Walking in the field
or touching your cheek,
eating a thin slice of pear
or listening to you breathe,
I understand now
how everything, everything
is stitched through by grief
and somehow that makes
the weave of this quiet moment
beside you even more
unbearably beautiful.
Posts Tagged ‘beauty’
By What Strange Truth
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, grief, marriage, paradox on March 24, 2025| 6 Comments »
How
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, emptiness, geese, life, loneliness, spring on March 17, 2025| 12 Comments »
The pond ice gone a single day,
and already the wild geese
have returned, filling the open water
with riotous honking. Even
the backyard feels like a teaching
of how every emptiness invites
something to fill it, if not feather
then feeling. I think of how
in my most lonely moments,
some strange beauty has wandered
into my vision or woven its singular
song into my ears and I can’t help
but feel infused by life, the way
a trickle of water slowly—
almost imperceptibly—
will eventually fill a vast basin
till its water spills out the gulleys.
Perhaps you’ve felt it, too,
when you’re barren. Void of hope.
Then. A pink cloud.
An unruly clamoring of geese.
Still that barren, hopeless feeling,
but also, there it is, a single green tip
of garlic planted five months ago
that finds its way up to the sun.
Anyone can see she’s a beautiful woman, but god,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, generosity, goodness, kindness, ping pong, play, role model, transformation on March 16, 2025| 9 Comments »
for Erin
Anyone can see she’s a beautiful woman, but god,
she has never been more beautiful to me than when
I brought my great nephews to the loft of her barn
and she picked up a red ping pong paddle and let
the small, fretful boy across the old green table make up
the rules for the game. And every time he’d change the rules—
assigning points for hitting the ball over the exposed beams
of the barn or points for hitting the ball into narrow window frames—
no matter the rules he contrived, she would shrug and say yes
and laugh and let the ball be forever in play. There was sunshine
in her voice when she praised him, pure radiance
in the way she squealed as the ball ricocheted
in the rafters, honest incandescence in her smile.
This is how generosity and goodness survive—
they’re passed on one brief interaction at a time.
When the boys and I left that dusty, sacred space,
fully covered in dust and hay, I swear we, too, were luminous.
After All This Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, beauty, natural world, praise on February 19, 2025| 4 Comments »
my heart still leaps up
for red rock cliffs
that rise from the river,
still thrills at the way
spruce trees grow
(how do they do it?)
out of near vertical walls,
their evergreen branches
bearing the silver
weight of snow.
The older I get,
the greater my wonder.
The older I get,
the more grateful I am
to rise into morning.
The older I get,
the more I want
to offer my breath
in praise of what is beautiful,
resilient and strong.
The turmoil is all around us,
and yet there is so much
that finds a way
not just to survive,
but to shine.
One Expanding Awe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awe, beauty, daughter, love, sky on February 2, 2025| 4 Comments »
for Vivian
when she can’t stop
falling in love with the blush of sky
I can’t stop falling in love with her
On Inauguration Day, Amy Serves Me Tea
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, brokenness, inauguration, tea on January 21, 2025| 13 Comments »
The clay mug had clearly been broken,
even shattered, then reassembled
with a clear amber glue that allowed
me to see winter sunlight shining through
its walls when I lifted the mug to sip
the rich black tea. I swear, the drink
was even more delicious served
in a vessel so thoughtfully remade.
All day I thought of broken things.
All day I thought of repair. All day
I thought of ways to make beauty
out of what looks, for a time, like despair.
At the Bonfire on New Year’s Eve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, bonfire, falling in love with the world, new year, wonder on January 1, 2025| 4 Comments »
To the list of things I will likely forget,
add the color of the sky tonight
as we stood around the bonfire,
the way the deep blue gave way
to a deeper blue, to a deeper blue,
until it was blue no more—
every moment more lovely
than the moment before.
How many moments of wonder
have I forgotten in just this past year?
The forgetting makes them no
less wondrous. In fact, as I stood
at the bonfire, I was aware of all
the wonder stored in this body,
how it has shaped me, created me,
as much as any food I’ve eaten,
as much as every walk I’ve taken,
as much as any vitamin. And so
I gathered it in me, the vision of sparks
against the clear night sky, and Venus
perched atop the barren tree. The heat
of the flames and the crackle
of trapped moisture turning to steam.
There will be times this next year
when I desperately need wonder,
and though I will likely forget
the particulars of this night,
let me not forget how to be stirred
by beauty, remade by it, even.
So I practice now, this art
of falling in love with the world.
Come tomorrow, I will practice again.
On Christmas Morning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, breaking, christmas, ephemera on December 26, 2024| 3 Comments »
It was broken when I opened the gift,
the long ear of the small clay bunny.
The giver apologized, but how could she
have known that in the breaking
it became that much more precious—
aligned with the truth that all things
break, and the breaking makes
them no less beloved. Perhaps more so.
What surprised me was how the break
cleaved a perfect heart shape, a message
hiding inside the whole. I cried then,
not because the figurine was broken, but
because I am gloriously, terribly broken, and oh,
it’s so beautiful to see it, the love in everything.
The Gift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged amaryllis, beauty, gift, grace on December 25, 2024| 6 Comments »
How does the amaryllis bulb do it,
store so much life inside its thin brown
wrapping? How, from such a small
round package, does such a large
stem continue to rise? I don’t know
how it offers such abundance
from such a small space, but
whatever grace it is that infuses
the amaryllis, I want to believe
it could happen anywhere—
so that a country or a woman
or even a minute could be
a gift wrapped in nothing more
than its own dry skin, a gift
that surprises the world as it
produces extravagant beauty
day after day, perhaps even
surprising itself as, seemingly
from nothing, it begins to bloom.
So I Spend It Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awe, beauty, bird, heron on October 3, 2024| 8 Comments »
Before sleep, I touch it again,
that moment this morning
when I slipped out before sunrise
and sat in the pale blue light
and watched a lone heron
trace the curve of the river
before disappearing behind
golden cottonwoods.
It lasted, what, three seconds?
But those instants of awe
have returned to me again
and again like a coin I spent
on something beautiful
only to find, by what miracle?
it returns to burn a hole
in my pocket again.
In the Meantime
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ephemeral, flood, rain, service, weather on September 2, 2024| 13 Comments »
It is only a matter of time before
the next monsoon brings a surge
of frothing red water hurtling
down the gulley, and yet my neighbor
landscapes the flood path
with meticulously placed rocks
and raised beds with bright flowers,
and every time I drive by I want
to cheer for her foolishness,
cheer for all who make beauty
certain it will be destroyed
and relentlessly choose
to be in service to beauty anyway.
Looking at the Bouquet on My Counter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, flower, garden on August 19, 2024| 4 Comments »
Like tiny, earthbound fireworks
that flourish in my garden,
the flowers of wild bergamot
flare purple, their slender petals
curl back, and I am reminded
how small it can be, our chance
to blaze, to be beautiful, to spread
our sweet perfume, and still make—
at least in one life—a real difference.
What a Friendship Can Do
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, connection, daughter, friendship, love, mother on August 18, 2024| 7 Comments »
for V, L, C and M
They know they are beautiful.
The way late-summer snapdragons
know they are beautiful, whether
they’re budded or blossoming
or making new seed. The way
the sky knows it’s beautiful whether
it’s wearing the pink silks of dawn,
the deep blue shift of midday or
the soft black drapes of night.
They walk down the street and
a wake of laughter follows them.
Even their shadows, joined
by the hip, are beautiful.
Everywhere they go, the world
seems to open. They are not beautiful
the way cruelty is sometimes beautiful—
shiny, powerful, seductive.
They are beautiful the way only
love is beautiful—as if there is
a golden thread that connects them
to each other, to everything they touch.
Poem & thank you
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, death anniversary, love, mother, walking on August 14, 2024| 26 Comments »
Dear Friends,
Three years ago today I wrote a letter saying that a terrible tragedy had happened to our family. Two weeks after, I shared this letter about the death of our son. Since that day, I have felt so much love, so much support, so much kindness, so much compassion from you. And today I can see so so clearly how you carried me through this most difficult time with your love, prayers, letters. Thank you. Thank you. I am so grateful for every one of you that has sent love, silence, words, thoughtfulness. It has meant so much to me. I thank you. I honor you. I wish you deep peace. Thank you. Thank you.
Love,
Rosemerry
*
On the Anniversary of Your Death
Your dad and I walked. Walked
for hours. Walked through deep woods.
Walked to tree line. Walked higher
than that to the place where larkspur
still bloom late summer, where
the paintbrush are still dusky pink
and creamy white, where marmots
sit atop tall rocks and squeak. We walked
and I could not not see the beauty.
Everywhere, the deep purple gentian
unfolding. Everywhere, the melted snow
flowing. Everywhere, beauty, so much beauty.
As I walked, I invited the past to join me.
Memories of tears, police and silence waded
with me through wildflowers up to my shoulders
and skinny-dipped beside purple penstemon
in the high alpine stream. Memories
of you as newborn, you as a boy, you
as a teen, they all joined me in eating
wild raspberries more tart than sweet.
Memories of how your sisters and father
and I have stayed alive hiked with me
beneath waterfalls and along sheer cliffs.
And so it is your death is always
here and not here. I saw myself
a gentian, opening, though frost
is coming soon. I saw myself a rivulet
that flows through it all. I saw myself
as mother, and marveled how you
are all ages at once to me now.
And when I cried, I kept walking.
Except when I stopped to cry.
All day, I put one foot in front of the other.
There is no wonder in this, and yet,
all day, the ache of it, the wonder.
One Caress
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, beauty, hands, love, touch on June 8, 2024| 4 Comments »
touching you
even these old scarred hands
become wings
Learning from the Painting on My Kitchen Wall
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ekphrasis, painting, rob schultheis on June 2, 2024| 2 Comments »
with thanks to Rob Schultheis
She is beautiful, the woman
on the wall with one long braid
and an owlet perched on her hand.
Not beautiful the way young girls dream,
but beautiful in the way old women dream.
which is to say she is deeply seen.
Sometimes I swear she watches me
as I slice the shiitake, as I chop the kale.
Her eyes are serious and always keen.
Her gaze makes me beautiful, too,
beautiful the way a morning is beautiful—
because it arrives every day as if
night cannot contain it; beautiful
the way the sun is beautiful, because
it needs no praise to share all its light.
The Beholder
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, future self, self talk on May 7, 2024| 6 Comments »
I was beautiful then, I think,
when I look at the picture
that Facebook shows me
from nine years ago.
I was slenderer, my shoulders
well-muscled, my brown hair
not threaded with gray.
But I remember the day
that picture was taken,
and I know full well
the woman smiling did not
believe she was beautiful,
though perhaps she would
have looked at an image
of herself from nine years before
and thought oh, I was beautiful then.
How is it beauty is something
I can’t see in myself in this moment,
only from a decade away?
So today, when I look in the mirror
and see the papier-mâché skin
above my eyes, the deepening lines
that etch my lower lip to my chin,
the thick hips, the thick thighs,
I try to see myself with the eyes
of myself nine years from now
knowing she would look
at the woman in the mirror
and say to me, sweetheart,
I’m not surprised you cannot see
what I see, how the broken world
has opened you, changed you.
And though it has nothing to do
with your eyes, your hair,
my goodness, you are beautiful.
If the Heart Could Dog Ear a Day, There Would Be This Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, grace, memory, photograph, rain, reverence on March 12, 2024| 11 Comments »
The autumn rain was not warm, but soft,
the kind that makes everything shine.
Even the sidewalk. Even a Tuesday.
Likely the air smelled of leaves and cut grass.
Likely the birds were a riotous chorus,
because that’s how it is here in fall.
What I remember so clear is how you
rushed out the front door
in your favorite hand-me-down dress
with brown velvet polka dots
and a pink satin sash—
mighty fancy for a day spent at home—
and began to dance on the driveway,
both arms lifting into the drizzle,
an elegant twist to both small wrists,
one leg stretched straight,
your bare toes pointed to the pavement,
your face raised up to the rain.
It’s your smile that startles me,
then and now, a look of deep contentment,
measureless pleasure in being.
Over ten years later, I still see it in you,
something utterly unfakeable, wildly true,
the capacity for joy beyond the frame.
It vibrates in me like the tone
of a gong struck gentle and long,
until I too am shining
with trembling reverence,
astonished by the grace that’s here.
Even when it’s gray. Grayer. Even when it’s cold.