Worry comes in like a fruit fly—
slips through the tiniest crack,
a crack I didn’t even know was there—
or it comes in the front door
with something I love—
and soon, worry is everywhere,
laying its eggs in all that would ripen.
Almost instantly, worry multiplies.
Of course, worry would have red eyes.
Worry doesn’t much care the season.
Winter is as good as spring.
And it circles me, buzzes me,
annoys and undoes me,
resists my attempts to be rid of it.
Invites me to learn to live with it.
I never notice when it is gone,
only when it’s here again.
Archive for January, 2022
A Fearful Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, fruit fly, insect, worry on January 31, 2022| 6 Comments »
All that Dances Through
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, grief, mirth, stillness on January 30, 2022| 6 Comments »
Though grief prefers a solemn shuffle
and mirth prefers to shimmy and skip,
they often come together
on the dance floor of the heart.
They’re not picky about the music.
Really, all they want from me
is a dance hall spacious enough
where there’s room for them both
at the same time—
a place where mirth can whirl
and grief can shamble.
When I’m small,
they push against the inner walls
and kick me in the ribs,
and they dance, and they dance.
I feel every step.
Is it true I can hold it all?
And I am what is still
as grief lumbers and mirth leaps.
And I am what is still here
long after the dancers leave.
On the Upward Swing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged light, moon, trust, whole on January 30, 2022| 6 Comments »
Barely a waning crescent,
the moon still shares enough light
to travel over two-hundred thousand miles
in less than two seconds.
It shines through the bedroom window,
its glow an ephemeral silver quilt.
It takes only the slenderest curve
to remind me the shape
of the whole. It takes only the barest
suggestion to know the enormity
of what is missing. Thank you
for these small proofs.
It takes so little momentum
to swing the pendulum
toward trust.
My Son’s First Word
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, shadow on January 29, 2022| 17 Comments »
He pointed at the grass
beneath the cottonwood tree
and said “dado.”
Shadow? I asked.
Not ball, not mama,
not cat, not dad.
Shadow.
Already at one,
he was aware of both
what is and what isn’t here—
how sometimes the light
is intercepted.
After Finn died, I dreamt
a young boy taught me
how I could help my son’s
transformation by
guiding his energy
through the shadow
of a total eclipse,
a golden corona flaming
about the circumference.
All night, certain I was awake,
I pulled luminous swirls
through the dark center, and
Finn’s energy disappeared
into the heart of the shadow,
into the light beyond.
A shadow is nothing,
of course, which is to say
it is also everything. The way
my life is now steeped
in the shadow of his life,
the way the shape of him
follows me everywhere I go.
*
this poem has been published in ONE ART
Apology
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apology, light on January 27, 2022| 12 Comments »
Apology
I wanted to shine a bare bulb
on that moment when I thought
I was right and you were wrong.
I wanted brash. Wanted glaring.
Wanted blatant, flagrant proof.
Now, in this moment of darkness,
I don’t care about right or wrong.
Don’t care about fault or blame.
I long to bring you starlight,
candlelight, firefly light—
the kind of glow that touches
everything with tenderness—
even our most prickly parts.
And whatever light lives inside us—
the light we house but do not own—
I want to discover that now
so in this darkest moment
we might find each other,
might find, even, ourselves.
The Poet Reads for the First Time Since Her Son Died
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, cinema, performance, self discovery, tree on January 25, 2022| 16 Comments »
with a line from Charles Simic, “The Prodigal”
Glade of light on the empty stage.
She steps into it, eyes blinded.
Someone in the audience
clears a throat. Someone
scuffs a sole. Many invisible
someones make no sound at all.
She has faith they are there.
She is holding a stack of papers.
Her chest contracts, rises.
So much that happens goes unseen,
a secret cinema.
She opens her mouth
and the words fall out like leaves
releasing themselves from a tree.
With each sentence she is more bare
until only her trunk remains.
She is an aspen arriving in January,
skeleton exposed.
What no one can see
are the roots. What no one can see
is she is standing on trust.
It has taken her fifty-two years
of bursting into color and
wildly waving her branches
to finally learn how
to stand still.
The other trees stand with her,
and though it is winter,
their roots grow wider, deeper.
I Would
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, loss, love on January 24, 2022| 6 Comments »
Driving over McClure Pass,
stunned by the pink sunrise
draping the snowy West Elks,
I remember dozens of times
we drove this route and love,
it makes me miss you. The way
car washes make me miss you.
The way pumpkin spice lattes
and green tractors make me
miss you. The way breathing
and walking down the street
make me miss you. And I think
of how much it hurts every
minute you aren’t here.
I think of the tears, the fits,
the fights, the long nights,
the whispers, the tenderness,
and my love, I would,
I would do it all again.
Sunday Morning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breakfast, friendship, moment on January 24, 2022| 6 Comments »
A soft poached egg
and a slice of pumpernickel toast,
a cup of English Breakfast
and my oldest friend and I
sitting at the round table a sunlit room
laughing and talking—
there are moments so ordinary
as to be perfect—moments
we feel so completely ourselves
we don’t try to hold on to the minutes.
Such moments don’t try
to put themselves in a picture frame,
don’t pretend to be necessary or grand.
They ask us for nothing except
that we spend them like change,
as if we had a lifetime supply.
Though You Are Far Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cats, connection, love on January 24, 2022| 4 Comments »
The way two cats curl their bodies
into each other, a yin-yang
of feline, I want to curl
my heart beside your heart,
no space between us. Something
about their connection is contagious—
I find myself almost purring.
When one rises,
the other nuzzles her
until she settles again.
I want that. Your heart.
My heart. An ordinary
communion. A swirl of us.
A whorl of us. And no
matter how far away,
no space between.
Apricity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged miracle, presence, stillness, warmth, winter on January 22, 2022| 12 Comments »
The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
Today the miracle is to sit
in the sunlit room and be
in the sunlit room,
to be here and only here,
here in the bountiful silence,
here in the shifting shadows,
here in the hands of midwinter,
not in this same room five years ago,
but now as the tulips
drop the soft curls of their petals
like lingering pink praise.
So seldom in these grief ridden days
do I feel a feeling so pure
as this peace that arrives
on the low-angled light
when I am quiet and still
and the world invites me
to show up for whatever
slim warmth there is, and
know it is enough.
I Bless Every Yes I Said
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged car, grief, loss, mother, son, yes on January 20, 2022| 13 Comments »
There were nights when my son
would come to me late, like midnight,
and say, Mom, come on, let’s go drive.
And though I was tired, and though I knew
the canyon roads would make my stomach turn,
I’d say yes, because I was glad he’d ask,
and we’d get in the Ford and I’d feel the thrill
as it flooded him each time he’d sit at the wheel.
The night was our cathedral.
And we’d talk, or we wouldn’t, and he’d drive
us up to the top of the Dallas Divide.
I’d feel like heaving my guts every time. But damn,
how I loved those nights. The hymn of the wheels.
His smile. His laugh. The quiet canticle of breath.
No matter what choices came later,
I have those times he steered toward joy,
Those nights when we were so alive
and we’d drive, just drive.
Preparation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged knife, letting go, loss on January 19, 2022| 6 Comments »
Not the butcher knife and not the axe—
those instruments that whack and slash.
Oh life, give me the paring knife that fits easily
in the hand. I am wounded from the larger blades,
scarred by all they’ve cut away. Am I the wielder
of the knife? Or the one that’s being carved?
If I had my way, I’d shape my days with purpose
and precision—cut away what’s rotten,
peel and trim what doesn’t serve and still
preserve the whole. I want to be dexterous,
agile, deft. I want to be careful with what is left.
And what is left—it’s become more precious
knowing how quickly it might be sliced away.
Oh, let’s be real. If it were my hand,
I’d be hard pressed to use a blade at all,
no matter how slim, no matter how small.
For each time it moves, I hear the blade sing,
when this work is done, you’ll lose everything.
And it catches the light as it shaves and pares.
And less is here. And less is here.
Not Overheard in the Parking Lot
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, grief on January 19, 2022| 4 Comments »
How are you?
she asks walking by
as I sit on my bumper
and unlace my ski boots.
And I say, The track is amazing today,
and it’s true, the snow is hard and fast
and my lungs are still burning
from pushing myself
in the cold winter air.
What I mean is, I miss
my son every minute,
and my heart feels like
a skinned rabbit still alive.
She says, What length are your skis?
I know what she means is,
Oh friend, I have felt that way, too.
And I tell her one ninety,
and we talk about how much
has changed over the years—
like ski lengths, like skins versus scales.
What I mean:
Like the way a person is here
and then they are not.
Like the way I once
could hold him.
Like the way he could once hold me.
Bioluminescence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beach, bioluminescence, dark, light, science, shine, unity on January 18, 2022| 9 Comments »
Sometimes, when I fear
the small light I bring
isn’t big enough or bright
enough, I think of that night
on the beach years ago
when every step I took
in the cool wet sand turned
a glowing, iridescent blue—
and the waves themselves
were a flashing greenish hue—
imagine we could do
what 7.9 billion
one-celled plankton can do—
can shine when it’s dark,
can shine when agitated,
can shine with our own
inner light and trust when we all
bring the tiny light we have,
it’s enough to illumine the next step
in the long stretch of night.
This Season
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, cold, grief, song, winter on January 17, 2022| 8 Comments »
It is true, every day
brings a sadness—
sometimes like a blizzard,
sometimes like sleet,
sometimes like a clear morning
of fifteen below,
but I do not wish any of it away.
On the coldest mornings here,
the birds that choose to stay
fluff up their feathers
to trap in the chill air,
warming it with their own bodies
until it becomes their insulation.
This is, perhaps, how it is with grief—
by holding it close,
it transforms from something
that would hurt me
to something I infuse
with my own being,
thus becoming something
that allows me to survive.
It would be wrong
to say I like it. But I hear
how, with every day,
it is teaching me
a new way to sing.
Practical Application
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moment, mortality on January 16, 2022| 10 Comments »
Knowing now how one moment
rewrites every moment after it;
how in an instant, the heart can trip
over its own beat and need to be retaught
how to love; how irreversible takes
only a second to say and yet
contains all eternity; how quickly our breath
can be claimed by the tides of forever,
for this I buy deep pink tulips for the table.
For this I make Dutch apple pie.
For this I walk through the canyon
in moonlight. I remind myself no guarantees.
For this, I pull you in and hold you. For this,
I stand still in the spruce trees and breathe.
After Reading the Old Mother’s Day Card
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, grief, mother's day on January 14, 2022| 7 Comments »
Again, the heart
is a too-tender thing—
its wild ache spreads
through the tinder
of the chest
until all is ravaged
and all is singed
and red is too red
and raw is too raw
and each feral beat is
a bell clanging run,
but there’s nowhere
to run to,
and love is too
goddamn alive
and each pulse
spills more
kerosene
it is a long time
before I feel
the stars
reach down
to hold me.
Temple
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, brokenness, sacred, self image on January 13, 2022| 11 Comments »
O body, cracked bell
that still sings when struck,
O leaky cup,
O broken stem,
I love you, body,
your crooked path,
your crumbling walls,
your faulty math.
I love the way
you stopped believing
you could ever
hold it all,
how you began
to let yourself
become the one
that’s being held.
I love the graffiti
on your inner halls—
scrawled names of all
who shaped you.
O body, my wreck,
my holey glove,
my street worn sole,
my crumpled page,
forgive me for years
of trying to fix you,
for believing the fable
of whole,
you, my perfect
splattered heart,
my stuttered hymn,
my sacred
begging bowl.
Off the Clock
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clock, present, time on January 12, 2022| 10 Comments »
I want to wake with no sense of what a minute is—
no watch on my hand, no dial on the wall,
no method to measure this life into units of should.
I want to lean into the spell of sunlight like orchids on the sill.
I want to be a question only the moment can answer,
want bergamot to tell me it’s time for tea.
And if there is a pressing yes, then let it find me.
Let me feel into the field of my upper back—
how spacious it becomes when I act with integrity.
Let me be rhythm of shadow and birdsong
let me be rising wind. Let me be time itself,
not the arrow of time, but the infinite sea
and the sand that slips and the silence that swells
in the absence of tick tick tick. I want to wake
to no hands but yours and mine. To be born into the day.
No was. No will. No once. No when.
No deadline. No finish line. No wrong date. No too late.
No too late. Not even a little too late. It would never be too late.