Posted in Uncategorized, tagged be here now, bird, Corona Virus, listening, presence, song on March 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Even as the snow was falling,
the birds in the branches
kept singing into morning,
easing their bright notes
into the thin gray spaces
between snowflakes.
There are days, imagine,
when the birds go unheard.
And it isn’t for lack of song—
the single note chirp
of sparrow, the bass of raven,
the chickadee’s hey swee-tee.
Some gifts come only
when we stay in one place,
come only when we are alone,
come only when we stop praying
to be somewhere else and instead
pray to be here.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beach, bird, cormorant, love, sea on February 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »
And while I am at it, I should like to send you
a postcard from the shores of my body,
wish you were here, it is warm and there
are so many places for us to explore
together—but even as I write these words
the letters grow ink dark wings and fly
over the sea, a colony of cormorants,
silent as they soar, and I a beach with no footprints,
the waves lapping, everywhere the scent, the sting of salt.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, chickadee, cold, importance, priorities, three word lines on February 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »
And so, although
there’s so much
work to do,
I step outside
and let February
have its way
with me—cold,
dusted with snow.
Hard to believe
anything can grow.
But singing high
in cottonwood trees
are the chickadees.
It’s not hard
to think, This
is the most
important thing I
can do today.
I think it
until I forget
to think it,
until I am
simply standing there
in winter air
pledging my ears
to the sound
of the birds—
such a simple
song. Funny no
part of me
longs for other
work. Funny how
soon it becomes
everything.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alabama, bird, meditation, pelican, poem, poetry, stillness on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The pelican dives
into the water,
rises again. Hovers.
Dives. Rises.
Each time, the water is quick
to forget the intrusion
loses its ripples,
stills. A thought
is a kind of a pelican.
A woman is a kind
of a bay. The pelicans
will always dive.
The bay will always
return to stillness.
A woman might
learn to live this way.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, choice, poem, poetry, present moment on September 24, 2019| 2 Comments »
It could happen any time, tornado, earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
— Yes, William Stafford
It’s Saturday and I’m choosing to sit on a broken fence,
the logs all weathered and fallen.
I am choosing to sit in the sun on a broken fence
beside a dirt parking lot in a high desert.
Perhaps I do not really believe
that this is the only moment that matters?
Perhaps I don’t trust that I could be gone,
that all life could be gone in one blink,
in one bomb, in one meteorite.
Or is it that I choose to sit on a broken fence
beside a dirt parking lot with the scent of pine
edging each breath and the sound
of cottonwood leaves rustling then stilling
because this, too, matters, this willingness
to treat each breath as if it were the first,
to treat each place as if it is the last
and give it my full attention. To be like the birds
sitting on the barbed wire knowing now, now
is the moment to sing.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, perfectionism, piano, poem, poetry on July 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »
stumbling through
the Moonlight Sonata
while outside the window
a twilight birdsong—
not one note out of place
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, hope, hummingbird, nature, nest, poem, poetry on July 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »
From eggs
the size
of small
jelly beans
come these
two beaks
that peak
beyond the
edge—today
they save
me, these
two tiny
wingless things.
Even this
bruised heart
remembers how
to marvel.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, bluebird, poem, poetry, returning on March 25, 2019| 2 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 absence, bird, longing, poem, poetry, tanager on January 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anticipation, bird, blue heron, emptiness, poem, poetry on January 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »
driving past the great nests,
my mind fills in the empty air—
dozens of blue heron wings
