After skate skiing on groomed track for months,
following only the preset path, today
I wake early enough to ski on the hardened crust
of spring morning snow. Suddenly,
the whole valley is a playground. And
it’s freedom. Freedom to move in any
direction. Freedom to loop or climb or follow
the river. Freedom that seeps into breath, into smile,
into my understanding of what it means to be alive.
And the whole time I skate and pole
and propel myself over snow
I hear an inner refrain from Romans:
And death shall have no dominion.
Not a still small voice, but a resonant boom.
And I, so alive in this sweet slip of time,
know that though my son has died
and my father has died, here I am,
carrying their love, and alive. Alive!
Alive through the winter.
Alive though I grieve. Alive. Alive as I skate
through willows and aspen and wide open white.
Lungs burning, legs striding, heart beating
hard in my chest. I know myself as breath
and return to the wholeness that never left.
Skating across the frozen world, the sparkling crust,
I live into this life that so wants to be lived,
this life that asks everything, everything of us.
Posts Tagged ‘freedom’
Revelation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aliveness, death, freedom, life, skate skiing on March 27, 2022| 10 Comments »
After a Graduate School Reunion on Zoom, I Remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged education, freedom, friendship, lake on December 18, 2020| 2 Comments »
for Jennifer and Jennifer
And once again I am twenty-four
and I walk out the door
of our master’s exam and meet
my classmates down by the lake
and the day is hot and we drink cold beer
until we think jumping off the end
of the pier is a great idea, so
we kick off our shoes and run fully dressed
to the edge and launch and splash
and swim until we arrive at a party barge
full of men who pull us dripping
and life-giddy into their midst
and we do shots of something
that blissfully burns before laughing we
return to the open lake and side stroke back
to the shore where nothing’s the same
as it was before, though it still looks the same—
metal chairs still orange, our hair still brown,
the humid sky hazy, loud cheers all around—
but our lives will soon hurl us
in different directions—
to lovers and children and unanswerable
questions where the real tests cannot
be studied for with friends, and life’s master’s
degree doesn’t end till life ends, but oh,
for those few moments on the terrace,
soaking and shivering and whooping in glee,
my god, we were free, we were free, we were free.
Taking Root
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fourth of july, freedom, wildflowers on July 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »
a freedom bouquet—
scarlet gilia, blue larkspur,
and small white daisies—
may these flowers of the field
grow wild in your heart tonight
Freedom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, road, walking on April 17, 2020| 6 Comments »
To walk alone
on the dirt road.
Whatever the weather,
to be grateful for it.
To step and step
and step again—
not toward an end,
but for the joy
of stepping.
Squirrel tail.
Creek scent.
Swish of last year’s leaves.
Nowhere to be
but here.
And the next here.
And next.To know
the self as traveler.
To know the self
as road.
To know each step
as freedom when
there’s nowhere
to go.
The Guru Said Stop Putting on the Brakes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged car, dream, flow, freedom, poem, poetry on September 22, 2019| Leave a Comment »
from a dream inspired by Sharon
And I tried. I tried.
Except steep hills. Except
stop signs. Except fear.
Then one day,
the brake simply
didn’t work anymore.
I thought perhaps
I’d forgotten which pedal
was the brake.
I tried flooring the pedal,
anyway, though I knew
it wouldn’t work.
At first, I hated it. Was terrified,
really. Then—right through
the intersection,
right down the steepest hill—
there it was, I was in it,
the flow, the flow.
Just Before the Credits Roll
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, lawnmower, movie, poem, poetry on May 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »
In the movie,
that’s not being made,
the one I star in,
my character, who looks
exactly like me,
is mowing the lawn,
exactly like me,
only when I go
to put the lawnmower
away by the barn,
she just keeps walking,
pushing that red Toro
down the side of the highway,
oblivious to the drivers
who stare and honk.
And there’s no orchestra
swelling, just a single
bassoon with a dark,
warm reedy timbre.
There she goes,
in her flip flops
and sun hat,
obviously not ready
for what’s about to happen
and not caring a whit,
leaving in her wake
a trail of freshly cut weeds,
and the scent of spring grass,
her figure getting
smaller and smaller
on the horizon.
Runoff
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, plover, poem, poetry, security on June 10, 2016| 4 Comments »
We are perhaps
like the plover
who made her nest
in the rocks
too close to the river’s
edge. The water
is rising rapidly.
We never
expected loss.
We almost
forgot that we
have wings.
While Her Stoic Portrait
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged escape, freedom, housewife, milk, poem, poetry on August 15, 2015| 1 Comment »
This morning when she pours the milk
into the child’s cup, she doesn’t stop.
She pours until the cup is full, until
it spills across the counter, ’til it spills
onto the floor. She pours and pours
until the kitchen is flooded in milk,
it is up to her knees, it is up to her waist,
it is dammed against the kitchen door,
which she opens, then she floats the creamy tide
into morning, riding atop the pearly tide.
With one hand, she waves at her neighbors,
with the other she continues to pour the milk.
She is surfing now through the streets of town,
past the bank, past the school, past the crowd
who has gathered to stare. “Oh,” they say,
with a shake of their heads, “she has really lost it
this time, bless her heart,” and they step
on the curb to keep their feet from getting wet,
and she smiles and blows them a one-handed kiss,
and with her other hand she pours and pours.
Concourse B
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, freedom, perspective, poem, poetry on June 20, 2015| 1 Comment »
She walks so easily down the concourse,
the young woman in the short dress and sandals,
her purse slung across her slender shoulder.
She’s not encumbered by much that I can see—
no children pulling on her shirt, no carry on
rolling behind her, no backpack or heavy purse.
I can’t help but notice how light she might feel,
what with her skiff of a sundress. I can almost smell
the freedom like a perfume she doesn’t know
she is wearing. I was like her, once, at least that
is what I would like to think, though I know better
than to project this way. It is easy to imagine
that she is free in ways I once was, though
never knew. Who can say what invisible chains
weight us down. Looking back, I notice
how little I noticed then. On a whim,
I decide to pretend I am older now looking back
at myself. Oh look, look at her, how light she is.