In our imperfect world/ we are meant to repair/ and stitch together/ what beauty there is
—Stuart Kestenbaum, “Holding the Light”
Today I gather the morning light
as it angles gold across the lawn.
I gather the scent of fennel fronds
in the garden and the surprising sweetness
of the one-bite strawberries
and the softness of the shawl
I thought was lost, but today I found.
I gather the weight of my daughter
as she leans into me on the couch
and the smooth burn of rye whiskey
and the purr of the cat as she naps
deeper into my lap, and I stitch
them together with the thread
of my attention.
Long ago, I learned what I focus on
creates me. Not that I ignore the bindweed,
the news, the drought, the young raccoon
dead beside the road. I do not turn away
from the stories that make me weep.
I am willing to be ferocious—
to stand up for what I know is true.
But I study what is beautiful,
what is generous. I offer it my devotion.
Even in this moment writing this poem,
I stitch in the pauses and the stumblings—
these, too, are beautiful because they are true.
I stitch in the pure potential that steeps
in uncertainty. I stitch in silence. I stitch in hope.
Posts Tagged ‘attention’
Stitching It Together
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, beauty on July 19, 2022| 8 Comments »
One Redirection
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, bird, crow, noise, poem, poetry, silence, sound on January 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »
And What Happens Next
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, intention, poem, poetry, quality, tomato on June 30, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Slicing the tomato
as if the world depends
on how well the tomato
is sliced—tell me
that it doesn’t taste
sweeter, sharper,
more red.
You Know How Frost Goes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, cold, frost, neglect, poem, poetry, relationships on September 25, 2017| Leave a Comment »
I return to find the basil dead,
wilted and browned, dull limp flags.
And the cosmos, bent and spent
and dead. And the beans, dead.
And the marigolds, still brilliant,
but the forked tongues of their leaves
say they are dead. What a difference
one night of cold can make, how
no matter how warm the season has been,
it irrevocably changes things.
It doesn’t matter I knew it would happen
eventually. The petunias fall all over themselves
in profuse bloom as if to say, it’s okay,
not all is lost, but it’s enough to make a woman
decide to pay attention, to be warm
in every garden she enters.
Some blooms defy the seasons.
There’s so much beauty at stake.
In the Darkness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, light, poem, poetry on January 20, 2017| 4 Comments »
rubbing ideas
together like sticks—
lucky to get a spark
but sometimes,
just noticing
the world as it is,
our attention
builds entire bridges
made of light
How Many Hawks Have I Missed
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, hawk, poem, poetry on September 9, 2016| 3 Comments »
But not this one,
its pale under wings
flapping and gliding, soaring
on the updraft,
the rise of it, oh,
the surprise of its shape.
How easily the world
rewards our attention,
how easily I
lose track.
Obeying the Impulse
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, gratitude, poem, poetry, spring on May 31, 2014| 2 Comments »
The world exists just fine without
our appreciation. It is not for us
that the dandelions bloom in tides of yellow
across the valley floor. It is not for us
that the elk stream in a slow brown current
before they disappear into the Englemann spruce.
And then there are the tiny empires
of grasshoppers, ants and bees—
and the underground realms of prairie dogs
and worms and rhizomes and moles—
so much of the world we never see.
And still, this drive toward gratitude.
Still this tug to pull over the car and step out,
this impulse to offer the world my attention.
As if being very still were as vital to
the moment as the scurry and swerve,
scamper and stride. As perhaps it is.
Four Gifts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, gifts, haiku, love, opening, poem, silence on October 4, 2012| 3 Comments »
clouded sky
I never doubt
the stars
*
yellow dotted line
one foot on either side
walking with the crow
*
clenched, clutched, still
the only thing that makes sense
open the heart again
*
listening
inside the wailing
silence
Love Becomes Her
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, love, moon, poem on September 30, 2012| 4 Comments »
When we use our attention to touch and open the deeper truth in a person, we not only catalyze the experience of love, we become love. The source of love is revealed to be within us; we no longer have to go looking for it somewhere outside.
—Nicole Daedone, “Love Becomes Her,” Tricycle Magazine
It is not too late for love.
Tonight the moon rose,
as it always does, but it
was not the same. It rose
as if close enough to touch,
right there, but I could not touch it.
I gave it my whole attention, then,
listened only to the sound
of it turning while we, too,
were turning, though the sage,
the rocks, the dry arroyo
did not attest to our turning.
The desert had other sounds, too,
but I had, for that moment,
ears only for the moon,
and felt, how strange, my own rising,
felt it so fully I nearly cheered
as the whole vacant shine of it
crested the mesa, cheered though
it was further away then,
or so it seemed, further away, or so,
I see, it only seemed.
Six Orbits
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, circling, freedom, losing the self, poem, poetry, sound on June 29, 2012| 5 Comments »
So busy watching my feet
move over the small stones,
dried leaves, paths of ants,
it is a long time before
I see the birds.
*
What is it I am circling?
What is this longing
to name it?
*
The slats of shadow
and light only look
like prisons.
We slide through the bars
like song.
*
The bell does not ring
when we call it bell. It rings
with the playing of it.
*
And what is playing me,
this too-solid bell of a
flesh called woman,
Hollow me, I am
diligently practicing
my one note
in the symphony.
*
All these obstacles,
and still
the unspiraling line.