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Posts Tagged ‘beauty’

One Small Act

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on April 9, 2020| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

washing the counter

making it more beautiful

this nook in the universe

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Castilleja angustifolia

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 6, 2020| Leave a Comment »

 

IMG_6042

It’s not that they are hiding—

it’s more that they know

the power of a red dress.

Between slabs of red sandstone,

the tiny yellow green flowers

of the desert paintbrush

decorate themselves

with bright red bracts,

colorful flame-like spears

that attract butterflies,

hummingbirds and bees.

 

It’s what we do to survive,

those of us born plain,

those of us otherwise ignored.

I think of the homely girl I was

who wanted to wear

gold combs in her hair

to the middle school dance,

as if something shiny and bright

might attract the honey boys.

 

I want to go back to that gym

with its streamers and balloons

and take the gold combs

out of her mousy brown hair

and tell her the brightest parts of her

are inside. I want to tell her

that being a small green

and yellow flower

will serve her.

 

I want her to know

that a day will come

when she’ll walk in the desert

and feel so at one

with the cliffs and the scrub brush,

the lichen and the Mormon tea,

and that in that moment

when she loses her sense of herself

and merges with slickrock

and paintbrush and sky

it is then she will be most beautiful.

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Some Enchanted Evenings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 27, 2020| 6 Comments »

            with gratitude for Dennis McNeil

Every night now as I make dinner in Colorado,

I listen to a tenor sing live from his back porch

in California near the coast.

While I chop onions and chard

and sip on sauvignon blanc,

he belts tunes from Oklahoma

and Phantom of the Opera,

patriotic songs and Frank Sinatra,

and I sing along, my small soprano lifted

by his generous voice that baptizes the room.

This is the world I believe in—

a world ringing with beauty.

A world where people share their gifts

with strangers, knowing our lives

depend on this.

Between songs, he toasts us with gin,

and smiles. I return his toast with wine.

This is the way we carry each other

through difficulties, one song at a time.

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Especially When It Seems Impossible

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 14, 2019| 5 Comments »

 

 

Try to praise the mutilated world

            —Adam Zagajewski

 

 

The cratered earth

and the blood stained shirts

and the men with guns

and the hate sharp words

and the sour rooms

that never see sun

and the rashes, the cancers

the blackened lungs

 

and still, there are paths

in Ohio woods

where upended trees

show elaborate roots

and the water seeps

in the ancient gorge,

and dead leaves fuel

whole dominions of soil

 

and though beauty

can be hard to reconcile,

worse to ignore it,

worse to look away,

worse in this mutilated world

to pretend we don’t have

ten thousand times ten thousand

reasons to praise.

 

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The Way the Spider Does

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 23, 2019| 2 Comments »

That is the way

I would like to meet the world,

my work both beautiful

and useful,

bringing into any

dark corner a lattice

for gathering light.

And though I may

be feared, hated, reviled,

still, I’d show up,

delicate and fierce,

I’d show up.

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Staring at the Penstemon, the Scarlet Gilia

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

A flower in the field

is always changed by rain.

It is never indifferent

to sun. Even the slightest

of breezes will bend it,

will rearrange. An ant

walks through its center—

now so much more is possible.

It never pretends

to be unaffected by the world.

I have so much to learn

from the flowers of the field,

how they never turn their backs—

they don’t even have backs.

How they withstand hail

and flood and snow and chill

and still, they bloom,

they spill seeds, they

bring all the beauty they can.

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One Persistence

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 30, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

in my thoughts

a tap-rooted weed

sometimes I notice

its beautiful pink blooms

before I pull it again

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Perception

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

beside the floodplain

acre after acre of pale blue

thousands of wild iris—

 

just thinking of sharing them

they become (is it possible?)

yes, more beautiful

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Thank You Letter to the Pansies

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 5, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

For though it is cold and bitter,

you raise your bright faces

and radiate loveliness—

as if to prove what is delicate

can thrive in adversity.

 

There is so much chill,

and sometimes I forget

I can meet bitterness with softness—

I think I, too, must learn

to speak the language of sharp.

 

But you, pansies, purple and yellow,

white and maroon, you remind me

that softness can be resilient,

that one small beauty

changes everything—

 

and if today we are able to shine,

despite cold, despite callousness,

then shamelessly, splendidly

let us shine.

 

 

 

 

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And Just Like That

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 15, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

the deep field of snow

with its crystals and diamonds

turns to mud

 

and the stem of purple orchids

drops its blooms

until it is only stem

 

and we, too, rearrange

and become not beauty

but its source

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