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Posts Tagged ‘growth’

More Love, More Love

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 31, 2020| 3 Comments »

 

 

Sorrow is how we learn to love.

—Rita Mae Brown, Riding Shotgun

 

 

If sorrow is how we learn to love,

then let us learn.

Already enough sorrow’s been sown

for whole continents to erupt

into astonishing tenderness.

Let us learn. Let compassion grow rampant,

like sunflowers along the highway.

Let each act of kindness replant itself

into acres and acres of widespread devotion.

Let us choose love as if our lives depend on it.

The sorrow is great. Let us learn to love greater—

riotous love, expansive love,

love so rooted, so common

we almost forget

the world could look any other way.

 

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Flourish

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 27, 2020| 2 Comments »

Flourish

Whatever it is inside the larkspur

that says grow, grow, grow,

I want to know it, too. Want

to obey the voice that urges me on,

even in frost, even in rain.

I want to rise out of my own dried debris,

want to know how it is to die and return,

new and yet somehow the same.

And what is it that fuels the drive?

I want to know that— the divine

encouragement that knows

when to wait, when to push,

when to wilt, when to flourish,

when to swell into oh! bright bloom.

I want to know myself as wick,

to be lit, to be the fire itself.

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The Annual Mother’s Day Project

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 11, 2020| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

My daughter plants nasturtium seeds, 

two per hole, four inches apart. 

 

Meanwhile, two rows away, I drop carrot seeds 

four to the inch, into the soft dark soil.  

 

Oh, the secrets of dirt, this kingdom 

of earth with its cool and damp quiet— 

 

how quickly its finite borders pull me 

into the infinite. What joy to travel here 

 

with my girl, though she is a hesitant traveler.  

One could say the main thing we did today  

 

was measuring—how deep, how many seeds, 

how far apart. Perhaps. When we finish, it will look 

 

the same as when we began. But 

I look at my daughter across the rows, 

 

humming with her hands in the dirt 

and I see already in her the fiery petals,  

 

the peltate leaves like green flags  

that know how to play with the wind.  

 

 

 

 

 

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Springing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 2, 2020| 6 Comments »

 

 

Last summer’s grass still stands in the field,

dry and fringe-like. It shushes against my thighs

as I walk. How is it still upright? After the weight

of last year’s snow? How has it not fallen, decayed?

 

Though I can break the brittle stems in my fingers,

it bends in the wind, more resilient than I could imagine.

 

What inside me is dead, yet still standing?

What old thoughts, their seeds long gone,

are filling the fields of imagination?

 

The new grass already is emerging into spring.

Soft. Deep green. Unable to be bent or broken,

its scent sweet and sharp in the nose.

 

Let me find in me this freshness, this new growth,

this willingness to push up through what’s dead.

Let me roll in it like a dog, till I come up stained green—

green thoughts. Green words. Green wonder.

Green learning what it is to be green.

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Big

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 4, 2020| 12 Comments »

This is, perhaps, the year to learn to be big.

Spruce tree big. Cliffside big. Big as mesa,

as mountain lake. Big as in cosmos, as in love.

Being small has never served me—constricting,

contorting, trying to fit into a room, into shoes,

into a name. Let this be the year to escape all those little

rules with those little shoulds, all those little

cages with their little locks. Time to make of myself

a key, time to lean into immensity. Time to supersize

communion, time to grow beyond self. Time to

open, to unwall, to do as the universe does,

accelerating as it expands, not rushing toward

something else, but changing the scale of space itself.

This is the year to be big .

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End of Season

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 18, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

The broccoli was a disappointment this year—

planted from seed, it had finally begun to sport

small knobby green heads when the frost came.

And though the broccoli didn’t die, it stalled.

Perhaps I fear I am like this broccoli—destined

to grow but never to fruit. Perhaps this is why

I feel such urgency, this need to write faster,

heal quicker, mature sooner, love more. Because

what if the freeze comes? What if I die before

doing what I have come here to do?

 

There is a part of me who is patient. A part of me

who says, Sweet One, you could not possibly be

any more you than you are right now. She tells me,

You are exactly enough. And sometimes I believe her.

But sometimes I roll my eyes at her and tell myself,

Hurry up, hurry up. I know myself as barren stalk.

I try to will my own ripening. Not once has it worked,

not once, and still this strange drive:

go faster, do it better, do it now.

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When I Thought I Wanted Things to be Different

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 23, 2018| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

Sometimes, she said, being uncomfortable

is what we need to do.

 

And I think of the scald of hot water,

how it cleans the stain.

 

How being covered in abrasive fuzz

is the only way to harvest the peach.

 

How the seed is carried by the burr.

It is human to seek pleasure, shun pain.

 

But think of the tree, how it lets

the gale rip away what is dead.

 

And the grape, how it bubbles

and foams before it becomes wine.

 

And the cactus, how it needs the drought

as much as it needs the rain.

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One Almost 5’10

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 19, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

the tree I planted

now taller than I—

my empty hand

still remembering

the weight of the acorn

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When It Looks As If Our Path Has Ended

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 10, 2017| 2 Comments »

More and more, I have come to admire resilience.

            —Jane Hirshfield, “Optimism”

And when the snap peas ran out of fence to climb,

they created a living trellis of leaf and vine

and climbed up themselves and each other,

winding and twisting toward the sun.

There’s green inside our limbs, friends.

There’s braiding to be done.

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One Stretch

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 22, 2016| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

it is not the shadows

that shape us, but the reaching

toward the light

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In Late Spring

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 30, 2016| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

The garden rows are visible now,

the slender shoots of carrots,

 

the succulent leaves of calendula,

the curly beginnings of kale—

 

after many years these first green shapes

feel like old friends.

 

I greet them as I walk the rows,

tell them they are doing fine.

 

And then there are the gaps

between the sprouts, the places

 

where I can only guess about

why the seeds don’t grow.

 

A lack of water? Planted too deep?

A shadow? A dud of a seed? A slug?

 

Of course I take it personally

and wonder what else I should have done.

 

And then I pull out the extra seeds

and fill in the spots where there is no green.

 

There is no use in blaming. Just plant the seed

where nothing is growing. It’s so simple,

 

the task, so lacking in blame.

There are gardens in me begging

 

for me to do the same—to notice

where there is failure to thrive,

 

and to seed again, then bring water,

bring nourishment, wait.

 

 

 

 

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How Soon Things Change

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 9, 2016| 1 Comment »

 

for e.m.m.

 

 

The amaryllis

you gave us

three weeks ago

grew two inches

just today—

so much life

in such a short time.

Already, the two

thick buds

are swelling,

twin green

chambers.

So much of

any miracle

is invisible,

though it happens

right before

our eyes.

I can hardly stop

watching the buds

and thinking

of you, wishing

for a miracle

and knowing

that even if

one is rising

up right now,

it wouldn’t

be like the amaryllis—

miraculous

as this flower is,

we know

it’s red petals

that emerge. No,

what I wish

for you

is something

I couldn’t possibly

know—something

I couldn’t name

or predict, something

that will rise out of

what seems to be

nothing and render

us astonished,

humbled, delirious

with its impossible

grace.

 

 

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Four Surprises

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 9, 2015| 2 Comments »

carrying that sled

uphill for so long, I forgot

it was for riding

*

shedding the roof

when the house no longer fits—

now nothing between us and the stars

*

but I miss the weight

say the hands, too free after

setting down the stone chest

*

running full speed

into my own fear, I ricochet

into the arms of god

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While

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 7, 2014| 1 Comment »

saying the words
I knew you did not
want to hear I tried
to shape my voice
like the flowers
we know will
eventually
come in more fully
only after the stem
has been
broken.

I forced myself
to keep my eyes
open.

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A Small Proof of Heisenberg’s Theory of Uncertainty

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 12, 2014| 3 Comments »

In the loss
is a branch
with a brittle
stem
where an old
fruit hangs
rust-colored
and dried
beside
a tight cluster
of rose-tipped buds
where something
fragile
and white
is just
beginning
to form.

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Because I Thought I Knew What It Should Look Like

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 25, 2013| 1 Comment »

I grieved
that the rose had stopped blooming
when in fact
it was opening
only very, very, very slowly

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At the Edge of the Field

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 24, 2013| 4 Comments »

Like a pinecone
after it’s been trod on

and snowed on and
summered and rained on,

that is how I find myself.
Softer now, and with less

sense of separateness.
The earth has a fine way

of saying here, here.
And gravity, it makes things

so easy. I would not have thought
it sounded so good,

all that wearing down,
lessening to dust.

I could not have imagined
sharing my browns, much less

losing my sharpness, my articulate
serration, spilling my seeds.

Though spilling, that is what seeds
are for. And the opening beyond.

And losing the self, that is perhaps
what a self is for.

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two

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 10, 2012| 5 Comments »

we are like roses
in winter—we should not be
blooming but we are

*

when I don’t need the
storm, I fold it up and put
it in my pocket

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