Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Beethoven, hope, impossible, poem, poetry, possibility on August 29, 2019| 5 Comments »
There are no barriers for a person with talent and love towards work.
—Ludwig van Beethoven
Everyone knows Beethoven
went deaf, could hardly hear
by the time he composed
the Moonlight Sonata.
I think of him sometimes
when I want to believe
in impossible things.
Like great harmony
born out of dead silence.
Like love in full bloom
despite drought.
Like finding a pocket in time.
Like hope, growing like mint.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, hope, hummingbird, nature, nest, poem, poetry on July 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »
From eggs
the size
of small
jelly beans
come these
two beaks
that peak
beyond the
edge—today
they save
me, these
two tiny
wingless things.
Even this
bruised heart
remembers how
to marvel.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belief, hope, lie, parenting, poem, poetry, Santa on February 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The hope that is left after all your hopes are gone—that is pure hope, rooted in the heart.
—Brother David Steindl-Rast
And so tonight when my daughter says to me,
Mom, are you Santa Claus? I ask her if it
would make a difference, and she says, Yes.
I don’t want him to just be a hoax for making
kids be good. And I say, I’ve never thought of Santa
that way. I think of him as generous. And magic.
And she says, But magic’s not real, and I say,
Some magic is. And she says, Well, it would
make sense. You always know what we want
because you’re the mom. And I tell her,
It is my great privilege to work for Santa,
and she says, What do you mean? And I say,
Well, you know, buying presents. And she says,
Why do you think he didn’t bring us a big present
this year, like he did last year? And I hear
in her voice, against all fact, hope,
the hope that lingers when hope is gone,
a pure hope, the hope that goodness is real,
that there is generosity beyond comprehension,
that some magic is real. She rolls over in the dark.
I keep hope rooted in my heart.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, moon, poem, poetry, wonder on January 3, 2019| 2 Comments »
It appears still, the crescent moon,
but it’s moving at 2,288 miles per hour,
its light reaching us in less than two seconds.
This morning, we marvel at it, as if
we’d never seen moon before, its light
somehow touching us newly.
And though we are dashing down
the highway at fifty-eight miles per hour,
watching the moon, I feel something
in me quiet and still. Years ago, a friend told me
it was time to stop writing moon poems.
How to stop when each time
we see the moon, something new in us rises
to meet it? May we always write moon poems,
whether or not anyone reads them.
May we always marvel at the light
and shadow so far past our reach
and yet travelling with us
every day, every night. May it always feel
important, like hope, impossible to touch
and so real, so true.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, poem, poetry, shoveling, snow, thoughts on December 27, 2018| 6 Comments »
It’s not so much that you want the snow
back in the drive, it’s just that your back
felt so much better before the shoveling,
and so, using your sideways logic, you think
to yourself that if the snow were unshoveled
your back might unhurt. And while
you’re at it, you think you might unthink
those thoughts you thought the night before
shoveling the drive. Though they didn’t
amount to any action, now that you’ve
thought them they’ve become a frame
that’s changed everything. So you start
with the snow, because revising that seems easier
than anything else, but to shovel it back
in the drive would seem to exacerbate
the problem with the back, so
you consider ways the snow might unfall,
all of them fanciful. At least for a while,
it amuses you, the idea of ten million
million snowflakes rising, but then
the reality of drought returns and you
feel guilty for unwishing the snow. No,
better to put your hope in perseverance,
better to put your hope in healing.
It happens. And you walk up the drive,
so snowless and clear you can safely look up
at the sky and see all those stars. The snow
gathers whatever light there is. It can’t
unshine. You thrill a bit in the chill. Some
of the shine reaches into you. Some of it stays.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, hope, poem, poetry, prayer, support on January 17, 2018| 13 Comments »
Because I don’t know how to pray,
I do what I know to do,
which is to sit very quietly
and let myself feel. To hold you
without holding you.
To imagine your fear
and breathe into it.
To feel my own fear
and walk the edges of its cliffs.
To lean on hope with its flimsy
net and feel how little it takes
to catch us, to save us.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chanterelles, hope, mushroom hunting, poem, poetry on August 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Just as you give up,
there, through the trees,
you see a clearing
and though it’s exhausting
to be hopeful again
when there’s so little
to show for your hope,
you walk to the clearing
and there in the moss,
hundreds of chanterelles.
When you leave
to reenter the broken world,
some of the hope
sticks to you like tiny burrs,
able to seed themselves
anywhere you carry them.
By noon, nearly everything
seems possible.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, poem, poetry, rainbow on July 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »
double rainbow to the east—
I stand in the rain and watch
as its colors deepen—
something small inside me
grows brighter, bright enough
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, morning, poem, poetry on June 20, 2017| 4 Comments »
when it’s morning,
when the birds are already
weaving music through the trees.
Easier when the dew
still shines on the leaves
and the world is warming.
In these ripening moments,
it’s hard to remember,
was it only hours ago,
how darkness poured over you
like oil in the ocean.
How nothing seems possible then.
But here, here is the bright red neck
of morning, humming through the shadows
on emerald wings, and here you are,
rising to meet it, not even
because you want to, but
because something in you rises
and carries you with it into the day.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, poem, poetry on June 1, 2017| 2 Comments »
Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.
—Wendell Berry
On this gray morning,
I want to give you
the yellow of the oriole,
the way it weaves through
the invisible weight of the air.
So much touches us
that we can’t see,
and we wonder why
we feel heavy.
I would give you, too,
the gray whirr of the wings
of the hummingbird,
their improbable accuracy
as they negotiate the world
in search of what is sweet,
and I would give you
your own fine feet
still learning to master
one step at a time
and the long pause
in between.
