One day, I will walk into the quiet,
calm of the empty home. No TV.
No pinging of phones.
No one asking what there is to eat.
No one wondering if I can drive them.
No one telling me their dreams.
I will hear only the sound
of rain, of thunder,
of the wind rattling the inner doors.
Perhaps I will hear my own pounding heart,
the heart I thought belonged to me.
But there, in the dim light of the storm,
I might at last know for certain
the heart is made for giving away.
There are many ways to love.
Some of them are clearest
when I am most alone.
Archive for June, 2021
On a Quiet Day, I See the Future
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, parenting, silence on June 29, 2021| 4 Comments »
Monday, Midsummer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, shoulds, summer, wildflowers on June 28, 2021| 2 Comments »
It could be any ordinary midsummer day
when the world redefines green
and the field leaps into leaf and bloom
and the birdsong plays in a nonstop loop,
but I’m sitting inside because it’s Monday
and there are bills to pay and deadlines
to meet and stovetops to scrub
and children to feed. I know
I’m supposed to seize the day and
walk in the waist-high wildflowers
that even now splay into deep purple bloom
in the alpine meadows still rung with snow,
but I know, too, there is work to be done.
Perhaps there is no such thing
as balance. There is only this story
of should versus should. For a moment,
I step out of the story and notice how
good it feels to not believe any of it,
to let myself be led by the next true thing—
this word asking to be written, this breath
asking to be breathed, this life wanting
to be loved no matter how I spend
these ordinary, precious hours.
Two Spots Left for Playshop on Wednesday
Posted in Uncategorized on June 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Why We Smile
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blessing, eulogy, friendship, Ivar Eidsmo, nordic skiing, smile on June 27, 2021| 2 Comments »
For Ivar
Today as we gently
spread mountain dirt
on your ashes
I think of
that snow blown day
three years ago
when we
at two below
were laughing
at how cold
we were and
how sticky
our skis.
It amazes me
how out of
bleakness
comes blessing.
To this day
your smile—
crooked
and wide as the mesa
we stood on—
still warms me,
your real smile
the only part
of that long cold race
I remember.
Porphyry Basin
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cold, hiking, skinny dipping on June 27, 2021| 2 Comments »
so oh slippery flesh song
of skinny oh dipping
into oh icy clear
of blue oh in the high
alpine lake, oh and oh
how the shiver oh
breath oh is oh
such wild thrill in the oh
can you oh even dream
of how good it is oh
to be oh just a few
more oh seconds
held by oh liquid snow
so oh yes so only
right oh here
and so oh yes so very
oh nakedly
yes oh alive
One Interminable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged day, exhaustion on June 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »
this day—a sentence
that cannot seem to find
its period
One Eventual Path
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cage, heart, key, patience on June 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »
so long I dreamt of a key—
now it crumbles to dust
this old cage around my heart
Safety Net
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, love on June 24, 2021| 6 Comments »
This morning I woke
thinking of all the people I love
and all the people they love
and how big the net
of lovers. It felt so clear,
all those invisible ties
interwoven like silken threads
strong enough to make a mesh
that for thousands of years
has been woven and rewoven
to catch us all.
Sometimes we go on
as if we forget
about the net. Believing only
in the fall. But the net
is just as real. Every day,
with every small kindness,
with every generous act,
we strengthen it. Notice,
even now, how
as the whole world
seems to be falling, the net
is there for us as we
walk the day’s tightrope.
Notice how every tie matters.
One Ephemeral
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ephemeral, waterfall on June 21, 2021| 1 Comment »
like trying to hold a waterfall—
this beauty
that can only be lived
The Good News
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged possibility, relief, solstice on June 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »
On this longest day
I walk right through
the line of what
I thought was
impossible, hush,
can you hear it,
the sound of fear
as it dissolves
into (oh, beautiful)
sunlight.
The Pale Scar on My Ankle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bike, childhood, daughter, father, love on June 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »
reminds me of the day
my dad held me
in front of him
while riding his bike
and fifty years later,
I remember most
the moments before
the bite of the spokes
when we were laughing
in the muggy Wisconsin June,
the sky dark with rain,
the joy of being held by him,
the thrill of going fast,
the wind in our faces.
I remember most
how he picked me up
as I cried and carried me
as if I were precious.
Fifty years later,
though he is the one
in pain, he still picks me up
and carries me every time
we speak. Thousands
of miles away, he holds
me close.
Cheers, Friend
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged champagne, friendship, wine on June 18, 2021| 3 Comments »
The day bubbles up
like champagne, a burst
of effervescence, bright rush
of intoxication, a golden
stream of goodness—
and I, walking the trail
with my friend, find
I’m tipsy on laughter
and old love, forgetting
for the moment life might
be any other way—
remembering only
celebration, indulgence,
scent of white flowers,
a sparkling that lingers,
the glass somehow
always, sweet miracle,
so full.
Mid-Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, friendship, self, silence on June 17, 2021| 4 Comments »
Sometimes
in the silence
between
the small talk
a whole life
is lived—
a life
in which
you are
exactly
yourself
only more so,
a self without
name, a self
of no
where, a
self unselved,
which
is to say
that sometimes
in the silence
of a minute
you find
some vision
so vast
so true
that you weep
before saying,
And how are you?
June Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meter, solstice, summer on June 16, 2021| 5 Comments »
I wake into the summer light
with summer skin and summer
eyes and breathe the summer’s
perfumed air and wear the sunshine
in my hair; and all around me
summer sings, cicada clicks and
broadtail wings. And evenings
steep in a honeyed glow
that transforms all the world
to gold. And if there is a winter
dream, I cannot find it in this
time when swallows wheel
and all is green and I’m
a wild and summer thing.
When It’s Hardest
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, desert, drought, love, plant, yucca on June 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »
In a time of drought
let me choose to love you
the way yucca blooms—
creamy, abundant, soft—
despite drought.
No. Because drought.
One Way to Do It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, opening, reading on June 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »
not reading the book
on letting go—
she opens her hand
Recalibrating
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mother, parenting, pillow on June 13, 2021| 2 Comments »
I would like to go inside your pillow, hear
your breath and know you are okay, catch
the tears you cry when no one else is looking.
Today, you told me you don’t want to be held,
but I still want to hold you—want to meet you
with gentleness, support. How many years
have I been the one to comfort you, the one
you would run to, the one who could make
things feel better with a kiss and a shhh
and slow rocking of our bodies.
A pillow wouldn’t take it personally
if you didn’t use it. A pillow wouldn’t wonder
what it did wrong or wrestle with letting you go.
I try to invite that softness into myself,
try to transform my woundedness into feathery
acceptance. There is some unlikely magic in this—
a downy inner quiet that doesn’t try to fix anything,
that is content with being soft. And nothing changes,
and everything changes, oh terrible surrender,
oh beautiful tenderness that appears inside this loss.
Now Everlasting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cottonwood, forever, now, summer, tree on June 12, 2021| 2 Comments »
The cotton is starting to fall from the trees
and already handfuls of white cover the ground.
Every year, it happens, this mid-summer snow,
and sitting here, I seem to exist in a now
that includes every summer—a now
of goose honk and bright pulse of cricket song,
deep green fields and whitewater.
I feel utterly tethered to the moment
and startlingly eternal—daughter
of blue sky and swallow flight, red cliff
and low golden light. What is forever
to the cottonwood trees if not now,
this very now when the tiny green seeds
are given fluffy white froth to travel on.
What is forever if not for this moment
of summer when I forget
whatever else I should be doing
and give myself up to scent of chokecherry,
prickle of grass, the unpredictable breeze.
Perspective
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, perspective on June 11, 2021| 2 Comments »
In the corner of the window,
slumps an old gray cobweb.
No longer gossamer,
it holds the spring pollen
in its dull clumpen strands.
At the edge of the web,
a long dead mayfly trembles
in the wind, its abdomen bent,
legs broken and detached,
its wings more cloud, less shine.
There is so much of me
that is dusty and damaged,
so much I would like to clear away.
So much that is spent and dead.
My friend tells me all she can see
is beauty. Though I can’t find it here,
there is at least beauty in the looking
for beauty, beauty in the invitation
to see the world with a lens as open as friendship,
to see myself with eyes as generous as love.