Beside the purple lupine
she says, “The thing I most
don’t want to talk about—”
and then, with a sigh,
she talks about it,
and the path and the wild iris
and the bear bell and I
all listen as she meets
what she most wishes not
to meet. There are moments
when we step right up
to the line that delineates
the world that is and the world
as we wish it would be,
and no matter how much it hurts,
there is such relief in meeting the truth
that I swear as she spoke
the world was even more itself—
the lupine more purple,
the sky more blue,
and my heart more a heart
because of her courage
to take off her mask
and says this, this is what’s real.
Posts Tagged ‘friendship’
Walking with Lisa to Horsefly Mesa
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, conversation, courage, friendship, truth on May 23, 2022| 6 Comments »
Sunday Morning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breakfast, friendship, moment on January 24, 2022| 6 Comments »
A soft poached egg
and a slice of pumpernickel toast,
a cup of English Breakfast
and my oldest friend and I
sitting at the round table a sunlit room
laughing and talking—
there are moments so ordinary
as to be perfect—moments
we feel so completely ourselves
we don’t try to hold on to the minutes.
Such moments don’t try
to put themselves in a picture frame,
don’t pretend to be necessary or grand.
They ask us for nothing except
that we spend them like change,
as if we had a lifetime supply.
On Christmas Eve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, friendship, jar, magic, vessel on December 25, 2021| 8 Comments »
On the doorsill,
left without a knock,
was a very small bag
with a big silver bow.
Inside was a jam jar
with a red gingham cap
filled with homemade confetti,
Its thin red label said:
Christmas magic,
just sprinkle.
And it’s that simple:
a bit of bright paper
cut into tiny squares
and the true love of a friend,
and I am awash with magic,
baptized by tears of devotion
and wonder, marvel
and memory, loss
and hope and gratitude.
Let the jars we are
be vessels for love.
May we be certain
that whatever we carry inside us,
we are capable of real magic—
the kind that flings open
the heart of another
and lets wild joy rush in.
The kind that turns words
into wine. The kind
that takes a gray rainy day
stained with grief and sickness
and turns it into
Christmas.
Kintsugi Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged broken heart, brokenness, friendship, grief, heart, kintsugi, loss on November 11, 2021| 14 Comments »
After the heart broke like a porcelain bowl,
when it shattered in pieces, scattered,
life itself reassembled the shards.
Friends bring their melted gold
to seal the bits together again.
I trace my fingers across the shining scars.
Some pieces will be missing forever.
Let me fall in love with what has been broken.
Let me dare to call it beautiful.
Surprise Visit
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, gift, grief, love on October 25, 2021| 10 Comments »
She arrived with a small box of gifts—
two tree-ripened avocados, crispy kale
she’d roasted with spicy tahin,
a bar of dark chocolate laced with salt,
and a paperback book of koans.
I received them all with raw gratitude,
knowing what was really in that box
was devotion, compassion, integrity, hope.
But it was her arms that saved me
that day, her arms and the quiet song
of her breath, the way she held me
until I felt known—the way a shore
holds a lake, the way empty branches
hold sky, the way love holds us all.
How the Healing Happens
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, book, friendship, gift, grief, healing on October 16, 2021| 6 Comments »
for Paul Fericano and so many others
I turn first to the chapter
on techniques for broken wings.
I learn of contour splints and anchor tape
and reasons why most broken wings
should not be completely immobilized.
I am not so unlike an injured bird.
Struck down by grief, I too, am unable to fly.
Even walking, I find I’m off balance.
I’m best treated without an audience.
I heal best with absolute calm.
I was unsure at first why my friend
would have sent me—along with tea,
chocolate, crackers and sweet biscuits—
a book on “kitchen healing:”
how to treat injured wildlife at home.
But there beneath the image
of a simple wing break, I read,
a sentence like a prophecy:
“Nature starts the healing process
almost as soon as the injury occurs.”
And I feel, to my surprise,
the tender places where the bones
of my wings no longer protrude.
And though my joints are rigid,
with supports, I’m recovering.
And I am thankful for all the hands of friends—
unskilled, untrained, yet willing to try.
Hands that send letters and blankets
and feathers and books. Calm hands
that help heal these fractures until I can fly.
*Quote from Care of the Wild Feathered & Furred: A Guide to Wildlife Handling & Care by Mae Hickman and Maxine Guy (Unity Press, 1973)
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.
Crashing into the Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, garden, high school, memory on July 1, 2021| 7 Comments »
for Marne
And though we have not spoken
in over thirty years, today I invite
the memory of my friend to walk
with me in the garden.
That girl would laugh
to learn I’ve become a woman
who weeds, who waters, who grows.
We were uncultivated together,
unrooted, unmanicured,
and blossoming anyway,
windblown and wandering and wild.
I bring that sweet madness now
into the tidy rows and marvel
at how things change.
For a moment, I am running with her
over a hill and spinning
and crashing and laughing.
For a moment, I am again that girl
who is more dream than flesh,
more wish than should, more
me than I ever could be.
How beautiful the song of that memory,
how it rhymes even now with whatever
is green in me.
Even now, I am running,
spinning, crashing, though anyone looking
at the garden might think
I am peacefully deadheading flowers,
talking to the spinach,
painstakingly pulling the weeds.
Why We Smile
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blessing, eulogy, friendship, Ivar Eidsmo, nordic skiing, smile on June 27, 2021| 2 Comments »
For Ivar
Today as we gently
spread mountain dirt
on your ashes
I think of
that snow blown day
three years ago
when we
at two below
were laughing
at how cold
we were and
how sticky
our skis.
It amazes me
how out of
bleakness
comes blessing.
To this day
your smile—
crooked
and wide as the mesa
we stood on—
still warms me,
your real smile
the only part
of that long cold race
I remember.
Cheers, Friend
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged champagne, friendship, wine on June 18, 2021| 3 Comments »
The day bubbles up
like champagne, a burst
of effervescence, bright rush
of intoxication, a golden
stream of goodness—
and I, walking the trail
with my friend, find
I’m tipsy on laughter
and old love, forgetting
for the moment life might
be any other way—
remembering only
celebration, indulgence,
scent of white flowers,
a sparkling that lingers,
the glass somehow
always, sweet miracle,
so full.
Mid-Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, friendship, self, silence on June 17, 2021| 4 Comments »
Sometimes
in the silence
between
the small talk
a whole life
is lived—
a life
in which
you are
exactly
yourself
only more so,
a self without
name, a self
of no
where, a
self unselved,
which
is to say
that sometimes
in the silence
of a minute
you find
some vision
so vast
so true
that you weep
before saying,
And how are you?
Returning Again to That Evening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bodies, coronavirus, friendship on May 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »
In the picture, we are laughing,
snuggled onto a bench in a bar,
falling all over each other, a heap of joy.
Julie is as always the most solid of us—
a mischievous, wicked and grinning foundation
for whatever we pile on.
Rachel leans on Julie, her head flung back,
her dark curls ribboning down her shoulders,
eyes closed, her smile dreamy and fixed in an eternal
air of happiness. And I have nearly
collapsed on her chest, my face contorted
in laughter that is forever about to burst.
We are like puppies, squirmy and vulnerable,
our bodies unguarded and innocent,
cuddling and twisting and vining
around each other, knowing ourselves
as skin and warmth and tumble of love.
We knew nothing then of how our own bodies
would become weapons, how bursts of breath
charged with laughter would be perilous,
how dangerous our bodies would become.
Staring at the photo, I ache
for the sweet wine of connection,
the benediction of touch, the wild joy
of curling into each other, animals that we are,
staying safe by keeping each other close.
Wild Iris
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, flowers, friendship, pond, wild iris on May 15, 2021| 2 Comments »
From a handful of wild iris
planted years ago,
dozens of slender spears
and stems now rise beside the pond—
their pale purple flags
wave in allegiance to spring
and each other.
They know how to grow
not just up but to the side,
how to send out lateral roots
that will someday be new blooms.
Old friends are like rhizomes—
connected by invisible roots,
resilient, perceiving the light as good,
but knowing, too, how essential
to grow through the dark.
Over a Year Later, I Grieve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, friendship, Heartbeat, loss, singing on May 13, 2021| 2 Comments »
for Heartbeat, singing together since 1994
Every week we sang, sang blues
and ballads, folk songs,
rounds, pop songs, jazz,
love songs, chants. And we
didn’t just sing, we touched
and hugged, leaned in and loved,
ran our fingers through the waves
of each other’s hair, laughed till we peed,
and jostled and shoved and teased
and offered tissues and kissed cheeks
and brought the shared melodic air
into our bodies and returned it
into the room in currents of ecstatic song.
Oh we sang, how we sang, as if
singing were a life raft that kept us afloat
on the aching broken world.
Now, I sing alone in the kitchen.
Sometimes I’m haunted by the part
I sing—a harmony line unanchored
by the melody. With no tonic,
the tune feels off. There is so much
that’s missing, that’s lost.
Sometimes I make up a new song
and sing about what is here.
Good morning, hummingbird.
Good morning, loneliness. Good
morning big empty room.
The air holds the notes like shimmering drops
that sometimes leak out of my eyes
when I think of how we sang, the music
a life raft, and your voices, my friends, the oars.
One Old Friendship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apple, friendship, time on May 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »
even as we devour
the apple
scent of apple blossoms
Red Rover, Red Rover
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, friendship, game, sickness on April 27, 2021| 2 Comments »
The only rule:
keep the chain intact.
I didn’t know
in the grade school gym
it was a way to practice
meeting all that would try
to break us apart,
practice being bombarded,
practice calling in our fear.
Red Rover, Red Rover
let sickness come over.
Once it felt like a game.
Now—oh friend.
Hold on to my wrist.
I’ll hold on to yours.
Thank You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aesop, ars poetica, crow, fable, friendship, save on March 30, 2021| 4 Comments »
for all poetry friends
I am perhaps the crow
who, parched, unable to fly,
arrives at the pitcher
and realizes
I cannot reach the water.
But in this story,
there are no pebbles nearby.
In this story,
there are other crows
who arrive, each
with pebbles they drop
into the pitcher.
You, my friends,
are the crows.
Your words
are the pebbles.
And slowly, sweet miracle,
the water rises.
How to Reconnect with a Friend
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, fear, friendship, poetry, wall on March 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Not by writing another poem
about how much you miss them.
No matter how many red-wing blackbirds
you put in it, the poem itself won’t trill.
No matter how many elephants
clomp through the stanzas,
the poem won’t make the earth tremble.
No matter your skill with language
even the ripest metaphoric blood oranges
cannot quench a very real thirst.
Pick up the phone. Press the button.
Call the one you miss.
I know, I skipped the hours
where you worry about how much time
has passed, how every silent day
becomes another thick brick
in a taciturn wall between you.
Perhaps you’ve started to believe it’s impassable.
But a call is like a wrecking ball.
One sincere hello knocks down even a thousand
days of separation with just two syllables.
What happens next will only happen next
if you clear a space for reunion,
if you pick up the phone.
Review: Memory of a Night in Taos
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, memory, review, taos on March 19, 2021| 2 Comments »
for AOI
Unforgettable nights! The sun was committed
to great service, shining low and golden.
Impressive wide variety of laughter,
and the high-quality conversation
made me as if I belonged in my skin.
I don’t remember a thing I ate
or where I stayed or even much of what
we said. Mostly, I remember
walking the large selection
of quiet side streets, grinning,
feeling lucky to be alive,
and you whistling flawless and clear.
Atmosphere: Usually I’d say five stars,
but truly there were at least
two thousand stars visible,
and I’d use them all for this memory review
in which I first met you.
Only complaint, the weekend ran out of time.
Highly recommended to remember again,
especially the way our smiles slipped
from something we practiced
to something immeasurably true.