I was sitting beside my mother on the couch,
knitting a blanket for my girl. My mother held
the yarn in her lap, a cloud of muted pinks.
Outside, the tall dry grasses weaved
in golden evening light. A Western Warbling Vireo
rambled on in its jumbled, warbly way. Mom spoke
of her plans for dinner the next night
and I knit two, purled six, knit two, purled six.
She guided the soft wool through her fingers,
keeping just the right amount of slack. I felt
such a tide of love for her. Wanted to tell her
I’m sorry for every time I’ve been hardened,
every time I’ve pushed her away instead
of pulling her close. I wanted to whisper
the love beyond words, some sentence true
as the sweetness I felt today sitting beside her
in the sun in the grass while we waited
for a Belted Kingfisher or Northern Yellow Warbler
to fly across the pond. But to name a feeling is so
much harder than naming a bird. So when the row
was done, I rested my head on her shoulder, closed
my eyes and nuzzled in. There was only softness
in me then. I’d like to think she translated what
I meant. Just as I knew what she was saying to me
with each length of unspooling yarn: I know
how you love me. I know your heart. I love you, too,
my girl. By the time we rose, we were held
by the dark. Even the swallows were quiet.
Posts Tagged ‘forgiveness’
The Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, conversation, daughter, forgiveness, knitting, love, mother, naming on June 3, 2026| 1 Comment »
In Its Own Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bats, forgiveness, humility, surprise on May 12, 2026| 7 Comments »
Long before dark
a single bat zig zags
and dips, its erratic
twisting and diving
so unlike the smooth
loops of swallows—
it’s like when forgiveness
grows wings before the mind
is on board, moving inside us
with its own mysterious
intelligence. More agile than we thought,
surprisingly flexible, wild, clearly blind.
How strange to see it fluttering
in the light, something we’ve been told
is improbable.
We couldn’t say it’s beautiful,
yet we can’t stop staring.
How humble it is. How hungry.
Ways to Open
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, opening, stuck on April 22, 2025| 10 Comments »
There’s the lilac way, impulsive,
shrugging out of hard bud scales
while the nights are still cold,
then flooding the world
with the sweet perfume of vulnerability.
Or the way a housefly opens its wings,
almost mechanical,
prompted by a pulse that triggers
marionette-like pulleys and hinges.
There’s the wine way, sensual, responsive
to air, like how a glass of sauvignon blanc
opens into a meadow with a fresh cut path
through tall green grass with wet stones,
flanked by asparagus and nettles.
I am thinking now, of how tightly I’ve closed
my mind around a certain thought.
How impossible the unclenching seems,
though all around me are proofs
of how naturally things might open—
open the way a child will open his hand
to his mother when he desperately wants to be held.
Open the way a sky does when afternoon clouds
evaporate and all that is left is blue.
Open the way a life does when,
through what grace, we learn again
we can forgive.
Unlikely Gratefulness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anger, betrayal, forgiveness, grace, gratefulness on February 5, 2025| 14 Comments »
Hello friends,
So seldom do I feel I need to preface a poem, but … this one. It was so not easy to write and I don’t know that I have said yet what most wishes to be said. I think that happens sometimes … when I have a feeling so big that I’ve felt for so long, I put too much pressure on the poem to tell the whole story when really, something much simpler wants to emerge. All this is to say I am wrestling with questions of love and forgiveness and humility and betrayal and grace … and will likely be wrestled by them as long as I live. You, too?
Unlikely Gratefulness
I will not excuse what he did.
His words, cruel.
His actions, callous.
So deliberate,
the way he turned his back.
Did he not see another path?
Or did he, with spiteful intent,
choose the lowest road?
And after the fact, did it matter?
The dark seed he planted
could not be unsown.
Perhaps my brokenness was a gift,
because if I had been less broken,
I would have mustered the strength
to hate him.
Perhaps because I was so broken,
my eyes could not not remember the way
his face reddens and crumples when he cries.
My throat could not not remember
how often I sang him to sleep.
And my hands still remember
holding him when he was scared.
My ears still hear the raucous ways
we laughed while in the car.
But how it is I still let him in?
How is there room in my heart for his?
I don’t know. I don’t know how to name the gift.
What is this grace that holds me
so I can still hold him?
Irony
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, irony, redemption on July 12, 2024| 14 Comments »
The more forgiveness
you have, the more
whole you are,
but the less
of you remains,
as if life is a cloth
and you the spool,
and the only way
to stitch the story
of your redemption
is to use
the blue thread
of your veins.
One Inexplicable Lightness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dawn, forgiveness on February 15, 2023| 4 Comments »
the way sun arrives—
first as a suggestion of light,
then startlingly brilliant
so comes this revelation—
I forgive you
Seeing Clearly
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eyes, forgiveness, gaze, humility, love on July 18, 2021| 4 Comments »
Forgive me for wanting to fix you.
As if we could be anything
but who we are.
Forgive me for every time
I have looked at you with hawkish eyes,
eyes with talons, eyes that hunt.
Forgive me for thinking I know
what you need, for thinking I am right.
For scrutinizing, for judging,
for using my gaze to build walls.
I want to look at you with eyes
as soft as the light in the field after dawn.
Want to meet you with eyes
as benevolent as rain. Want to see you
with eyes as open as sky, open as innocence.
Want to see myself this way, too—
then, it is easier to soften, to lean in, to bloom.
This is how I want to look at you—
not with eyes that fix, but eyes
that dismantle defensiveness,
eyes that say let us meet in our flawedness,
eyes unstintingly generous,
a gaze that says you are safe with me,
a gaze born of humility, a gaze made of wings.
the other track
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, love, mercy, record on July 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »
on the b-side of love
a song of mercy—
sweet groove of forgiveness,
beat of a thousand
soft wings
One Forgiveness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, stone, transformation on May 24, 2021| 2 Comments »
how quickly
this basket of stones
becomes
a basket
of feathers
One Very Quiet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, phone, quiet on August 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »