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Archive for May, 2023

Soul Writers Circle: Two Spots Left

Posted in Uncategorized on May 31, 2023| 2 Comments »

Explore mindfulness and writing in a monthly online community. Join me and my fabulous co-host Augusta Kantra for inspiration, connection and heart-awakening conversation in Soul Writers Circle. We have several openings for our sixth season starting July 16. It’s a six-month commitment to yourself and the group, a chance to find support in endeavors that are often solitary. Monday sessions are full, but the Sunday cohort has two spots left. Let’s play!

For more information and to register: click here

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On the Night I Learn (Again) We Are Doomed

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 30, 2023| 18 Comments »


 
 
And if it isn’t deep sea mining
it is drought, and if not drought,
it will be mobs incited by memes,
and if it’s not mobs it will be
our own fear. And
the lilacs that have been here
for a hundred years are blooming
more beautifully tonight
than I have ever seen them,
every branch heavy
with sweet purple blooms.
It is all falling apart, love.
That’s what the river sings
as it carves the canyon,
as it breaks down the boulders,
as it carries the detritus, the logs.
Just tonight I heard an estimated
eighty years left for humanity.
Still, tonight the scent of lilacs
meets us with faithful beauty
and an old song of spring
rises on the lips.
How is it, despite the trouble,
I feel so much love
for this disappearing world,
so much love for this doomed race
as I begin to sing.
 

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All the Honey is Back on Shelves!

Posted in Uncategorized on May 29, 2023| 3 Comments »

Thank you to everyone who already purchased my most recent book of poems, All the Honey. Great news! It sold out of its first printing AND its second printing and now the third printing is available and you can purchase it again! 

You can buy it at:

  • Bookshop.org, (which supports local bookstores)
  • Amazon (it’s saying you’ll get the books in July … but at least it can be ordered!)
  • Between the Covers (my local bookstore … I will go sign the books before they send them out)
  • your own bookstore

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Aspen at Heart

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 29, 2023| 6 Comments »


 
 
How would it be
to live like the aspen,
to know the self
as one expression
of a glorious, radiant whole,
to live in communion
instead of competition,
to be the first to come in
where damage has been done—
and oh, so much damage
has been done.
I, too, want to grow even in winter,
in cold and naked times
when growth feels impossible,
want to be at once
both soft and strong.
I, too, want to be fueled by light
so I might offer shelter
for the rest of the world.

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One Beginning

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 29, 2023| 7 Comments »

 
 
so spindly
these seedlings
that will soon feed hundreds

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Making a Difference

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 27, 2023| 17 Comments »


            for my daughter
 
 
She is the hero of this story,
not because she killed an enemy
or fought a beast or traveled
to a distant snowy and hostile land.
She is the hero because she stayed,
which is sometimes the hardest thing to do.
She is the hero because she is kind.
Because she cries in the movie
when the letter from a dead man
arrives to talk about love.
Because every day she finds ways to laugh.
She is the hero because she holds my hand.
Because she teases me with no mercy
and knows all my flaws
and still tells me she loves me.
Because sometimes she’s scared.
Because she wakes every morning
and shows up for the day,
even though she hates mornings,
though she has seen unspeakable things,
she wakes up, opens her hands,
her heart, her eyes, her ears,
and lets life fill her.
And the next day,
she does it again.

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Blood, Like Salt Water

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 27, 2023| 10 Comments »


 
 
There is in each of us an ocean
full of secrets strange and luminous,
an ocean with depths we do not understand,
with dark we often fear,
a place almost impossible to visit
and yet it moves with us
everywhere we go,
informs every conversation,
underlies every thought.
There is treasure there,
but it belongs to the depths
the way the heart
belongs to the body.
Everything depends on this.
Lately, I’m learning to think of treasure
only as a verb,
not as a thing to be taken.
I’m learning that to live
is to be an ocean.
 

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More than Happiness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on May 26, 2023| 16 Comments »

    for Joan on her 68th birthday
           
 
I wish you the peace
that comes when we trust ourselves
to meet whatever life brings.
I wish you love beyond
happy endings—
the kind of love
that seeps into everything
no matter where the story goes.
Today, I planted cosmos
in the garden. Inevitably,
they will grow into cosmos.
This is what I wish for you—
the delight of growing
inevitably into yourself.
The thrill of knowing
your beauty makes a difference
in the world—
how, in the garden of my heart,
you are ever blooming,
like a surprise larkspur
brought in as a seed,
and now that it’s here,
it will never leave.
 
 
 

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One Foray

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 25, 2023| 3 Comments »

orienting my day
by this constellation of morels
I find myself five years ago

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Momentary Altar

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 23, 2023| 12 Comments »


On the altar of sunset,
I place the scent of lilacs
we used to pick every year
to give your teachers
on the last day of school.
I place the sound of the river
where we used to stand on the banks
and throw rocks for the joy of the splash.
I place the wild and vibrant
green of spring
and the new paths your father
has mowed in the field.
I place the ponderosa tree
now taller than you were when you died
and the golden light at the end of the valley.
I place my own naked heart.
Everywhere is an altar,
a place to remember you.
The pond. The driveway. The field.
Everywhere a place to pause,
to wish you well, to tell you
I remember. I remember.
You were here. You are here.
I remember.

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Love Lessons

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 22, 2023| 10 Comments »


 
 
There were thousands of wild iris
in the wide, damp meadow.
Forty years later I remember it, still,
the pale purple petals fluttering
in the morning breeze.
The spring air was cold;
my feet squished in the mud,
and I picked armfuls of iris,
each bloom the loveliest.
I picked and picked
as if dozens of iris could convey
how extravagantly I loved a boy.
Loved him beyond measure.
Loved him meadowfuls.
Whole mountainfuls.
It’s so human to long to express
the inexpressible.
Forty years later, I remember
the immensity of that love—
how it changed me, made space in me
for who I am today.
Love is, perhaps, rhizomic,
like iris, spreading where no one can see.
If you could look inside me now,
you’d find fields of iris, infinite acres.
I still long to pick dozens for my loves,
even hundreds, though now I also trust
how sometimes a single stem
says everything.

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One Eventual

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 21, 2023| 8 Comments »

after fifty years of spinning
I learn standing still
is another way to dance

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Yin

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 21, 2023| 13 Comments »

            after an hour of yoga with Erika Moss
 
 
Curled on the earth
like a small animal,
I bury my nose in the grass
and breathe in the surprising sweetness
of spring green and purple bloom
and soil still damp from last night’s rain,
and though my eyes are closed
the desert sun enters anyway,
infusing my inner world
with radiance, with red.
There are so many ways
I work to hold myself up,
but in this soft moment,
I notice how nothing
is asked of me and how,
when I am still,
the world I might ignore
invites itself in.
 
There is such a thing,
says my friend,
as the back of the heart.
It is, she says, like the dark side
of the moon.
I honor that dark side,
that quiet, shadowy terrain
that is no less necessary,
no less true for being dim.
There will be a time to unfurl,
to open, to shine, to rise,
but in this charmed interval,
I sink deeper, deeper
into what is cool,
what is quiet,
what is beyond my knowing.
The interval builds a nest around me.
I do nothing and feel
how I am held.

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One Sisterhood

Posted in Uncategorized on May 20, 2023| 2 Comments »

falling asleep
scent of campfire in my hair
still blazing with laughter

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The Miracle of Becoming

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 18, 2023| 15 Comments »

Add this to my list of small ecstasies.
            —James Crews
 
 
It’s a small ecstasy when,
strolling through the field,
I see the mottled tip
of the blonde morel
pushing up through bent grass.
And another. And another.
They were not here yesterday,
but now I kneel on the earth
with my blade sharp and true
and slice through the strange
and rubbery stems
and hold the handful of treasure
to my nose and breathe in
the earthy, woodsy scent.
 
So curious to think how they go
from not being here to being here.
Like when I realize I love someone,
but can’t say precisely when love began.
A life is made of such moments—
this wonder that rises
at the miracle of becoming,
this sweet gift of passing through.

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Springing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 17, 2023| 18 Comments »

All fluff and down,
the goslings bumble
in the damp green grass
and whatever was hard
in me softens and whatever
was clenched becomes loose
and I give in to the unruly joy
of watching baby geese
just learning to move.
How many other small moments
of triumph do I miss?
Oh heart, remember this.

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After the Moon Knocked

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 16, 2023| 16 Comments »

 
When she opened the door,
she could not have known
how the winds would enter, too,
how soon the sands of loss
would blow across the hearth
until drifts filled every corner,
rising in every room,
rising until she knew
the door would never close again.
All she had wanted
was to let in the light.
She could not have known
how the sands of loss
would bury the shovel,
bury the broom,
bury even her will to believe
she could ever again
lock out the world.
How gently now they hold her,
these silken dunes she once
tried to exclude.
She curls into their drifts like a nest.
So easily now the moon enters
spilling shine across the sand.
No longer needing to knock,
it offers her all the light it has.


This poem was inspired by a work of art by fine art photographer Marisa S. White, “Drift into the Unknown.” BY THE WAY!!! (I wasn’t going to tell you about this yet, but what the heck!) … this image is also the cover art for my new poetry album (!!!) Dark Praise, 14 poems of “endarkenment” with amazing guitarist Steve Law. More on that soon. This image will be paired with another poem for the album, but when Marisa asked me to write a poem specifically for this image, how could I refuse!? It haunts me, this image–in the best way. 

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All of It

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 15, 2023| 5 Comments »


 
 
Broken,
bare-hearted
naked in the catastrophe,
I smell it,
the sweet perfume
of apricot blossoms
wafting across
the leafless world.

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On Mother’s Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 14, 2023| 2 Comments »

            for Vivian
 
 
She with the shovel,
I with the rake,
we move across
the garden row
clearing and weeding
and tilling the soil—
 
how hard it is,
how heavy, and
how simple,
this essential work—
preparing for beauty
together.

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Long Distance Intimacy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 13, 2023| 6 Comments »

    for my mother
 
 
Far away, she pulls beetles from the roses.
She prunes the bushes to encourage the blooms.
Far away, she finds ways to feed the hungry,
She visits those who are alone,
and she sings to them.
How is it, half a country away, I feel her
pulling from me what doesn’t serve,
pruning so I might grow,
feeding me with intention and tenderness,
her song the song I have known since birth,
the song that never leaves me,
the love song I sing back to the world.

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