More flowing than walking
she moves down the street,
her green dress billowing,
her shoulders bare.
Sometimes the world
asks us to do impossible math—
for instance to add more love
when already we are filled to capacity
with love. And again tonight, I meet it,
the impossible.
Posts Tagged ‘daughter’
Watching My Daughter Before Her Prom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, impossible, love, mother, prom on May 3, 2026| 3 Comments »
At the Senior Dance Recital
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ballet, dance, daughter, mother on April 2, 2026| 4 Comments »
After fourteen years of pink leotards
and bobby pins, sewing ribbons
on pointe shoes and driving home late
from rehearsals, she dances tonight
with feline ease, confidence in the curl
of her fingers, grace in her glance
as she follows the gentle lift of her arm,
and instead of trying to capture
this final recital in pixels, I bid myself
to be completely here, following her
leaps and feeling the fierce inner deluge
of joy and pride and love and thrill
as for one last time she smiles
from the stage and I see her as
the small white-winged angel who could
barely plié, and I see her now as she soars,
almost flies, before, with a wave of her arm,
she bows, turns toward the wings, disappears.
A Sign?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, feather, meaning, sign on February 25, 2026| 6 Comments »
There, on my sleeve, a small white feather.
I don’t know that I believe in signs.
But the white feather that appears on my sleeve
while I think of saying goodbye to my girl
doesn’t mean nothing. It says to me,
pay attention. It says, slow down. It says,
you have learned how to love what isn’t here.
I think of all the white feathers I started to see
after the death of my son. On the sidewalk.
In the air. On a mug. In a dream.
So I say to the feather, I see you. And I say
to the feather, thank you for reminding me
to notice the smallest of things. I say to the feather,
such a gift that you should appear here now.
And I say to my girl, I see you. And I say to my girl,
I love how good your hand feels in my hand. And I say
to my girl, such a gift you are here right now.
At Her Last Dance Recital
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ballet, beauty, daughter on December 14, 2025| 4 Comments »
It was not all for this one moment
when she stood alone on stage,
poised on her toe shoes, both arms
raised, her hands and wrists pulsing
in delicate waves—all the pink tights
and hair nets, blisters and tears
and long rehearsals for fourteen years—
it was not all for this winged moment
when Saint-Saëns played and she leapt
and pirouetted and pas de bouréed—
but this was the moment when I knew
with certainty that in a world of ache
and cruelty, we can change the world
and be changed by beauty.
This, Too, Is What I Was Born For
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, family, fire, gratefulness, husband on December 8, 2025| 10 Comments »
with a phrase from Augusta Kantra
To sit late at night by the small fire
my daughter has made using cedar wood
split by the man I married over thirty years ago.
To feel the good heat of it reach through
the thick muscles of my back, infusing
me with such honest contentment
I unfold in the warmth.
To feel grateful for this small constellation
of family, humbled again and again
by the tenderness we offer each other.
Is it everything, this whispery moment,
with its soft glow of enoughness,
this ease that arrives in me,
as quiet as evening, when I am able to honor
every wanted and every unbidden thing
that conspired to bring me here to this hearth
in winter’s dim light. And like a violet
that can’t help but open at the slightest warmth,
I fall in love again with this life.
The Outing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, skiing, time on December 6, 2025| 2 Comments »
Because once I was an ocean
and now I am a mother,
because every single moment
is integral to ever after,
I give myself to this snowy hour
skiing into the woods with my daughter
and know that no matter how brief a day,
an hour lasts forever.
The Talisman
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, grief, love, protection on December 2, 2025| 7 Comments »
It wasn’t the time he taught me to ride
without training wheels. Wasn’t fishing
on the lake for crappies or hunting
in the Wisconsin woods for squirrels.
Wasn’t the cassette tapes he made me
when I moved away from home or the rare tears
he cried when I left. It wasn’t the way
he forgave me when I forgot to call
on his fiftieth birthday. Wasn’t the white
sweater he bought me the year before he died
because he said I looked so beautiful in it.
Or maybe it was all those things—everything
he did, everything he was, every quiet touch and
unsung sacrifice ,so I never once doubted his love.
His love as solid as he was. His love stained me.
Can never be removed, no matter how fiercely
the world tries to scrub me of hope.
Every day I take in the violent raids,
the infinite ways we defile and dismiss
and destroy each other. And still I can’t unknow
his love, can’t untrust we are capable
of such goodness, such unflinching generosity.
His love, the talisman I wear in every cell.
It protects me not from the horror, but
from the error of believing the horror is all.
There is also how he hummed to me
when I was scared. How he cheered for me,
even when I failed. How in my most vulnerable
hours, he held me and whispered my name.
Such Gratefulness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, humility, love on November 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I messed up. Big.
It was, you can imagine,
embarrassing.
My daughter put her head
on my shoulder,
her body warm, her
touch soft.
It’s okay, mom, she said,
her voice gentle and small.
Everyone messes up.
She slipped her hand
into mine. For a long time
we sat that way.
What was big became
small. What was small
became great.
In one humble moment,
the vast arc of love.
I felt myself dissolve
into that arc.
Home Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, generosity, home, light, mom, travel on November 14, 2025| 4 Comments »
In a city where we meet,
mom arrives with thin
rye crackers, dill Havarti,
carrots, fresh raspberries,
a tea kettle, and packets
of peppermint tea—all
things she knows I love.
And sipping right now from
the slender, porcelain
pansy mug she wrapped in
clothes and brought in her suitcase,
I listen in the dark of the hotel
to the soft, even luff of her breath
as she sleeps, and inside it
I hear the light of her, the
generous light, the tender light,
a nectary of light, a clear channel
of light that teaches me something
of how to live in these long, cold
volumes of night.
How He Loved to Fish
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, father, fishing, love, memory on November 5, 2025| 4 Comments »
Dad could barely walk,
but put a rod in his hand
and pass him a bag full
of tackle and bait
and that man could traverse
over mountains or swamps
to get to the place
where the bite was on.
I remember him reeking
of fish, his thick hands
covered in slime,
his smile wide as a river
is long. He was chatty,
then, giggling each time
he’d feel the sharp tug
on the line, whistling out
a long ooooooh-eeee as he
reeled and pulled.
How he thrilled in every
part of the act—
the planning, the waiting,
the catching, the gutting, the eating.
Years later, I can almost
scent it here on my hand—
the pungent, sour smell
brings me back to when Dad
was most alive,
not those hours in the ER,
not those years in the chair
swaying back and forth
to dance with his pain, no,
a straight path to those days when
his eyes were bright with ecstasy
and the current of his joy so strong
it still carries me, even now.