Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, poem, poetry on October 27, 2017| 1 Comment »
Again this call
love the world—
though there are men
with buttons to push
who could turn it to ash
within hours, though
people have tongues
that fork and curl,
though the things
and beings we love most
disappear.
And still this sweet
metronome of breath
ticking here, here.
And the scent
of the leaf pile,
loamy and playful.
And the pansy in October
still purple and soft.
Turn to the sun,
let it touch your skin
like a lover, so tender,
warm. Now spread that shine.
It’s what we do.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, poem, poetry, spring on May 11, 2017| 2 Comments »
And why not be flagrantly happy,
really. The moon is full and rakish
and spring keeps teasing the morning
into taking off its sweater. By noon,
everyone is blushing. In the garden,
strawberries come up on their own,
their fearless white flowers
pre-wired for sweetness.
Who cares the weeds are already
releasing their onslaught of filigreed seeds.
Inside us, an open invitation to fall in love.
Inside us, the pluck to say yes.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, poem, poetry, spring, weed on April 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »
How could I know
it’d be a weed
that would save me—
one which I’ve
spent hours on my knees
trying to eradicate—
didn’t know that
on a day when
I needed to believe in spring,
it would appear in the quack grass,
its tiny purple flowers
calling to me
as if I were not the woman
who had uprooted them,
calling to me
as if I too
have some spring
left in me.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, poem on February 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »
A woman’s soft skin, I have it—
not on my hands, which thrill
to garden and spread shine—but
soft I am in neck and belly and the long
slow reaches of my side body.
I hum like a woman, and
laugh like a woman and weep
for beauty, for sorrow.
In the early evening,
I leave on the lawn
the long curving shadow of a woman.
Sometimes I even fool myself—
but sometimes I remember
I am also sand and elephant,
skylark and sunflower,
blood orange and button,
wind,
and the stillness after.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, light, poem, poetry, solstice, world on December 22, 2016| 2 Comments »
On this gray, near-drizzling day
I write again this love letter
for the earth, which is, I suppose,
what all poems are, though they
disguise themselves as poems about
children or wine or baseball or snow.
On this longest night, it’s so clear—
the truest reason to write at all is to fall
more deeply in love with the world,
with its trees and its drizzle
and its stubborn shine and its
relentless hunger and its corners
that will never ever ever see the growing light.
Fall in love with the octopus that can detach
an arm on purpose and then grow it back again.
Fall in love with the elusive lynx
and the crooked forest and the frazzle ice
tinkling in the San Miguel River.
Fall in love even with this profoundly flawed
species that, despite all its faults,
is still capable of falling more deeply,
more wildly in love.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, falling in love with the world, light, poem, poetry on August 23, 2015| 1 Comment »
“Look,” she says, “at the light
on the waves,” and no matter what else
has happened today,
there it is, the light, the light on the waves,
and for this moment it’s beauty enough
that the rest of the world
falls away, and I fall in love
with being alive
and with the light,
the light on the waves.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged desert, falling in love with the world, gratitude, poem, poetry on August 31, 2014| 1 Comment »
On a day when the desert potholes
are full of pollywogs and tiny
red-speckled frogs and the blue sky
is dappled with pink-bellied clouds,
and the San Juan is running muddy
and warm, well, you don’t have to have almost just died
to realize how lucky you are to be alive—
nope, it just comes natural, this wanting
to kiss your children, even though
they are whining all day about how
the desert is just full of rocks
and it’s so boring. Yeah, it just kind of happens,
this flash flood of gratitude, this falling in love
with everything dust can do.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, kingfisher, poem, poetry on May 25, 2014| 1 Comment »
Live in the present. Do the things that need to be done. Do all the good you can each day. The future will unfold.
-Peace Pilgrim
Again the invitation
to meet the world just as it is
and fall in love.
To let the body weep
if it wants to weep.
To let the voice sing
because the song rises up
and says sing.
It does not matter
who is watching.
See the kingfisher, how he does not hesitate
before diving headlong
into the pond.
Love like that.
Do it now.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blessing, cottonwoods, dissolution of the separate self, falling in love with the world, poem, poetry, trees on June 20, 2013| 3 Comments »
Sometimes I forget
the trees. It’s embarrassing
to admit. Like saying I forget
I have hands. But
days go by when I do not
consider them. And then
some mornings, today,
for instance, the trees,
like an Indian saint
hurling petals at her attendants,
throw their fluffy white catkins
into my hands, my hair,
into my everywhere I look
until everything is baptized
in white cotton down
and I half expect the giant limbs
to pull me into a great gray trunk
and hold me close, whispering
into my ear, in words so quiet
no one else can hear, my daughter,
my daughter, my daughter, my daughter.
