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Posts Tagged ‘hope’

Hope

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 5, 2021| 5 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.

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Thanking the Christmas Cactus

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 29, 2020| 7 Comments »




Tonight, for a moment,
my world shrinks to the size
of the Christmas cactus,
which, despite the storm
that even now blusters outside,
has opened dozens of voluptuous
red blooms, as if to say,
Here I am, blooming midwinter,
and you can do it, too.
There are days when
the news makes me doubt
the value of blooming—
when the headlines alone
twist hope into a crumpled,
unrecognizable heap.
But then some snippet
of beauty finds me—
a scarlet flower,
a handwritten letter—
and breaks any scale
I would use to interpret
the world. It’s not that the terror
goes away, no. But for a few
moments, I am blessed
with the certainty
that even the smallest beauty matters
and that it is my job
to meet life however it appears—
petal, bomb, sweetness, pain—
grateful for my humanness,
vulnerable and tenuous
though it is.

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When the Interviewer Asked Me What I Most Wish for the World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 8, 2020| 2 Comments »

“We have a lot of things we are in the midst of. What do you think this moment is inviting us to understand? Where would you like to be in spring? Where would you like to see us as a world be?” 

—Kara Johnstad, Voice Rising Host, Om Times Radio

For a sliver

of a moment

I cradled

the whole world

in my thoughts—

every president,

peasant, seamstress,

beggar, businessman,

acrobat, child—

every one of us

a vessel

and I knew

in that instant

the power

of a wish—

as if hope

has a foothold

in reality,

as if a slim glimmer

is inevitable

foreshadowing

of unstoppable radiance.

With quiet clarity

I knew exactly

what I wish

for each of us—

I told her, too—

but I will refrain

from telling you.

Instead, I’ll hand you

the question

so you, too,

might make a wish,

so that you, too,

might glimmer,

might beacon.

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Making Applesauce

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

To buy three boxes of apples

is to believe the world

will go on long enough

that we should preserve

the goodness of autumn.

Perhaps it is practical

to cook the fruit,

to store it in jars,

but I prefer to think of it

as hope filling the house

with its sweet red perfume,

hope filling the shelves

with the memory

of sunshine, of bloom.

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One Arriving

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »

hiding in each day

a trap door—

hope and I fall through

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It Just Might Happen

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 2, 2020| 10 Comments »

Everywhere I go, I find them—

people who bring love to the world.

Reading the headlines,

I sometimes think love is dead

and humans are brutes

and we may as well all give up.

But every time I leave home,

I meet pedestrians who wave

and women who give understanding nods,

and men who offer to pay when the person

in front of them is short a few bucks.

People hold doors for each other with a smile

and I’ve seen folks pick up trash

off the sidewalk and go out of their way

to not step on a beetle or a worm.

My friend Wayne says,

We have to love the world

to want to save it,

and sometimes, I think

it just might happen—

though every day unspeakable cruelty

happens on these same streets.

Oh this world.

Even as I feel my guard go up,

I see strangers chatting on the corner

as they wait for the bus,

notice how their laughter

threads through the noise of the day

like a song, like a kite.

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Hope

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on April 4, 2020| 4 Comments »

rm sneffels smile

Hope has holes

in its pockets.

It leaves little

crumb trails

so that we,

when anxious,

can follow it.

Hope’s secret:

it doesn’t know

the destination—

it knows only

that all roads

begin with one

foot in front

of the other.

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Sign of Inner Spring

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 3, 2020| 9 Comments »

IMG_6029

 

Every year the pussy willows

astonish me with their willingness

to be soft in a time when the rest

of the world is stick-ish and harsh and bare.

 

Sometimes softness is the key to survival.

I search for it in myself—the courage

to shed the hard shell I thought would protect me,

to shuck the hard shell that no longer fits,

and I marvel as something new emerges,

soft as pussy willows,

this vulnerable, practical hope.

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This Desperate Week, the Orchid Reminds Me

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 19, 2020| 3 Comments »

IMG_5939

 

 

It looked dead, the orchid.

After long extravagant glory,

the blossoms dropped quickly,

one by one. The stem shriveled,

dried. Every time I looked at it,

all I saw was what wasn’t there.

People said it would reset.

They said it needed rest,

a little bit of extra care.

But eight months later,

the plant still looked dead.

 

There are times we lose hope.

Times when our eyes tells us

we’re fools to believe beyond

what we see here now.

But from what seemed

like nothing, a long dark stem

appeared, lined with buds.

And what a fool I was to doubt,

to let the eyes lie to me.

Already they’ve remembered how to see

what will be. Already they remember

how to see the beauty

of exactly what is here.

 

 

 

 

 

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One Before Evening Comes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 23, 2020| Leave a Comment »

 

 

in the dry field of hope

the rattling bugle of sandhill cranes—

the sky alive with great wings

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