after years of bowing
at the altar of not-good-enough,
I turn toward the rest
of the world and fall in love
with what is here
Posts Tagged ‘falling in love with the world’
At Last
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, good enough, what is here on September 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Revival
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, evening grosbeak, falling in love with the world, joy on May 27, 2025| 2 Comments »
For so long he lingers on the edge
of the feeder, as if he knows
I am willing to stand here for hours
to marvel at his bright yellow forehead,
the white patch on his wings—
such an ecstatic thing to watch
this first evening grosbeak
to ever find a way to our yard.
Aren’t you beautiful, I tell him.
He raises his head. I swoon
with raw joy, with full-bodied
love for this bird, for this day,
for this world with its wings.
Was it really just this morning
I was weeping?
At the Bonfire on New Year’s Eve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, bonfire, falling in love with the world, new year, wonder 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.
Wings of Wonder
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awe, eagle, falling in love with the world, wonder on February 13, 2024| 8 Comments »
There, in the field,
you catch the flash
of dark brown wings,
the tail a startling white,
just before the great bird
disappears into the pines
and the heart leaps up
at the gift—the thrill.
You almost missed it.
Once you stood
on a long rocky spit
for an hour watching
hundreds of bald eagles
fly and land, swoop and dive.
How is it that only one bird
for only one sliver of a second
could invite a wonder equally strong?
Such strange math—
the way it takes so little
to create a joy so large
so that seeing the eagle,
you lift your arms from your chair
as if you, too, are taking flight,
as if, you, too, might disappear
into the moment and soar.
Staying Alive, Staying Alive
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brokenness, falling in love with the world, medicine on December 31, 2023| 5 Comments »
You say it straight, he says.
We’re standing in the middle of a party
surrounded by curly wigs and sequin pants
and the Village People spell again into the air
as the doctor wearing bell bottoms
tells me how to share bad news:
First the diagnosis—
the symptoms and tests that suggest it.
Then how much life might be left.
Then ideas for what steps come next.
And there in my white go go boots
I think, this is how I want to love life—
want to love it straight up.
Not only when it’s beautiful.
Not only when I’m laughing.
I want to love life when I’m face to face
with what can’t be fixed,
want to love it even as I see
this is how it might end,
want to love it as I take the steps
to do what can be done,
knowing it won’t change the end of the story.
I want to love life as if it matters
to know what’s at stake,
as if it matters what I do next.
Learning to Love Life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ekphrasis, falling in love with the world, klimt, love, paradox, trust on November 11, 2023| 14 Comments »
We learn to love by being loved.
—Rafael J. Gonzalez, personal correspondence
There are days now when I feel so embraced by life
it’s as if life itself is pulling me into its great, strong arms,
surrounding me with warmth, tenderness, radiance,
as if life is whispering into my ear, loving and low,
I’ve got you, sweetheart, I’ve got you.
Not that I’ve forgotten how fear enters in
with its wide-eyed hunger, how grief gnaws at raw flesh,
how the heart’s walls fall down in cacophonous descent,
but there are, I must tell you, golden hours sparked with joy,
love-dappled days steeped in flowers and song
and I can’t pretend it’s not beautiful,
can’t not share how the same life that ravages us
also gathers us in so gently, so surely
that we, too, become golden, become sun and moon,
become rapturous bloom, become kiss.
inspired by The Beethoven Frieze (1901), Gustav Klimt
The Ask
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dancing, fairy tale, falling in love with the world, rumplestiltskin on June 28, 2023| 2 Comments »
Among your duties, pleasure is a thing that also needs accomplishing.
—Tony Hoagland, “The Word”
Perhaps it looked like I was dancing,
but I was being danced, was being twirled
by some great mystical spinning wheel
turning the straw of my thoughts into gold.
What a gift to have a body, to be alive
on a night when the sun is warm
and the grass is green and the mountains
are not yet tinder dry and the music is joyful
and the minutes slip through the hours
like page after page of happily ever
and there is no imp to be seen, just
the glory of brass shining in the air
and the miracle of hands clapping
as if applause is the only response that makes sense,
and the only thing the world asks of me
is to love it.
On the Night I Learn (Again) We Are Doomed
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged doom, falling in love with the world, lilac, spring on May 30, 2023| 18 Comments »
And if it isn’t deep sea mining
it is drought, and if not drought,
it will be mobs incited by memes,
and if it’s not mobs it will be
our own fear. And
the lilacs that have been here
for a hundred years are blooming
more beautifully tonight
than I have ever seen them,
every branch heavy
with sweet purple blooms.
It is all falling apart, love.
That’s what the river sings
as it carves the canyon,
as it breaks down the boulders,
as it carries the detritus, the logs.
Just tonight I heard an estimated
eighty years left for humanity.
Still, tonight the scent of lilacs
meets us with faithful beauty
and an old song of spring
rises on the lips.
How is it, despite the trouble,
I feel so much love
for this disappearing world,
so much love for this doomed race
as I begin to sing.
The Mystery
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, falling in love with the world, mystery on March 21, 2023| 1 Comment »
By now I know it’s impossible
to make someone else
fall in love with the world,
so when you say to me,
Look, Mom, the sky, it’s so beautiful,
and you stand there in the glow of sunset,
soft pink shining on your face,
I fall more in love not only with you
but with whatever it is
that opens us to wonder—
whatever grand mystery it is
that breathes warmth on our tight scales
and whispers to us, open,
then helps us get out of our own way
as one by one the petals unfurl,
and my god, the beauty,
the mystery, the beauty.
Monday, Midsummer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, shoulds, summer, wildflowers on June 28, 2021| 2 Comments »
It could be any ordinary midsummer day
when the world redefines green
and the field leaps into leaf and bloom
and the birdsong plays in a nonstop loop,
but I’m sitting inside because it’s Monday
and there are bills to pay and deadlines
to meet and stovetops to scrub
and children to feed. I know
I’m supposed to seize the day and
walk in the waist-high wildflowers
that even now splay into deep purple bloom
in the alpine meadows still rung with snow,
but I know, too, there is work to be done.
Perhaps there is no such thing
as balance. There is only this story
of should versus should. For a moment,
I step out of the story and notice how
good it feels to not believe any of it,
to let myself be led by the next true thing—
this word asking to be written, this breath
asking to be breathed, this life wanting
to be loved no matter how I spend
these ordinary, precious hours.