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Archive for August, 2024

Lucky

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on August 10, 2024| 7 Comments »


 
 
Like a stupid
weed, like
a persistent,
stubborn,
unrelenting
weed grown
from a seed
no one planted,
it thrives now
in the rubble
of my heart,
this unasked for,
perfect, spreading
tap-rooted
hope.

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Reunion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »


 
To drive through the starless night.
To arrive at the airport in time to greet
the traveler at the gate.
To embrace her in your arms
and nuzzle your nose in her hair.
To be nowhere in that moment
but there. To stare into her face
until the heart is satisfied
and the lungs remember
how to breathe. To see
in her eyes a constellation
that helps you navigate home. To know
reunion’s sweeter for the letting go.

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Allium sativum

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 8, 2024| 8 Comments »


 
 
Not unlike the garlic
bulbs pulled today
from garden soil,
the heart, too,
is lumpy, misshapen,
filled with strong
and good intentions.
Never quite what
I dream—but hey,
it’s not nothing
to grow where
there is no light.
It’s not nothing
to grow at all.
 

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The Opening

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 7, 2024| 5 Comments »


                  for Holiday, in the James Turrell Skyspace at Cheekwood Gardens
 
 
Each moment of the day
a song is looking for its singer—
song before the eyelids rise,
song of hunger, song of dream,
song of waiting for the phone to ring,
song of groping in the dark,
song of walking through the garden,
song of trying on silver hats,
song of seeing the city’s edge.
And still so often we miss the song,
but today when Holiday
opened her mouth and began
to sing of cumulonimbus,
her clear tune spiraled through the small
white room with such astonishing
rightness I brimmed with gold
and cloud and kin,
her bright-winged notes soaring
in my body like a murmuration,
and I opened like dawn, like sky,
as if when one person dares
to be found by the song of the moment
and sing it true, they teach
the rest of us how to do it, too,
how to sing, sing wild, sing
ourselves alive, as if
it’s what we’re here to do.

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Intimate

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 6, 2024| 5 Comments »


 
 
Mom must have been upstairs
the day I turned on the old TV
and saw a man and a woman
kissing each other.
Not just kissing.
Almost eating each other.
Mouths open, faces angling,
lips slanting to consume each other.
I stared at the hunger
on their faces and wondered
how they managed to hide
the saran wrap that was surely
between them, some thin layer
to keep them separate.
I searched the screen for any trace of it,
certain no one could ever
want to be that unprotected,
that close.
Almost fifty years later,
I sometimes notice invisible layers
that come between us—
thinner than saran wrap,
no less of a barrier.
How I love when they
disappear.

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In Common

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »


                  for Holiday and Christie
 
 
In golden light we walk
beneath the slippery elm
and the hackberry tree,
and the air is warm
and thick with the hum
of winged things. If our lives  
are made of a collection
of moments, it thrills me
that we are now all three
made of this: the slant light
of summer, the lavish green,
the thick warm air, our honest
laughter, and the brightness
that gathers to greatness
and flares just before the night.

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The Moment that Mattered

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 4, 2024| 11 Comments »


 
 
In the midst of a gnarled aspen grove
where the tree trunks were contorted,
distorted and knobby, my husband,
hiking behind me, joked,
These trees have been through a lot.
And they’re still here.
And I stopped mid trail
and turned to face him.
We’ve been through a lot,
I said. And we’re still here.
And there beneath the misshapen
trees with their leaves still green
and trembling in the wind,
we hugged and cried and cried
and hugged, knowing the full weight
of everything that might have kept us
from this moment.
Surrounded by aspen
and fields of purple asters,
I knew full body that this
was the moment that mattered.

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At the Picnic with the Parks Supervisor

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 4, 2024| 4 Comments »

With thanks to Rich Hamilton

I remember when I planted that tree,
he says, and I look at the beautiful
sensation box elder that grows
in the park, tall as the fire station,
alive as I am. I bet you remember
when this park was a dustbowl with dandelions,
he jokes. And I do, though in this
moment my feet sink into bright green grass.
I remember chasing my children
around that tree when we were younger.
I remember when that pool of shade
where people now sit was all brash sun.
I think of how much time it takes
to nurture a place. I tell myself,
sometimes goodness grows 
in the world if we wait. I tell myself,
sweetheart, time to plant trees.

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This

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 2, 2024| 5 Comments »



Walking mid-summer
in the warm summer rain
there is summer in my
step and summer in my skin,
summer in the scent of soil
and summer in my blood
and there is nothing else
I’m searching for but to walk
in the rain in the summery world
with summer in each stride
and in each breath summer
and a summer breeze with its
warm summer touch and it’s
summer, mygod, I’m alive,
and it’s summer right now,
and I, no stranger to winter,
say yes, I say yes, yes to summer.

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Poem Not Really About Spinach

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on August 1, 2024| 2 Comments »


 
 
Already bolted and wilting
in the heat, the spinach
is past prime and yet
on this first day of August
I’m able to pull two pounds
of triangular leaves
into my bowl, enough
for a generous pan
of creamy saag paneer.
Sometimes it’s not
too late. Sometimes
the world waits for us.
Sure, the stakes are low tonight,
but sometimes we get a glimpse
that things we thought
were lost are not lost
at all, not yet—just taste
that bright and earthy
green, so full of comfort,
so humble, so good.

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