In the garden, fill a hole with water,
eventually it will drain. Fill it with trash,
with poor soil, nothing—or weeds—
will grow. But fill the hole with topsoil,
intentional seed—is it any wonder
something beautiful eventually thrives?
Consider the hollow left when a loved one
is gone. Nothing will ever be the same as it was.
But if I protect the hollow, allow into it,
more feeling, more love, more honest connection,
if I sow there whatever goodness I grieve,
then how deep the roots might go. How true,
the sapling, its leaves so verdant,
so heartachingly new, so unashamedly green.
Posts Tagged ‘growing’
Intention
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, growing, growth, intention, loss on May 22, 2026| 10 Comments »
Trembling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aliveness, field, growing, rebirth on February 19, 2026| 4 Comments »
Growing out of the earth
of my own detritus,
this new self, field self,
shedding and emerging,
equally alive with loss
and becoming.
We could say it took me my whole life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growing, growth, heart, particulars, unlearning, vastness on September 16, 2025| 4 Comments »
to grow a heart from lake water and an old
junk yard, from an empty classroom
and cheap novels bought at the second
hand store, two-liter bottles of diet coke
and a dusty dead-end road. There was more,
of course. An old plaid couch with a squeaky spring.
The spiraling cord of an old telephone. A rusty pan
with cornbread made with Mavis’s fresh eggs.
The breathing weight of my newborn girl.
What hasn’t gone into the growing of this heart?
An old red truck. The pinnately compound leaves
of Jacob’s Ladder. But it is the unpetaling
that astonishes now, how all the stories
of my becoming—all the particulars
that seemed so essential—begin to drop
No, not drop, exactly. It’s just that I nourish
these stories less as I turn my attention
toward the vastness from which all arose—
and in this turning, discover how the more
the heart is undone, the more
the heart can grow.
Case Study in Insanity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flowers, garden, growing, insanity, persistance, planting, trying, zinnias on August 30, 2025| 4 Comments »
Every year, the zinnias have died,
or else have come so close to dying
I’ve dug out their bare, stunted stems
and frost-browned leaves and planted
trusty petunias. But this year. This year
an enchantment of zinnias. A profusion
of red. Magenta. Yellow. Orange. White.
An astonishment of beauty. A bright
constellation of earthbound joy.
You have heard this, too: insanity
is doing the same thing again expecting
different results. So let me be insane.
For this is the year when again
I bought zinnia starts and hoped
for abundance and was stunned
by flamboyant abundance. It’s making
me wonder what else I might sow
until I no longer have energy to plant:
Kindness. Forgiveness. Trust. Love.
Just because they haven’t always flourished
before, well, look at all these zinnias
outside my door, brilliant and burgeoning,
dozens and dozens, and sure, they will die
come winter, but for now, more flowers arrive
every day. Brilliant. Just look at all those petals.
After a Day in the Garden
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, green, growing on August 1, 2025| 4 Comments »
If we are made of light,
we are also made of dark.
Like the marigolds I transplanted
today. Their leaves reach toward sun
at the same time all those thin,
thin roots reach down, down
into the earth.
Green, I say to myself.
Green is who I am. Green
is what happens when
light meets dark. Green
is daring to live in two
opposite worlds at once,
it’s knowing full body
how deeply those two worlds
need each other.
I say it not as a fact,
but as a way to wake myself up.
Green. It tastes clean in my mouth.
Like something beautiful.
Someone about to bloom.
Driving Back to the Orchard Where Once We Lived
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blooming, growing, growth, nostalgia, soil, sweetness on March 1, 2025| 10 Comments »
I realize I am no longer a slender sapling.
No longer a pink cherry blossom in spring.
But I am not done with my blossoming.
I am not yet done with serving
sweetness to the world.
I am so grateful for all those years
that taught me the importance
of tending to soil,
how to meet drought, how to prune,
how to thin, how to plan.
But I am no longer a sapling.
Nor am I a workhorse of a pear tree
grafted decades ago.
I aspire to be more like purple mustard,
a weed growing exuberant and thick
in the long orchard rows—
grown to suppress all other weeds,
intent on improving the dirt,
a pest control, good for tilling,
a natural biofumigant.
But most of all, there is no stopping
that deep, sweet, surprising
and beautiful scent.
One Beginning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beginning, growing, power, time on May 29, 2023| 7 Comments »
so spindly
these seedlings
that will soon feed hundreds
Holding What Must Be Held
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, growing, heartache, holding, river on August 11, 2020| 1 Comment »
Down by the river we sit and talk.
When I think I can’t ache any more,
the world serves more heartache.
And I meet it.
I say no, but I feel myself stretched
by some great invisible hand,
rendering me spacious enough to hold
what must be held.
When we rise to leave,
the river doesn’t stop.
Nor does the forgiving wind.
I swear I feel them move
right through me.
Finn Practices Spanish
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growing, learning, mother, parenting, poem, poetry, son, Spanish, tree on November 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »
And though he struggles to conjugate estar
and though his adjectives precede the nouns,
he’s doing it. He’s telling me about una foto
and all its themes—and though the words
are like strange spices in his mouth—paprika
y cilantro—and though he insists he hates it,
there is a tender sinceridad in his voice, like
a tree seed, perhaps, una semilla, that has
some vague idea of its potential, but is still
so trapped in its seed-ness that it is intimidated
by trees. And whatever part of me that is todavia
una semilla recognizes itself. How frightening
to see all that we do not know, to stand
beneath it like the shade of a giant tree,
to know ourselves as small and still stand straight.
My son finishes his descripción, then smiles
at me, and in his smile, I somehow see
the roots, the greening leaves, the trunk
as it reaches up doing what trunks are made to do.
Late
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, growing, love, poem, poetry on August 25, 2013| 1 Comment »
Already the feet of the rabbit are white.
The river runs low in its rocky bed.
And though the season for growing is done,
there is still much to be planted.
Some things, love, are better begun
when its darker and heading toward cold.
We will not see the flowers that grow
from these roots for a long, long time,
chance is never, I suppose. But that is no
reason not to put our hands in the dirt,
to sow and sow again. When we are quiet,
I hear the river crossing the stones. When we are quiet,
I swear I can almost hear the sound
of roots as they stretch toward a deeping dark.
After Years and Years of Nice, I Consider Expanding My Range
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growing, poem, truth, voice on March 11, 2013| 6 Comments »
Here, voice, speak
for my thighs.
Speak for my fists.
Speak for all the places
I try to hide. Speak
in cobweb. Speak in rust.
Speak in siren. Speak
in fog. Speak ugly.
Speak rancid. Speak
lost. Speak sour. Speak
stammer. Speak red dress.
Speak busy signal. Speak
fool. Here, voice, take
your slippers off. Take
your apron off. Take off
your corset. Remove
your belt. Consider me
your vessel. Use me up.
Speak it all.
Nine Dismantlings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, growing, haiku, letting go, not knowing, poem, receptivity on August 9, 2012| 2 Comments »
my hammer, my nails
what good are they now
the whole roof collapsed
*
doe in the meadow
my thoughts in the meadow
one of these is quiet
**
so much to learn
about
not knowing
***
not by the shoulders
but by the soul
life shakes me
****
hands bloody
tearing down a wall
that isn’t even there
*****
doe in the meadow
my thoughts in the meadow
one of these is quiet
******
at the same time
the tree grows
toward darkness, toward light
*******
so open my hands
not holding
my hammer, my nails
*********
surrounded by rubble
still I beg Love, keep having
your way with me
Even Blossoming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged balance, blossoming, Erika Gordon, friendship, growing, poems, poetry, potential, yoga on March 25, 2012| 5 Comments »
Erika on the red mat
tucks her right foot in her groin
and bends forward from the waist
then lowers till she’s hovering
above her left tippy toes.
If you can’t follow
what I’m saying, that’s
because her body’s twisted,
furled and folded as a body seldom is.
But full of grace,
she brings her hands
to meet in prayer in front of her
and for a minute poises there,
a compact bulb with five small roots
and a patient shoot waiting
to push up and through.
It’s beautiful to stand beside
Erika on the red mat
to feel more than see
the rising energy as like
a tulip in the spring
she reaches not just up
but into the quiet balance point
where anything can happen.
Walking to the River with my Three-Year-Old Girl
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, emptiness, growing, parenting, poems, poetry, transformation on February 21, 2012| 2 Comments »
last night’s snow
fills in the spaces
where we’ve been
so many emptinesses
in our wake
some never fill