and when
the larkspur
petals fall and when
the fall begins to sing
and when the song weaves
through the loss and when
the loss dyes
everything, when
everything is
emptier and emptiness
is whole somehow, when
whole is what a life
does, when life is
what is now, when
now is
ever changing
and changing knows
no end, when
any ending
I might seek is
just another
when
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged change, eternity, fall, grammar | Leave a Comment »
And if I felt into that dark ache
in my gut, would it cover me
with its stench? Would it stick
to me like tar, like muck, like pitch?
Would it suck me in like quicksand
so that the more I tried to save myself,
the deeper in I would sink?
And if I waved from its depths,
who would save me?
And if I don’t meet it at all,
what if I don’t meet it at all?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged fear, unknown | Leave a Comment »
Three poems of mine came out today in ONE ART: A Journal of Poetry, an online journal that I love to read. Please check it out–it’s a great place to find other poems and poets you’ll love.
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
How does she do it? She hitches a ride on the blow, a stowaway on that which brings her down.
—Teddy Macker, “The Mosquito and the Raindrop”
There I was, making tea in my kitchen,
when fear hit me like a school bus.
I didn’t need a scientist or therapist
to tell me it hurt.
I screamed: Arghh! I shouted: No!
But after smashing into me,
fear just opened the folding glass door
of the bus, yanked me on,
then plopped me into a green vinyl seat.
I’m scared, I said.
Yeah, fear said. ’Cause I’m scary.
Yeah, I squealed, as the bus careened
through the couch, through
my bedroom, through the splintering
dining room table.
What if I lose everything? I said to fear.
Yeah, said fear, what if you do?
And who will I be when everything changes?
Yeah, said fear, who will you be?
Then he opened the door
and shoved me off the bus
and I was standing again beside
the familiar green counter,
tea cup in hand, not a drop spilled.
Who will you be? he shouted
from the half open window.
I took a deep breath,
not knowing how to answer.
Good, fear said, as if uncertainty were a gift.
And who, fear said, as the bus peeled away,
who are you now? Who are you, really?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bus, fear, teddy macker | 7 Comments »
hovering over
the generous blank
the pen wonders how to improve
on all that potential—
oasis without a trail
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ars poetica, blank, writing | 2 Comments »
I meet her at the Peace Garden gathering
where she’s singing and dancing for peace.
It’s September 11, and her belly is round
and moon-ish. She has no wrinkles yet,
no flashes of gray in her hair.
She is so sincere as she recites poems,
as if with right words and right songs
and right moves she could help
create a peaceful world that her baby will enter.
She’s a month away from her due date
and I don’t tell her those cramps she’s feeling
are contractions. I don’t tell her
he’ll cry for a year. I don’t tell her
about how they’ll laugh too loud together
how they’ll both thrive in the small night hours,
how sixteen years later she’ll marvel
at how love rules her life
in the fiercest and most tender ways,
how the boy will have grown to six foot four,
how he will teach her about fast cars and graphic cards
and forgiveness and humility and apps.
Sixteen years later, she will be less herself
and more something larger, more
driven by love than ever, though it
is nothing she could have imagined.
No, I just say, Nice to meet you. You look familiar,
like a woman I used to know well.
And she smiles in a dreamy far off way.
She thinks she knows what will happen.
Yes, I remember that well.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged birth, meeting the self, motherhood, parenting | 9 Comments »
Have you ever wanted to be a SECRET AGENT??
Perhaps you’ve already joined Secret Agents of Change–perhaps this is your first inkling that such a covert organization exists, but in all cases:
My friend Sherry Richert Belul and I invite you to participate in a very special four-part mission: Operation Love. We’ll be hosting secret missions on the 11th of every month through the end of 2020. Here’s the bottom line: For every mission I will share a poem and Sherry will offer a heart-opening, simple, surreptitious prompt to send you out into the day with purpose and love.
We’re hosting an Emergency Secret Mission on Friday, September 11th and we hope you’ll don your agent’s badge and join us. The world is in need of your love, light, and stealthy way of adding doses of compassion wherever you go.There are two ways to participate: 1. Live! Join a live Zoom call with me and Sherry on Friday morning from 7:30- 8a.m. PDT ( 8:30-9 a.m. MDT, 9:30-10 a.m., CDT, and 10:30-11 a.m. EDT) and we’ll not only share a poem and announce the mission, but we will also roll up our sleeves and get into action–together! Please join us live if you can; we’d love to see your beautiful Secret Agent faces and feel your stealthy, loving, ninja awesome agent energy while we are on live. Or, if you prefer to join audio-only or lurking-only, those are just fine, too!(Note: please bring paper or a pretty notecard and a pen.) 2. Via Replay! We will post the 30-minute video and you can participate anytime on Friday or over the weekend. If you are on our secret agent mailing list (join here), then you will receive an email with the video link + we will also post it in our Secret Agents Facebook Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/SecretAgentsOfChange). (Note: the poem and mission will be in the first five minutes.)No matter which way you participate, you’ll report back in our Facebook Group to let us know how your mission went.No matter which way you participate, we love you and honor you!Zoom details down below our signature.Gratefully your Spymasters,Rosemerry and Sherry
PS: If you have friends whom you think would enjoy these kinds of missions, please have them sign up here: https://simplycelebrate.net/secret-agents-of-change. The more the merrier! We will notify everyone via email when the next Operation launches! Also, make sure you send them to our Facebook group if they want to join in Friday’s LOVE!How to join the live call: Topic: Secret Agents of Change: Operation Love 2020Time: Sep 11, 2020 07:30 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)Join Zoom Meeting by computerhttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/84910769888?pwd=S28xZFBBSVBQUGd4M3FBUkIwUDNBUT09Meeting ID: 849 1076 9888Passcode: 438699Join by One tap mobile:+14086380968,,84910769888#,,,,,,0#,,438699# US (San Jose)+16699006833,,84910769888#,,,,,,0#,,438699# US (San Jose)Join by phone:Dial by your location +1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 876 9923 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)Meeting ID: 849 1076 9888Passcode: 438699Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kpcDeqeO9
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Then let me measure my life
not in days, not in years,
but in how many sunflowers
grew in my gardens
and how many times
I stopped to notice
how beautiful they were.
Let me measure my life
in lines of poems
that slipped me
more deeply into the world
and in cups of earl gray tea.
Let me grow old
on belly laughs.
Let me know my true age
in kisses. And though
it is a finite number,
let me lose count.
In hug years,
let me be ancient.
In fist years,
let me always be young.
And let me measure my life
in songs that insisted I sing them.
May it equal the number of times
they were sung.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged aging, counting, numbers | 4 Comments »
for Grace
I’m too grown up now to play family,
says the six-year-old girl. But I hear
in her voice that part of her
still loves the game.
I long to tell her that now,
at fifty, playing family is still
one of my favorites.
I’m less wild about the version
where I’m the mom telling the kid
no, they can’t get the toy they want.
But I like the game when I sit on the couch
and say to my son or daughter,
Hey, come snuggle in, and they do.
I like it when we stand around the kitchen counter
laughing at whatever we’re laughing at.
I like when we’re driving in the car
and I say, Hey, sweetie, how was your day?
Sometimes, I play dress up in my own clothes
and wear what a mother would wear.
I even make breakfasts and lunches
and hide the M&Ms.
And I laugh to hear my own voice say
what a mother might say:
Clean up your room, please.
Time for bed now. Now.
You have got to be kidding me.
I love you. Oh my, how you’ve grown.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged family, game, growing up, mom | Leave a Comment »
