Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘beauty’

After All This Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , 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.
 

Read Full Post »

One Expanding Awe

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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

Read Full Post »

On Inauguration Day, Amy Serves Me Tea

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , 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.

Read Full Post »

At the Bonfire on New Year’s Eve

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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.

Read Full Post »

On Christmas Morning

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , 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.
 

Read Full Post »

The Gift

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , 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.

Read Full Post »

So I Spend It Again

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , 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.


Read Full Post »

In the Meantime

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , 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.

Read Full Post »

Looking at the Bouquet on My Counter

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , 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.

Read Full Post »

What a Friendship Can Do

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , 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.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »