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Posts Tagged ‘friendship’

The Phone Call

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 25, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
 
While all around us the world rushes by, 
our conversation becomes a wide flat rock
in the midst of the river where we can rest
long enough to see not everything
is snarl and torrent, rapid and rush. 
See how the heron lands in the eddy,
how soft moss grows on rocks in the shade.
Holding up all the tumult, the peaceful.
At the edges of chaos, the beautiful. 
This is why, when I call you in the middle 
of the day and you answer, I almost cry. 
Because the timbre of your voice is enough
to land me. I lie on the solid rock of our talk. 
I rest there long enough for my own pulse
to slow, long enough dangle my ankle
into the current and think, yes, 
I can swim again. 

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For What Ails Us

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 25, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
 
Wini weeps as she tells me “everyone is so broken,” 
and a small shrine appears in the tear on her cheek.
I kneel inside it as it slips to her chin.
My throat clenches, my own heart widens,
enlivened by how deeply Wini cares, 
and somehow her heartache begins to mend 
my own grief for this cruel and callous world.
More than any beauty. More than the uplifting song 
of the red wing black bird trilling through the open window.
More than the scent of basil and lemon. 
More than the dark silhouette of two herons winging 
through the nectarine sunset. Wini’s tears heal me. 
Shared ache becomes its own medicine. 
No. Not the ache. The medicine is in the love that fuels 
the ache. It feels so right, I forget to wish it didn’t hurt.

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In that Tender Moment

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 22, 2026| 6 Comments »


for Paula
 
 
With one fingertip
I drew gentle spirals
on the smooth, bare
skin where only weeks
ago her hair had been
and her eyes fell closed
and her breathing slowed
and I felt her whole body
soften, felt how strong,
how brave she has had
to be for so long, so long.
How I loved her then
in that moment when
she let me see beneath
the smile, beneath
the shine, beneath
the laugh. How I loved
her then when she let
me in, how honest
her exhaustion,
how precious,
how rare,
her trust.

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Through Her Discipline of Kindness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 13, 2026| 12 Comments »


                  for Kyra
 
She brought her cello to the desert,
playing long, slow notes to cactus,
canyons, the night, knowing
it matters to bring music
wherever you go. She taught me
to sing in the face of fear,
even when the mountain lion
held her with his amber eyes.
She taught me to plant
a weed in a pot and wait
with great patience to see
what kind of flower might bloom.
To bring something chocolaty and sweet
to share with others wherever you go.  
She taught me to share scars,
even when they make others wince.
To use more garlic,
to read poems to strangers,
to dance barefoot in the grass.
I did not want to learn how quickly
a life can go from vibrant to silent
to gone. Did not want to learn
how great a hole one human can leave
in so many lives. But I am grateful
for all that she teaches me still—
the beauty in the ache, how to hear
the missing laughter in the silence,
how to read the letters that
don’t come anymore, how love
is so much bigger than a poem,
how she is no less herself now
than she was when she was here,
how even in her absence
she still teaches me discipline.

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How It Comes Out

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 4, 2026| 10 Comments »


 
 
I don’t know why sometimes
the same story can feel like ash
in the mouth and another time
like flame. Each time the story
is the same, but sometimes,
it scorches to share it.
I am thinking of today, how I read
a poem about your death
as if there were no more fuel to burn,
reciting a fact, as if saying,
There is no snow in the yard.
Five minutes later, I read the same
poem and had to restart four times
just to get past the first two lines.
I prefer the flame. Prefer to be moved
by how much you’ve changed me.
Not to dwell in the loss, but not
to shy from being torched by love.

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One Story of How We Make It Through

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 23, 2025| 4 Comments »

while kneeling in the chapel of despair
finding beside me
a friend

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When Bert Sends Me an Mp4

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 29, 2025| 6 Comments »


 
 
Though she’s been dead more than a year,
Donna sings to me through the recording,
her voice bold as she belts into Ladder Canyon
a song of celebration and goodbye.
The cancer by then was a longtime companion.
She laughs as the lyrics bounce off of sandstone,
and then she starts leaving space for listening:
And all I’ve done      (   I’ve done      I’ve done  )
for want of wit      (  of wit      of wit   ).
When the first verse is sung, she exclaims,
“That was fantastic!” Years later, the echo
resounds, though it comes in the sound
of my own voice pealing around my own room,
“That was fantastic!”  I shout back. And it was.
Fantastic to feel her again in the drums of my ears,
in the hum of my throat, in the thrum of my blood.
Fantastic to hear her singing those words we have sung
together how many thousands of times. But this time,
Donna’s not singing to blend. She’s shouting it out
like a shanty, haunted by shadows and lit up by life.
I’m so stunned by her voice, I don’t even try to sing along.
I absorb every wave of her, as if I could take her all in
and not have to give her back to death.
I play it again and again. Every time, I echo back,
“That was fantastic.” And by that, I mean the echo
in the canyon. I mean the song. I mean the gift
of hearing her voice again. Fantastic. I mean her life.
Fantastic. I mean her. I mean her. I mean her.

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One When I Feel Shoreless

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »


 
 
your voice on the phone
each word a stepping stone
toward acceptance
 

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Reunion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 28, 2025| 4 Comments »


 
 
And though it has begun to rain
and the Bernedoodle jumps and squirms
between us and though it has been
thirty three years since last I saw her,
I want to linger in the yard when I hug Susie,  
and for a moment I am again eighteen
and we are snowshoeing up a fourteen-thousand-
foot peak. The winter sun is brilliant; we
are laughing and I’m exhausted and so alive,
and I am standing in a suburb as golden
leaves whirl and Susie is in velveteen pants,
her hair streaked gray, and she is not at all the same
girl I remember and also exactly the same,
meeting me with a smile, offering to carry
what is mine, speaking of gardens and knitting
and tea. And we’re on the summit of Mt. Elbert
and I wrap my arms around those girls we were.
I thank them for loving each other then,
how that love opens a door to this very moment
to create an intimacy that needed no tending,
as mullein seeds sometimes wait decades
before they bloom. I release Susie and bend
to nuzzle her puppy, a marvel of zeal and scruff.
Is it rain on my face, or tears? I take that young
girl I was by the hand. She walks inside with us.

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Not Alone

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 12, 2025| 8 Comments »

Through the throng
and past the chatter
we slipped into a small
blue sitting room
and there at the edge
of the chaos, she told me
what the doctor said.
The world became
whirlpool, no shore
in sight, and
we met in a perfect
stillness, holding
to each other, our
friendship like driftwood,
no way to steer, but
for that moment, we
floated, floated!  
no small thing as
all around us
uncertainty crested
and surged and
crashed and swirled.

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