Posted in Uncategorized, tagged avalanche, clarity, friendship, hiking on July 6, 2020| 3 Comments »
We speak the way old friends speak—
knowing each other’s stories,
the nuances and undertones.
She always knows just what to ask,
just how to nudge me toward
quiet revelation. I don’t do my best
to hide. In fact, it is easy
to speak of my brokenness.
We pause in a field
where the forest has been felled
in an avalanche—
the slender white trunks are strewn
in a chaotic jumble—
but oh, how clear the view.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clarity, communication, poem, poetry on August 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »
dang, how the songbird
mutters sometimes, and slurs,
forgets how even the most
discordant song can be beautiful
when it’s sung clear
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clarity, poem, poetry, snow, thoughts, winter on February 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »
scraping snow
off the car windshield—
so, too, these frozen thoughts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clarity, poem, poetry on May 12, 2018| 2 Comments »
moments of clarity
strung like pearls
with knots between them
never touching
but oh, the sweet weight
of wearing that necklace
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clarity, poem, poetry, purpose on February 26, 2018| 2 Comments »
There is clarity in the three-hole punch,
the way it is made to receive the paper,
always the same every time.
How it punches the holes always
equidistant from each other. It never worries
it’s not doing its job good enough. Never
worries it isn’t worthy of the pages it meets.
There is clarity in the way it flexes beneath
the hand, how it does the one thing it was made
to do. And you, with your hand on the black
length of it, you with your thousands of choices
inside every moment, what is it that needs
your precision? Maybe you’re making it
too hard. Maybe it’s your turn to do
the one thing you were made to do.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being present, cairns, clarity, obstacles, path, poem, rocks, the way on December 20, 2011| 3 Comments »
Perhaps
these rocks
that look
like stumb-
ling blocks
are cairns,
and I
have, with
such diligence,
been kicking
them from
my way—
oh foolish
woman
who thought
that she
was lost.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clarity, doorway, spiritual growth on September 24, 2011| 2 Comments »
Here’s to whatever time
it takes to have the heart it takes
once more to get there.
—William Kloefkorn, in “Poetry”
How is it I did not see it before,
this doorway I am walking toward,
I know I passed this way.
I was perhaps distracted by leaves
or more likely lost in my own dreams
but now there’s no missing it.
I can be so serious. So literal. So dense.
I like my invitations to tell me where and when
and what I might expect.
But here it is. The door. Small and getting smaller.
And if I do walk through the door, will there be another?
The mind it wants to know.
But the soul, the soul is more like light
that leaks through whatever cracks it finds
not caring where it arrives.
It does not knock, would stream on through,
though the mind puts on its leaden shoes
and insists on having a map.
And oh god, here I am under the lintel—
perhaps its less door and more of a tunnel—
how long, how long will it take
and can I go back? Can we ever go back?
And why and why am I scared? I think
I know something, I think
too much. I think I should not think any more.
The facts: a woman. This moment. Sunflowers.
Lead shoes. Light. An open door.