The hands are churches that worship the world.
—Naomi Shihab Nye, “Daily”
To pour water over the aloe,
the cyclamen, the jade plant, the cactus,
this, too, is prayer. Prayer in touching
my own dry lips, marveling at the fullness
beneath fingertips. Worship in hefting
the tea pot by its thick black handle.
Worship in squeezing the sudsy warm sponge.
Just yesterday, while we were driving,
Art said to me, “Why not open to the marvelous?”
I equated marvelous with the grand, the inexplicable,
even the strange. It didn’t occur to me then
that gripping the smooth, leather arc of steering wheel
is marvelous, cradling the white paper cup full of coffee
is marvelous, fingering the waffle pattern on the dishcloth
as I fold it is marvelous. Marvelous, flipping through
skin-thin pages of notebooks. Marvelous
and sacred, my palm resting on my husband’s thigh.
Marvelous, these knobby knuckles, how they
curl around the hair brush. Sacred,
the pillowed pads of these fingers, how they
trace the lines of my husband’s face,
how they twist and tug wool around the knitting
needles, how they tap at the keyboard to fashion
language out of feeling, how they rest above my heart
and translate into praise that beat, faithful and familiar.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Manual
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chore, daily, habit, hands, sacred, worship on March 18, 2026| 1 Comment »
Places I Long to Go
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, fertile, inner landscape, moss on March 18, 2026| 2 Comments »
Every time we pass this spot on the dusty river trail,
my daughter gazes across the water to the other side,
shaded by cliffs, where moss grows thick and deep.
I would love to sleep on that moss, she says,
as her eyes go gauzy, her voice grows soft.
Living in high desert, as we do, mossy places are few.
As a girl, I had in my bedroom a whole wall covered
with a mural of a Japanese garden, its gray rocks
mostly covered in green. I, too, dreamed of stepping
into in a place so lush, so verdant, so alive even rocks
proved fertile ground. To find that kind of fertility inside me—
inviting what is sensual, vital, to flourish in the barren,
desiccated places in my heart—that is my new dream.
But it is not always easy to let in the dark. Not always easy
to let what is hard in me be broken down so something
might grow. There are places I long to go with my girl.
Some are nearby, just across the stream.
Some, breath close, are much harder to travel to.
So Good
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, good, good enough, paradox, poetry reading on March 16, 2026| 4 Comments »
In a world of bests, good is a relief. Best invites an argument; good is just a suggestion.
—Melissa Kirsch, “What’s Good” in The New York Times, March 14, 2026
This morning I slip out of my good bed
into my good green slippers. I drink good coffee
and play a good game of chase with my nephews.
They are good, good boys. I take a good long drive
with my good old friend and we arrive in a town
I have loved for years full of good memories
and good people. There we eat a good dinner
and then spend a night sharing poems.
I’m grateful for the poems that make me ache,
because it’s good to bear what’s bad together.
It’s not easy. But real. Real good. The kind of good
that makes your whole body hum, that makes
your hands clap and your heart stretch wide,
feeling so good, so good, even as you cry.
After the Chickadee Hits the Window
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boy, caring, chickadee, feeling, grief, love, pie on March 14, 2026| 4 Comments »
for Thilo
To the unmoving body
of the tiny bird in the grass
below the kitchen window,
the young boy brings a plate
of white safflower seeds.
Hours later, when the bird
has not moved, one wing still askew,
the boy weeps. His father and I
sing a death song as we carry
the almost weightless body
in a brief procession across the yard.
The boy and his mother walk
behind. Her fingers lightly rest
where his own wings would be.
There is a tenderness inside us
that knows every life is precious
and refuses to pretend otherwise.
Later, the boy carves a chickadee
into the top crust of an apple pie,
making of grief something beautiful.
I want to protect that part of him—
the part that feels, that respects,
that honors. I want to awaken
that part in us all—the part
that dares to care deeply,
the part that knows every
life matters.
Side by Side by Side by Side by Side by Side by Side
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged constellations, family, love, night, trust on March 13, 2026| 6 Comments »
We lay on the porch in the dark
marveling up at the sky, Orion’s
belt at our feet, Jupiter just up
to the left. We chatted of satellites
and the soft milky way glow; we
named the constellations we could.
And when young Winston laid his head
on my chest and I felt the gentle ease
in his small warm weight, I was equal
parts universe and human—
astonished again by how, in this vast,
cold, expanding world, we have been given
the capacity to trust. And no matter
how bleak it sometimes gets on earth,
there are also moments such as this,
when we come together to gaze into the night
and, lingering in immensity, we feel it,
side by side by side by side by side by
side by side, the gift of loving each other,
dark though it may be.
Why I Write Every Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, cliff, unknown on March 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »
in every blank
an invisible cliff
when I am brave
I meet the edge
and leap
sometimes
a splash
sometimes air
sometimes
a line will catch me
and swing me
to touch
for a moment
the infinite
before dropping me
back in the known
sometimes
I sit there
safe at the edge
count the minutes
and dream about
the dare
Suzanne Valadon Speaks to Renoir’s Wife
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art, ekphrases, erasure, seduction, suzanne valadon on March 11, 2026| 2 Comments »
You thought you could erase our affair
the way you erased from his painting my face,
but everyone knew it was me—
my head flung back in laughter,
my gaze on his lips as he painted my bliss.
Perhaps it’s his child who runs
now through my rooms. Perhaps not.
I remember his hands,
his firm touch as he moved
my body just so, just so. Oh so very just so.
I remember knowing it would never be forever.
I didn’t cry when I let him go.
Aline, I am not your worry.
Still, he will never forget me.
I gave myself completely to him for a time.
That kind of joy stains us through.
Makes us new. To erase me,
you would erase him, too.
Sharing Our Humanness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ache, blessing, connection, fear, intimacy on March 10, 2026| 2 Comments »
with thanks to James Crews
My friend James calls it the rough blessing,
the blessing that rubs, that chafes,
that scrapes. Perhaps I wanted blessings
to only feel good, to be gentle. But the word itself
comes from the practice of sprinkling blood
on an altar. Why should I be surprised when
the blood for the rite is my own? I am thinking
of how today when I was hemorrhaging fear,
my friend comforted me when I called her in tears.
I felt so loved when she listened and soothed.
Such luminous intimacy grew from my wound.
Oh, ache of being human. Oh, the blessing.