The day dares me to become a tree,
dares me to root, to stay in one place,
to choose this here, to plant myself in this now,
to stretch down even as I reach up.
But there are gusts in me, and wild squalls,
whirling impulses that swirl and spin
and whisper to me to be current, be flow.
Winds in me that says go, darling, go.
And the day says stay to me. The day
says, find evergreen in the moment.
The day offers me its ground, its generous soil.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged choices, poem, poetry, presence, tree, wind | Leave a Comment »
A black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting gravitational acceleration so strong that nothing—no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from it.
—Wikipedia
Perhaps black hole is just another word
for God—a force that pulls in everything,
regardless of how that everything looks or prays or votes.
A cup that runneth—not over, but ever in. A shepherd
so adept at shepherding that nothing—
no sheep, no man, no star, no dust—
could ever be lost in its spacetime pasture.
It creates communion, obliterates separateness.
In pictures, it’s a vision of still water.
In truth, it’s unable to be known.
A force that overwhelms all other forces.
It devours some, and in others spurs growth.
And what isn’t, I suppose, another word
for God: Ledger. Valley. Garden. Death.
Rhubarb. Rod. Human. Staff.
There is this gift to see the divine in everything.
There is this force that pulls the everything in.
Every particle. Every everything. Even (my god) the light.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged astrology, black hole, god, poem, poetry, science | 2 Comments »
It happens, you know—the day opens itself
like a tulip in a warm room, and you meet someone
who amazes you with their willingness
to be a thousand percent alive, someone
who makes you feel grateful to be you.
And it’s as if life has been keeping a beautiful
secret from you—like the fact that they make
elderberry flowers into wine. Like muscadine.
Like the yellow-green floral scent of quince.
Like the perfect knot for tying your shoes.
And it turns out life does have wonderful
secrets waiting for you. Even when the news
makes you cry. Even when some old pain returns,
that’s when you will meet this new friend.
Someone wholly themselves. Someone
who makes you smile in the kitchen, a smile so real
that when you go out, the whole world notices.
It’s enough to make you want to wake up in the morning.
To go into the day. To be unguarded as a tulip, petals
falling open. You never know who you might meet.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged friendship, gratitude, luck, poem, poetry, surprise | 4 Comments »
I am thrilled to be selected as the winner of this year’s Halcyon Poetry Prize, which means that my new collection, Hush, will be published by the wonderful Middle Creek Press, perhaps as early as this spring. The contest advertised for “literature of human ecology, eco-poetry, nature-poetry, spiritual rather than religious, works based in our humanity, conscious, mindful, deep. We look for works which show connection between people and nature, people and people, people and their stories, dreams, and sacred moments, whether wild or domestic.” It’s a quiet book–a book deeply steeped in nature. And Craig Childs, adventurer and writer, is writing the introduction. Oh! I’ll keep you in touch!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Halcyon Poetry Prize, Hush, Middle Creek Press, nature poems, poetry book | 24 Comments »
I want to be quiet enough
to absorb the shouting,
still enough to subsume
the uproar, silent enough
to diminish the din. I want
to calm not just the air
but the hurt that drives
the shouts, calm the hurt
that drives the hurt.
Like bringing an ocean
to put out a candle—that’s
how bizarrely effective
I want this quiet to be—
the kind of quiet that touches
everything, tenderly,
like Persian perfume, and
invites it to feel how sweet
the communion of silence.
I want to know quiet
like a fine silken blanket
big enough to cover us all. Quiet,
like a bottle of wine that no matter
how much we pour and share
we find it miraculously always full.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged poem, poetry, practice, quiet, silence | Leave a Comment »
The hero in me
wants only a happy ending,
but tonight at the concert
every song I loved best
ended in a minor key
that lingered in the air
like a half formed rainbow,
like the scent of soil
after a punishing rain.
How do I teach that hero
to love the dissonance,
to settle into the discord
to shed her raincoat
and stand in the mess
and say ahhhhh?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged happy ending, hero, minor key, poem, poetry | Leave a Comment »
This is, perhaps, the year to learn to be big.
Spruce tree big. Cliffside big. Big as mesa,
as mountain lake. Big as in cosmos, as in love.
Being small has never served me—constricting,
contorting, trying to fit into a room, into shoes,
into a name. Let this be the year to escape all those little
rules with those little shoulds, all those little
cages with their little locks. Time to make of myself
a key, time to lean into immensity. Time to supersize
communion, time to grow beyond self. Time to
open, to unwall, to do as the universe does,
accelerating as it expands, not rushing toward
something else, but changing the scale of space itself.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged big, growth, poem, poetry, self | 10 Comments »
I am thrilled to have a poem again on Gratefulness.org, a site devoted to generosity of spirit and gratitude. This poem explores how gratitude brings us into wholeness and connection:
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged gratefulness.org, gratitude, poetry | 4 Comments »
the room so bare
where just hours ago
there was light—
remembering now
how to celebrate emptiness
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christmas, emptiness, poem, poetry | Leave a Comment »
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
—T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”
So let me speak this year in leaf,
and let me speak in stem.
Give me photosynthetic nouns
and algal interjections.
Let my syntax be made of phloem,
let my phonemes be blades of grass.
May all my conjunctions produce oxygen
may my prepositions be moss.
And let me mostly listen
with ears attuned to soil and root
And when I have words, let them be living,
may only the kindest words bear fruit.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged communication, language, plant, poem, poetry, speaking, tree | 4 Comments »
