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Posts Tagged ‘fixing’

In Art Class Making Aspen Trees

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 10, 2024| 12 Comments »


       for Kellie Day
 
 
Everything is fixable,
said Kellie, as she
sprayed her painting
with water, then
held the canvas
on its side until
white paint streaked
across her forest, and
for six hours I lived
in that fixable world
of paint and paper
and brushes and
stencils, a world
of improvisation
and play, a world
where I wandered
in pale green and
deep blue, where
I trusted a glade
of my own making,
rested in that shade
where there were
no problems, just
new invitations to
reimagine what
might happen next,
and smudges became
birds, and tears became
trees, and my sorrow
became an aspen
grove where nothing
was fixed, but for six
sacred hours there
was nothing the
light couldn’t touch.

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Bargaining

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Wholeness does not mean perfection. It means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.

—Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life

Brokenness, I am still learning

to embrace you. I would rather fix,

would rather mend, would rather solve.

Today, the hole in my security

is big enough to let fear blow in

like a strong winter wind.

I want a patch, want reinforcement,

want to stitch the seams closed.

And here I am, brokenness,

my needle and thread in hand.

Is it so wrong to want to repair?

My fingers are willing.

There is work to do. Here I am.

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Letting It Be

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 26, 2019| 4 Comments »

 

 

There is a carpenter in me

with an impressive tool belt.

She thinks she can fix everything.

 

Every time there’s a leak in the ducts,

she blames that darn condensation,

and whips out her metallic tape.

 

And when there’s a heart break,

she mumbles something about not meeting code,

then takes note of all the cracks,

 

all the places where it’s falling apart,

and gets to work: cleans up and preps

new concrete to hold things together.

 

I know she’s doing what she knows best,

I know she has good intentions.

But today, while she runs off to seek

 

just the right hammer, just the right nails,

I take those leaky ducts and that broken heart

into the garden and dig potatoes.

 

The soil is cool and slips soft

though my fingers as I sift for yellow fingerlings

and red-skinned Desirees.

 

There is a gardener in me who doesn’t try

to fix anything. She says in a quiet southern drawl,

Sweet thing, bring all that brokenness here

 

and let it walk amongst the sunflowers.

Let it weed the carrots and pick

some calendula bouquets. And nothing

 

gets fixed, but something shifts as I sit

beside unruly mint, its green spears rampant,

its scent so cooling, so sweet.

 

 

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