

That was the summer

they drove the Ferris wheel into town,

erecting it in the park—

and James Taylor and Carly Simon

sang to each other over the radio

and people paid money

to throw ping pong balls into small jars

for the chance to win a goldfish;

to throw darts at balloons

for a giant teddy bear.

The park smelled of beer and grilled corn

and from the top of the ride,

I could almost see the whole town—

down to the five and dime and up to the cemetery.

Those were the days before I knew words

such as mercy or duplicity or forgiveness.

The cotton candy melted on my tongue in sharp crystals.

The Ferris wheel was gone the next day,

my pocket full of tickets I couldn’t spend.

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