A humble contentment.
Because blue green spruce
by the creek bed.
Because ancient red
of sandstone cliffs.
This almost forgettable moment
not forgotten.
This small seeing.
This ease in being, unearned.
Because the tips of the spruce
are more silver, softer.
Because afternoon mist
somehow mingles it all.
Because sometimes when I try,
I cannot feel the connection.
This moment when trust is.
This sinking of my foot
into slick, wet earth.
This small thing.
This everything.
Posts Tagged ‘contentment’
Almost Effortless
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, contentment, grace, nature, peacefulness, seeing, tree, walking on January 2, 2026| 4 Comments »
One Glorious
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, contentment, sunset on July 7, 2025| 1 Comment »
no use sipping this sunset—
I guzzle and immediately
I’m tipsy on pink
For Now
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contentment, daughter, happily ever after, happiness, love, mother, movie, music, story on June 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Driving home from the movie,
our blood still charged with adrenaline,
my daughter and I move through
the dark just under the speed limit,
our eyes trained on the red taillights
in front of us, and we talk about plot holes
and how we would change the ending.
Neither of us would have chosen happily
ever after, which somehow felt false
to the greater story. It’s not long before
we’re singing along to her favorite song.
I harmonize on the chorus, and
a “Peaceful Easy Feeling” grows in me
as we drive through pouring rain.
I may not believe in happily ever after,
but I do believe in content for now,
as in this moment when she reaches
for my hand and I slide mine into hers.
I can’t see her face in the dark, but
in her voice, I can hear it, her smile.
The Secret of Contentment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contentment, knowing, wonder on May 29, 2025| 8 Comments »
To be the seed and not
wish to be the flower.
Or to be the flower and
not wish to be seed or rain.
To be the rain and be grateful
to be the rain. Which
is to say, to be the self
and delight in being the self.
But when I say self, I mean
to know the self as seed.
As flower. As rain. When I
say to know, I mean to
ever be in wonder.
One Evening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cello, contentment, music on March 20, 2025| 4 Comments »
listening to cello
the smile of wanting
nothing but this
Beyond Perfect
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, contentment, good enough, imperfection, perfection, raspberry on January 31, 2024| 9 Comments »
with thanks to Heidi
It is not the best raspberry.
There have been berries sweeter,
more perfectly formed,
berries I’ve harvested
warm from the bush,
berries that have made me
close my eyes and rhapsodize
about the perfect, juicy,
bulbous joy of raspberry.
Still, this small and fragile fruit
packaged in a plastic shell
sings ripe and red on my tongue,
and on this January morning
it brings news of sunshine somewhere.
I delight in its tartness, its bite.
Bless what is good enough.
Not only bless but cherish—
Cherish this good enough morning
with its good enough fruit
in this kitchen cleaned well enough
for this good enough woman
living into the good enough day,
my mouth slightly puckered,
taste of raspberry still bright
on my tongue.
Hurkle-durkle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, contentment, laziness, sleep, words on August 3, 2023| 10 Comments »
(v.) to lie in bed for a long time, to lounge around
When the eyes decide
to stay closed.
Though it’s light.
Though dark tea
and blue skies await.
Though there’s music to hear
and books to read,
and sugar peas fresh on the vine,
still the eyes decide
to be closed is divine.
And then there’s the warmth
of the bed, the perfect
weight of soft sheets,
the way the blood
has transformed into honey
and the limbs now curl
so perfectly into the perfectly
sleep-drunk, ease-heavy body.
When there’s work and a host
of sparkling to-dos,
but all the eyes want
is to stay closed,
to sail on the sweet ship
of near-sleep just a few,
just a few more,
just a few …
On a Day When Stillness Seems Possible
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contentment, ease, stillness on July 16, 2023| 6 Comments »
and the river is a long white stroke
of roiling and continuous surge,
and the grass, gone to seed,
wavers in the wind, then stills,
wavers, then stills, and the swallows
spiral, the leaf shadows spangle
and the ants braid a path
across the stones.
But I rhyme today with the cottonwood trunks,
my own body unmoving in the breeze.
It feels good in this moment
to be more tree than cloud,
more silence than song.
So easily, the stillness opens me,
softens me. How simple, really,
to do nothing. How is it I so often resist?
If there is no in me now, I do not notice it.
Stillness has made a home in me
and there seems to be nothing
the stillness refuses. Come,
it seems to say. There is room here
for everything. It opens me wider.
The world rushes in.
Contentment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contentment, music, tears on August 24, 2022| 4 Comments »
What were you doing when you last felt content?
—Ada Limón
And there, beneath the white tent,
beneath the blue sky, beneath the stars
I could not see, while spinning somewhere
inside a spiral galaxy, I closed my eyes
and let the sound of flute and piano find me,
an Irish song meant to be played with a wee lilt,
though the tune itself knew something of loss,
and I felt my lungs swell and my heart expand
felt my spine straighten and my soles ground,
and I floated inside the music, stunned and surprised
by the vibrant inheritance of being alive. I hummed
with full cellular resonance and then, I was crying—
a warm spilling of tears—for what?
for beauty? for loss? for living with both in one breath?
What was it the tears meant? Oh friends,
as I felt it all with no attempt to push it away,
I was wildly, alively content.
Sometimes it happens this way,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contentment, meditation, poem, poetry, stillness on October 3, 2016| 1 Comment »
that after years of driving past a place
on your way to somewhere else, this time
you stop. You find yourself sitting
beneath a scrappy tree as the shadows
make their daily rounds. The breeze stirs,
then forgets itself. The clouds balloon,
then disappear. The cars on the highway
continue their journey toward somewhere.
And you sit. What a relief to go nowhere.
What a gift to have nothing to say.
The winds of your thoughts bluster
and go away. An ant makes its way
to the top of a grass blade then makes
its way back down. The snow
that arrived on the peaks yesterday
melts by noon into the ground.
Where do you think you need to go?
You say, “There,” and the world says, “Here.”
There is cricket song all around you.
Gold tang of rabbit brush rouses the air.
Sometimes it happens this way: you stop.
And the world arrives at your chair.