Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, heron, hope, wasteland on January 5, 2021| 6 Comments »
Nudged by hope
the heart rises
from exhaustion.
It’s like the great blue heron
I saw this morning
flying up from a wasteland
on broad gray wings
with strong, slow beats
for a moment charged
with grace
before—did you
see this, heart?—
it chose to land again,
bringing all its beauty
to the desolate place.
This poem is published in the wonderful ONE ART Poetry Journal
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heron, memory, poem, poetry, transformation on April 22, 2017| 2 Comments »
The heron flies away
and its great blue wings
touch the surface of the water.
For a time, after the heron
is gone, the twin concentric wrinkles remain.
If you leaned far enough, you could
see your reflection in ripples,
your image warped by the memory
of flight. The water
returns to its stillness,
your face again your familiar face—
but that is not the way
with all memories.
Sometimes, we
never see ourselves
the same again.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged disappointment, heron, poem, poetry on March 9, 2016| 4 Comments »
today in the trees
and in the gray March sky
not one heron—
today enough to know
sometimes there are herons
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, heron, poem, poetry on March 9, 2016| 1 Comment »
three roosting herons
in the empty cottonwood—
stopping to watch
them not move,
I knew
so completely,
though I
would perhaps
argue against it
now,
beauty
is enough.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heron, patience, poem, poetry, slow on February 27, 2016| 2 Comments »
blue heron
in the tree top—
this quickening heart
*
I draw for myself
a new starting line—
on your open palm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heron, poem, poetry, shadow on October 24, 2014| 2 Comments »
the more still the blue
heron sits on his rock the more
my thoughts grow wings
*
such a fleeting
darkening on my face—
the shade of herons
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Anthony de Mello, heron, poem, poetry, saying yes to what is on March 20, 2013| 1 Comment »
This morning, first day
of spring, it is gray. The snow
is not done with its melting.
Green is still a not yet thing.
I wake with the words of Anthony
de Mello tangled in my dream.
Enlightenment, he says,
is absolute cooperation
with the inevitable. I know
what he means, and I
do not. I have my ideas.
That is the problem.
Like this morning,
how before the sun rose,
I saw, lacing the turns
of this narrow river canyon,
the blue heron, his arced
wings glancing the negative space
where the leaves would be
in the crowns of the cottonwood trees.
Because I had never
before seen one here,
I thought it never would be.
Anthony would suggest
I just say yes to what is,
which is to say yes
to the dull brown mat of the field
and yes to the mud, and yes
to the pushy wind, and yes
to the longing in me for green.
And yes to the wanting not
to want. And yes to the unlikely great
blue wings. And yes to the way
the bird disappeared around the bend.
And yes to the longing that rose
in me then—just one more
glimpse. No? And yes to the absence.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, change, grace, haiku, heron, poem, poetry, self, sky, tanka on July 28, 2012| 3 Comments »
I tell myself
there will be more light
still I don’t like it
this scent of old wood splintering
as the roof blows apart
*
my life packed
in boxes–the urge
to lose them
*
the orchards in us
not enough hands
to harvest all this ripeness
*
one heron
in great blue wings he gathers
the whole world
*
I thought I knew
who I was, then the bars
bent enough
I could slip outside of her
how many bars don’t I see?
*
sky so pink
I make of myself
an offering
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flowers, heron, love, poem, poetry, silence on July 4, 2012| 2 Comments »
I didn’t really want to send flowers, anyway.
Better to send the blue heron I was watching tonight
as it waded the river. Better to send its ungainly flight,
how it rose liltingly above the cliffs then disappeared.
Better to send the feeling that rose in me when,
like a visual echo, the great bird returned, this time
directly above me, its wings a dark silhouette in the pinking sky.
As it is, I send the silence after, silence the way the water
is silent when it has no shore to kiss. As it is, I send
silence, silent the way the lilies I thought to send
would have opened in your room, silent as their fragrance.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, heron, poem, stillness, tanka, unity on May 19, 2012| 6 Comments »
blue heron
so still in the sky
my heart beats
faster than
its wings