all those beautiful notes—
letting them fall from the score
and not rushing
to arrange them again,
listening as new songs arise
The white sauce whisked to smoothness
before the cheese is added,
and the elbow noodles boiled till they’re al dente,
the Pyrex buttered with long looping swirls of the fingers,
the cheddar spread evenly on top.
It is not easy for most people to see
devotion in the mac and cheese.
It doesn’t look like prayer.
But it’s there.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cooking, dinner, food, mac and cheese, poem, poetry, prayer | 5 Comments »
And so it is that Love
threw at my feet her glove,
a long white one, perhaps,
but nonetheless a glove.
I took it up because
I knew the rules, and Love
looked me right in the eyes
and speared me with her words:
“It’s easy to fall in love
with spring, but can you care
for everything—the dross,
the dreck, the scum, the muck,
the loss, the wreck, the grime,
the dust? And can you find them
in you, too? And can
you fall in love with you?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged love, poem, poetry, self love | 6 Comments »
The bluebirds return.
It never occurs to me to chastise them for leaving.
It’s what they do.
All day, I think
of their shallow wing beats,
their slow flight,
their bright blue fluttering,
and how easily, how instantly yesly
my heart rises up to meet them.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bird, bluebird, poem, poetry, returning | 2 Comments »
How has pride helped your family?
That is a question I’ve never asked.
Nor How do you treat yourself
when you think “I must give others choices?”
And suddenly it occurs to me
that I always ask the same questions.
How was your day? and Peanut butter
sandwich or bagel with cream cheese?
I have been thinking of new questions today.
What do you have to teach me?
Earth, what do you want? and
Where do I begin? But these are still
questions I can think of. I want to learn
new questions, questions I don’t yet know to ask.
Questions that scare me. Questions that make me
weep just hearing them. Questions
I know I will spend a lifetime
learning how to answer
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged poem, poetry, question | Leave a Comment »
I am reborn into the world of radiance—
crystalline icicles, glittering reaches of snow—
and whatever in me is old brown stick,
whatever in me is withered rose hip,
whatever is desiccated and dead takes notice
of the shine and says, Teach me that.
I am reborn into the world of drip
and melt and streets of mud,
and whatever part of me is muck-squeamish
and sludge resistant goes walking anyway
and wallows and squishes and slips and laughs.
In that slippery moment, the part of me
who has died becomes lotus.
And who is it in me that scoffs
and says Who are you to be lotus?
I show her diamonds in the field,
the big blue dome of sky, the vast
expanses of glistening mud,
and I ask her, Who are you not to be?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged mud, poem, poetry, shine, spring | Leave a Comment »
In our fourth episode of Emerging Form, a podcast on creative process, my co-host Christie Aschwanden and I explore Getting Started. Ever have a creative project you just couldn’t seem to begin? Ever been stared down by a blank page? In this 28-minute episode, we look at lots of tips for getting started, we discuss working through perfection anxiety, paralysis of analysis, the blank page blues and so much more. Then we interview amazing poet and writing coach Judyth Hill and ask her two burning questions about how to get started. Join us!
Also, check out our back episodes on emerging form, is talent necessary and existential despair.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christie Aschwanden, creative process, Emerging Form, getting started, Judyth Hill, podcast | Leave a Comment »
I knew that they were poisonous, the berries.
Still, I used them to make soup. They were
the most beautiful shades of yellow, green
and orange, and they popped when you squeezed them
and spilled their sticky juice, their tiny seeds.
I’d stir them into puddle water with handfuls
of ripped green grass, small stones, broken sticks.
Then I’d stir. Stir and chant into the old silver pot,
chant words I imagined had been sung long before.
It was a soup, I knew, that could heal.
A magical soup that could nourish the world
just in the making of it.
Years later I consider what I knew then—
how belief is the most important ingredient.
How all healing begins with a bit of poison.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged belief, berries, healing, poem, poetry, poison | 2 Comments »
The way the spruce tree
holds the wet snow—how
in a blizzard its branches
will bend and bend
and bend until they release—
that is the way I want to love you,
want to trust that I can hold
the weight of you as you fall,
as you continue to fall,
hold you until it seems I will break
and then, just when I’m sure
I can’t take any more,
release you back into yourself—
not in anger, not in fear,
not with guilt—release you
with green resilience
so that come the next storm
I am prepared
to catch you again, again,
and let you go.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged letting go, parenting, poem, snow, spruce, tree | Leave a Comment »
the glass half empty
she keeps filling it
never noticing
in the bottom
all the tiny holes
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged glass half empty, poem, poetry, suffering | 3 Comments »
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