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Archive for July, 2020

Three Present Progressives

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

letting the stars name me

after them—

unpronounceable things happen

*

building a throne

out of meadowlark song—

kingdom with no borders

*

holding hands with the sun

wishing it would go

to second base

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One Marvelous Evening

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on July 10, 2020| 4 Comments »

weaving a little sky

into my hair—

swallows dive through my thoughts

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One Comfort

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on July 10, 2020| 1 Comment »

good to remember

when I feel like I’m drowning—

the heart floats

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One in the Center

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on July 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »

wind that tears

the limbs from the trees—

what is still, still still

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That Song

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 7, 2020| 2 Comments »

I want to slip into the song

you sang, the one with verse

about loss. I want to hang

on its notes as if they were branches

I could swing from, want to climb

through its chorus, want to meet it

in its rests, want to offer it tea.

I want to ask the guitar

about your fingers, about

how they knew where

to find the melody. And how?

I want to speak with the loss itself,

want to ask it if it’s sure its lost,

want to offer it a map made of apples

and wings and moon.

I want to hear the silence after

the song, and then beg it, beg it,

to keep singing.

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Hiking with Joan Through the Aspen Glades

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 6, 2020| 3 Comments »

We speak the way old friends speak—

knowing each other’s stories,

the nuances and undertones.

She always knows just what to ask,

just how to nudge me toward

quiet revelation. I don’t do my best

to hide. In fact, it is easy

to speak of my brokenness.

We pause in a field

where the forest has been felled

in an avalanche—

the slender white trunks are strewn

in a chaotic jumble—

but oh, how clear the view.

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On My Father’s 76th Birthday

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

Already he’s lived a dozen years longer

than any other man in his bloodline.

One died of malaria. The rest of heart attacks.

Not one of them knew how to show love.

Sometimes a river changes its course—

perhaps slowly, eroding over centuries.

Perhaps all at once in a mighty flush,

as after a flood or an ice-floe.

I want to ask him how change happened in him—

how the impulse toward anger

rechanneled into tenderness,

into patience, into a willingness to be vulnerable.

I want to believe the same might happen for the world—

that by tending our hearts more carefully,

we might jump the banks of what seemed possible.

We are all of us here to be changed.

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Taking Root

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »

a freedom bouquet—

scarlet gilia, blue larkspur,

and small white daisies—

may these flowers of the field

grow wild in your heart tonight

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Dear America,

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 3, 2020| 6 Comments »

For your birthday, I’m sending you

the sunflowers in my garden,

which is to say, I send you

something unfinished,

something with so much room

left to grow.

America, I send you

the space above the sunflowers

a space they will reach into.

There is so much promise

of beauty in you, America,

so much blossoming yet to do.

America, you’re right if you think this is symbolic.

So I send you the sunflower’s roots, too.

We all know what happens without them.

America, here’s what I most want to say—

I believe in you, America, and all the hands

that tend your soil. Happy Birthday.

It’s time to get out of your own shade.

Happy Birthday. You’ve got this.  

Home of the brave.

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Another Reason to Be a Gardener

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 2, 2020| 7 Comments »

Though it’s July, the grass is iced

from last night’s frost, and the heart-shaped leaves

of the pole beans hang limp and dead.

And so the chance to practice letting go.

It’s too bad, of course,

but the stakes are low.

It was only one row,

a handful of seeds,

a hankering for fresh green beans.

Not a livelihood. Not a child.

Not a hope. Not a dream.

Just a small row of leaves

that do what leaves do.

No one to point a finger at.

No one to pick a fight with.

Just this practice of meeting  

the world as it is. This chance to start again—

the work of the living.

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