with gratefulness for all the bees
When you are soft, when you lay bare
your innerness and unfold your layers
for the world like a voluptuous, purpling
O’Keefe iris, it is true, there will be some
so threatened by your opening they will attack,
will sow fear and hatred into the warm field
of the gentle night. When it happens, may you
be surprised by how others rise to protect you
like a humming, swarming swirl of bees
that baptize the air with a wild and fierce
aliveness, a rousing acrobatic vocalizing
that shields you from that which would trample
you or cut you down. May you be astonished
by the power of the hive as they surround you.
Even as fear ripples through you, may you
be so enthralled by the buzz of their joy
that you don’t snap shut like a fist, like a trap.
And in honor of the gift you’ve received,
the gift of belonging, may you stay open.
May you be so stunned with gratefulness
that every word that falls from your mouth
tastes of truth, raw praise and dark, secret honey.
Posts Tagged ‘gratefulness’
Blessing for Those Who Are Willing to Be Vulnerable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bees, flower, gratefulness, heckling, honoring, performance, safety, vulnerability on June 8, 2026| 6 Comments »
Portal
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, holy, lens, nature, pause, thank you on May 15, 2026| 12 Comments »
Not only the golden yellow belly
of the evening grosbeak as he bobs
below the feeder; not only
the rich purple flash of the black-chinned
hummingbird charging the air with iridescence;
it could, in fact, be any gray-winged thing,
even, for instance, a cricket, common as grass,
prehistoric and segmented in its armor, yes,
it could be anything—ant hill, moth dust,
soft moss, ginger—anything at all
that makes you, for a moment, pause
to take in the miracle of what is here, and
the attendant miracle that you are here, too,
as witness, and in this pleat of a pause,
you might find yourself stunned with a gratefulness
you could never hope to name, a thanksgiving
beyond the syllables of prayer, a throbbing
thanksgiving for the utter marvel of this life
that none of us did anything at all to deserve,
yes, gratefulness for the pausing itself,
that portal through which we travel
to find everything, everything is holy,
even the pill bug, even the tick,
even the one who cannot stop stuttering
thank you, thank you, thank you.
This, Too, Is What I Was Born For
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, family, fire, gratefulness, husband on December 8, 2025| 10 Comments »
with a phrase from Augusta Kantra
To sit late at night by the small fire
my daughter has made using cedar wood
split by the man I married over thirty years ago.
To feel the good heat of it reach through
the thick muscles of my back, infusing
me with such honest contentment
I unfold in the warmth.
To feel grateful for this small constellation
of family, humbled again and again
by the tenderness we offer each other.
Is it everything, this whispery moment,
with its soft glow of enoughness,
this ease that arrives in me,
as quiet as evening, when I am able to honor
every wanted and every unbidden thing
that conspired to bring me here to this hearth
in winter’s dim light. And like a violet
that can’t help but open at the slightest warmth,
I fall in love again with this life.
Oh, Thank You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, cemetery, gratefulness, wonder on November 2, 2025| 6 Comments »
My wonder has a hill in it,
grassy and steep, and a sky
so blue it feels as if I must have
imagined it. There are gravestones
there, some so old and covered
with orange lichen I can’t read the dates,
and other stones engraved with names
of people I love. My wonder has in it
the scent of fallen leaves and the warm
laughter of women, bright yellow feathers,
and a song I once learned from listening to the air.
A candle filled with marigold petals
that stays lit despite the wind
and sometimes a Stellar’s jay flying through.
There is room enough in it for every version
of myself to enter, even the selves
I have yet to meet, even the selves
I might push away, even the selves
I have thought were myself. All of them
slip away. Wandering the hill,
I am certain of little except the fertileness
of not knowing, the necessity for love,
and the gift of being given new eyes.
Carving the Pumpkins
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, halloween, pumpkin, surrender on October 26, 2025| 4 Comments »
We plunge our bare hands into our pumpkins
and pull out seeds and strings and thick orange
goo; we scrape at the walls with grapefruit
spoons and all the while as we scoop at the earth-
scented mess, I never once think how I was dreading
this, this annual ritual I’m supposed to enjoy, but don’t.
But tonight it’s as if the part of me in charge of delight
has taken over and I remember I want nothing more
than to be exactly here on the floor with my girl
and my husband, sawing a giant smile into my pumpkin,
fueled by a gratefulness so honest it shines like a votive
through whatever inside me is hollow.
On the Eve of His 21st Birthday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, gratefulness, grief, photo, sadness, tears on September 11, 2025| 18 Comments »
There is a joy that chases sadness
and sometimes overtakes it, as if
the two are racing down a hill,
their shadows sometimes merging—
and this is how a woman looking at a photo
of her son when he was still alive,
his face radiant with elation,
might find herself not knowing
if her tears are made of gratefulness
or sorrow, two parallel emotions
that sometimes twine inside us.
Nor does it matter to her.
Gratefulness. Sorrow. It seems right
she should weep either way.
Both feelings are fashioned from love.
She is here for all of it.
The salt tastes just the same.
Learning to Treasure What’s Here
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, garden, gratefulness, life, rose on July 23, 2025| 6 Comments »
I believed I had lost it,
the rose bush I planted last year,
what, with the way it died back
after that hard spring frost.
Died all the way to the ground.
Every stem turned brown.
Was it for hope or laziness
I didn’t dig out the roots?
This year, the rose stayed dead
until one day, green. More green.
Then burgeoning, vibrant green.
And now flowers, so many flowers,
flowers of palest pink. The scent
greets me at the garden gate
every time I enter. How precious
it has become to me, this treasure.
Not because I thought it had died,
but because now I remember
it will.
Annual
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged annual, flower, garden, gratefulness, mortality on May 31, 2025| 8 Comments »
I know they will die,
the dahlias, the zinnias,
the petunias, the geraniums,
will die come autumn,
and still I buy them, still
plant them and sing to them
as I do. Looking up
from the garden beds, trowel
in hand, I see it in everything—
the spruce, the ants, the swallows,
this hand—all that lives will die.
And staring at the basil, pungent
and green and ephemeral, I feel
so darn lucky to unfold
for whatever time I am given.
To bloom while I can. To be marigold.
Calendula. Mother. Begonia. Gratefulness
floods me like low summer sun.
I turn my face toward that light.
What a Word Can Do
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged glad, gratefulness, Laure-Anne Baaselaar, words on May 2, 2025| 2 Comments »
for Laure-Anne Bosselaar
If I can’t love all of it, I can at least love
what is good in this moment—
these three fresh-cut roses on the table
in a small clear vase, their fragrance
mingling with the scent of lemon blossoms
that arrives through the open French windows.
This moment with its wall full of poetry books
and their welcoming spines.
This moment in a spacious room
with white couches and white curtains
and a white quilt on a king-sized bed.
I can love this place I have been lucky enough’
to land for one night,
this place with its jacaranda tree visited
by a peregrine falcon each morning,
this place steeped in the musings
of Hoagland and Lux, this place
with three fresh lemons set beside my backpack
that I will take home with me and slice
into my water glass. And I believe
I will love that moment, too,
when I taste the sharp sweetness
and look back on this moment
when I feel so cared for, so carried
by a woman who wrapped her arms
around me tonight and said she was glad
we were together. We said the word glad again
and again, as if a word could somehow
contain all this goodness,
which of course, it didn’t, no,
in fact, it amplified all this good
until, like a lemon tree bowing to the weight
of its own abundance, I too felt like bowing
to every little thing saying glad, glad, glad.
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?