You blossom because of other people.
—Desmond Tutu
Because of you,
I know heady,
honeyed perfume,
I know countless
petals, the flutter,
the thrill in opening—
because of you,
this long-stemmed
laughter, this
unashamed blush.
Because you
are sunflower,
cosmos, hyacinth,
I am iris, lavender,
larkspur.
I am only me
because of you,
and the gift of you
is so beautiful,
even in this time
of sorrow, I am
lily splayed wide,
white peony, red poppy,
I am blooming wild
with the beauty
given to you.
Posts Tagged ‘flower’
Giant Bouquet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blossom, desmond tutu, flower, growth on June 1, 2022| 6 Comments »
Today I Realize
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, grief, phone, time lapse, voice on December 27, 2021| 12 Comments »
I can still call your phone
and hear your voice mail.
And so I do, I call it,
and the low tones
of your familiar voice
reach all the way in
and squeeze my lungs.
This is you know who.
We are you know where.
Leave your you know what
you know when.
I hang up at the beep,
and then I’m gasping,
choking, making sounds
I don’t recognize.
And then the house is quiet.
The ache is like a time lapse
of a rose in bloom—
first clenched, then
opening and opening
and impossibly opening,
then fading, then dropping away.
Every day a new bouquet
of ways I miss you.
Today, I miss the deep
song of your voice
how it opens in me
fragrant, like home.
*
this poem has been published in ONE ART
The Strange Glasses of Grief
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, grief, orchid, plant, seeing on December 17, 2021| 4 Comments »
The orchid on the mantle
dropped a flower today.
Only one white flower now
on the tall twin stems,
it’s petals more droop than bloom.
But how did I not notice
both spikes have grown
new three-inch stems
with clusters of new buds
growing from them?
How often do I focus
on what’s dying and dead
instead of seeing what’s
thriving and madly alive?
Even though I was taking care
of this orchid every day,
I managed not to see.
World, I am wanting
to take off my blinders.
World, please keep teaching me.
Shade Loving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blossoming, flower, shade, shadow on August 9, 2021| 4 Comments »
Bless the astilbe, the hellebore,
the hydrangea, bless the lobelia,
the bright impatiens—
it is no small thing to grow,
more notable still to grow in the shade—
to not only grow but to flower,
to bring color to the dark.
I take it to heart, the fuschia hanging
in the shadow, cascading
deep pink bells all summer long.
Oh tough beauty, teach me
the art of thriving in regions
where light is scant,
where light is not.
Teach me to bring to the world
the beauty
I wish to find.
Perennial
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, friendship, kindness, sweetness on July 20, 2021| 1 Comment »
Sometimes even a small sweetness—
a kind word, a kind act—
is robust enough to take root,
and though its perfume soon fades
and its petals wither,
the roots persist so years later
when you least expect it,
there in a forgotten field,
or perhaps in your own well-tended yard,
you catch the scent of sweetness
and follow it until you find again
the fragrant bloom of it, not at all
diminished by time. No, maybe sweeter
because it was forgotten.
Sweeter because with roots like that,
you now trust it will come back again.
One Hopeful
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, lilac, patience on June 17, 2020| Leave a Comment »
This Desperate Week, the Orchid Reminds Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bud, Corona Virus, flower, hope, orchid, renewal on March 19, 2020| 3 Comments »
It looked dead, the orchid.
After long extravagant glory,
the blossoms dropped quickly,
one by one. The stem shriveled,
dried. Every time I looked at it,
all I saw was what wasn’t there.
People said it would reset.
They said it needed rest,
a little bit of extra care.
But eight months later,
the plant still looked dead.
There are times we lose hope.
Times when our eyes tells us
we’re fools to believe beyond
what we see here now.
But from what seemed
like nothing, a long dark stem
appeared, lined with buds.
And what a fool I was to doubt,
to let the eyes lie to me.
Already they’ve remembered how to see
what will be. Already they remember
how to see the beauty
of exactly what is here.
The Big Vase
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, friendship on March 4, 2020| 2 Comments »
What is friendship but the ground beneath
the melting snow, the earth that is present
regardless of drift or grass or garden or wasteland.
A friendship is a flower that thrives
whether it is watered or not.
It is the flame that cooks the soup and does not ask
to be included on the menu as an ingredient.
And it burns through months, through decades,
burns, long after one might have thought the fuel
would have run out.
It would seem like a miracle, the way true friendship
survives, except it’s so commonplace—
the persistent warmth, the inextinguishable glow.
And if friends are torn apart—perhaps by years,
perhaps by circumstance—what is friendship then
but an enormous vase with a wide enough mouth
to hold those separate stems over space, over time,
and still call them a bouquet.
When the Impulse Is to Grieve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, cinquefoil, flower, grief, parenting, poem, poetry on November 9, 2019| 2 Comments »
Now dried and brown
the cinquefoil where once
bees danced in gold flowers—
recalibrating the heart
to find in brittle clusters
another invitation to dance.
One Freedom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, garden, meditation, poem, poetry, stillness, transformation on September 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Staring at the Penstemon, the Scarlet Gilia
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, flower, poem, poetry, surrender on August 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »
A flower in the field
is always changed by rain.
It is never indifferent
to sun. Even the slightest
of breezes will bend it,
will rearrange. An ant
walks through its center—
now so much more is possible.
It never pretends
to be unaffected by the world.
I have so much to learn
from the flowers of the field,
how they never turn their backs—
they don’t even have backs.
How they withstand hail
and flood and snow and chill
and still, they bloom,
they spill seeds, they
bring all the beauty they can.
Budding
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, gratitude, peony, poem, poetry on May 26, 2019| 4 Comments »
(with thanks to Donnalee for the peony buds)
Sitting with the peony
whatever is red in me reddens
and whatever in me is fist
loosens its grip
and whatever was sorrow
finds no mirror
and whatever is grateful
becomes fragrant
and I don’t even think
to remember
it won’t last forever,
all I know is
inside,
sweet nectar.
They Say It’s the Best Bloom in Ten Years
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bluebonnets, death, flower, friendship, life, love, poem, poetry, wildflowers on March 29, 2019| 6 Comments »
She wants to go see the bluebonnets, she says.
This is after she tells me they’ve said she has three months to live.
And I want to find her vast fields of bluebonnets,
acres and acres of white-tipped blue bloom.
And I want to send her more springs to see them in,
more days to live one day at a time. I want to remove
the pain in her belly, the pain that aggressively grows.
I want to make deals with the universe. Want to say no
to the way things are. I want to tell death to wait.
I want to tell life to find a way. I want to hug her
until she believes she’s beloved. I want to give her
the pen that will write every brave thing
that she’s been unable to say. There are days
when we feel how uncompromising it is, the truth.
How human we are. There are days when the bluebonnets
stretch as far as the eye can see. There are days
we know nothing is more important than going to see them,
a billion blue petals all nodding in the wind, teaching us to say yes.
The Thorn Bush Speaks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, flower, opposites, poem, poetry, thorn on November 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »
You think it’s so much better to be petal,
pink flower, the perfumed bloom that lures
the bee. You with your flutter and blush.
Not all of us can be soft. Not all of us
can be beauty, and you have that role
all wrapped up. You with your tender buds,
your loveliness splayed. But I was not
made that way. Was made prick. Was
made barbed. Was made snappish
and piercing and sharp. Was made
fierce. Was made lance. Was made
to take no chances with survival.
There is glory in defense. Everything
that touches me remembers. I’m the one
that defines the scene. How would you know
your beauty without me?
One Out of Place
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, garden, order, poem, poetry on June 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Kindness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, kindness, poem, poetry, tulip on April 29, 2018| 1 Comment »
Consider the tulip,
how it rises every spring
out of the same soil,
which is, of course,
not at all the same soil,
but new. How long ago
someone’s hands planted a bulb
and gave to this place
a living scrap of beauty.
Consider the six red petals,
the yellow at the center,
the soft green rubber of the stem,
how it bows to the world. How,
the longer we sit beside it,
the more we bow to it.
It is something like kindness,
is it not? The way someone plants
in you a bit of beauty—a kind word,
perhaps, or a touch, the gift
of their time or their smile.
And years later, in the soil that is you,
it emerges again, pushing aside
the dead leaves, insisting on beauty,
a celebration of the one who planted it,
the one who perceives it, and
the fertile place where it has grown.
Petunia No. 2
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ekphrasis, flower, Georgia O'Keefe, petunia, poem, poetry on January 27, 2018| Leave a Comment »
When Georgia painted the petunia,
she knew that to make busy people stop
in surprise and consider petunia,
she needed to make it large—
and she did—enormous petunias
revealed, unfolding along the wall—
and there the busy people saw
the intimate petals of women,
when all Georgia wanted to show them
was flower, the essence of flower,
the beauty of flower, the pure
purpled splendor of flower—
how soft, how sensual, how
wholly day stopping
a single flower can be.
to see the artwork, visit:
https://www.okeeffemuseum.org/store/products/posters/flowers/petunia-no-2-1924/
One Other Scene from Summer Camp
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dinner, flower, missing, mother, parent, poem, poetry on July 26, 2017| 2 Comments »
Innocent Bystander
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bee, flower, poem, poetry, seduction on May 15, 2014| 1 Comment »
Stirring inside the barely
open flower, the bee
dances his legs
in the golden
pollen, his whole
body trembles against
the core until he is wading
in gold, he is covered,
he glitters and I
become fully
flower.
three haiku on the how of it
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged busy, flower, going inward, haiku, poem, vulnerability on January 31, 2012| 3 Comments »
adios map
from now on I travel
in
flower to flower—
so much honey here I turn
it into work
why are you surprised
I’m naked? I don’t know why
you’re not