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Posts Tagged ‘good enough’

At Last

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »


 
 
after years of bowing
at the altar of not-good-enough,
I turn toward the rest
of the world and fall in love
with what is here
 

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Beyond Perfect

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 31, 2024| 9 Comments »

with thanks to Heidi
 
 
It is not the best raspberry.
There have been berries sweeter,
more perfectly formed,
berries I’ve harvested
warm from the bush,
berries that have made me
close my eyes and rhapsodize
about the perfect, juicy,
bulbous joy of raspberry.
Still, this small and fragile fruit
packaged in a plastic shell
sings ripe and red on my tongue,
and on this January morning
it brings news of sunshine somewhere.
I delight in its tartness, its bite.
Bless what is good enough.
Not only bless but cherish—
Cherish this good enough morning
with its good enough fruit
in this kitchen cleaned well enough
for this good enough woman
living into the good enough day,
my mouth slightly puckered,
taste of raspberry still bright
on my tongue.
 

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After the Tortoise Won the Race

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 23, 2021| 10 Comments »




It was the strangest thing.
She’d never cared before about winning.
Life had been about basking in the sun
at the entrance to her burrow.
Sometimes when she was warm enough,
she’d plod off in search of leaves.

Now, she thought about finish lines.
The feel of the ribbon on her prehistoric nose.
The roar of the crowd as she crossed.
They say tortoises don’t have feelings,
no hippocampus in their small brains,
but she’d felt it, the thrill of success.

She spent decades looking for another race
she had a chance to win. None of her friends
could understand. Come dig in the sandy soil,
they said, but it wasn’t enough anymore.
She wished she’d never said yes to that race.
She wished she could race the hare again tonight.

She wished she could stop defining her life
by that one moment. Wished she could stop wishing
for any life beyond the life she had now,
sleeping in her burrow, cool and moist.
Wished all she wanted were soft weeds and long-leaf pines.
Wished she could hear that crowd just one more time.

published in ONE ART: A journal of poetry

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So I Picked Up My Pen Again

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 21, 2020| 8 Comments » 

            with thanks to Rebecca Mullen

but what if I can’t do enough

I said, and love said

what if you don’t try?

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Astonished

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 11, 2020| 3 Comments »

            with gratitude to Corinne Platt

In the dream, I am flying

over the red dirt roads

of the desert, flying through blue sky

beside dark cliffs and I realize

I can choose to fly right out of

the dream’s landscape

and into my life,

and though I’m scared,

I do, fly through blue until

I’m flying above myself

walking through aspen,

flying with no effort at all,

flying wide awake

with no fear of landing.

flying without a single should,

astonished to find

I’m enough.

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Grace

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

After all these years of falling, falling,

terrified of my own weight, terrified

of gravity, after all these years of dropping

through the sky, through all these fears

of not good enough, certain I will crash,

I will die, I find myself now wearing

a great white parachute that appeared

as if I were dreaming, to save me.

 

After all these years harnessed only to fear,

I land gently, as if on a flat green lawn.

And I’m not just safe, I’m smiling.

I try to reason it logically: Air resistance

with a chute is greater than gravity.

But there is no logic here. How

did the parachute appear? I

didn’t even ask to be saved. Here I am,

good enough, two feet on the ground.

After years and years of falling,

I’m okay. I’m wildly okay.

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