From what darkness in its center
does the amaryllis call forth
the tall green stalk, the muscular bud,
the voluptuous petals pealing back
from the center like radiant red bells?
What impossible sun shines
inside the rough-skinned bulb
to generate such lushness,
such extravagant beauty?
I want to know it, to trust it,
this bright immensity that pulses through
what is darkest in me, this life force
that cannot fit inside, that thrusts
through the desiccated skins
of my exhausted hopes to reveal itself
vulnerable and soft, vital, astonishing,
belonging to no one, alive within us all.
Posts Tagged ‘hope’
In These Dark Days
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged amaryllis, dark times, hope, life, life force, trust on January 28, 2026| 4 Comments »
One in the Collapse
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged collapse, hope on January 10, 2026| 6 Comments »
rubble everywhere
and still growing in the inner ground, how?
these stubborn roots of hope
Present
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged box, grace, hope, pain, present on December 7, 2025| 9 Comments »
I open the moment as if it were a box
and, shocked by the cruelty I find,
I want to close the lid.
Want to pretend I don’t see the tears,
don’t hear children screaming.
I want to not feel my own heart whacking
like a club inside my chest.
In the myth, Pandora closes the lid
on hope and keeps it locked in.
But more than I want to close the box,
I want to keep it open.
I want to stay with the ache.
I want to be with what is real.
What is real: I keep the box open.
What is real: There is no box.
What is real: Sometimes I fear
there is no hope left. And sometimes
when I am very still with what is,
hope flutters inside me. How?
I don’t know. But its small wings
open like prayer inside my breath.
The Hope Engine
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged engine, hope on August 28, 2025| 4 Comments »
Is hope alive?
How does it run?
What is that
turquoise scent?
Do I revile hope
or long for it?
Every morning
it arrives, twists
and writhes and fills
what is vacant
with a beautiful,
mysterious coiling.
I long for miles and miles
of hope, an endless,
generous rope of hope.
I want enough hope
to tie me up and
tether me to what
is here. Is an inch of hope
better than nothing?
An inch is enough
to cast a shadow.
An inch is enough
to make me dream.
A sliver is enough
for me to meet hope
with curious eyes and
offer it everything I am.
In Harsh Times
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged desert, hope, music, seed, song, transformation on July 4, 2025| 11 Comments »
I know, music alone
will not save us. But tonight
when my daughter played
the song we both love,
we smiled at each other,
all giddy and warm,
and some shriveled
part of me revived.
It was like those seeds
in the desert that wait years
to germinate—all they need
is one good rain.
That’s what a song can do.
Remind us our hope
is merely dormant, not dead.
Who could blame me, then,
for wanting to bring a song
to the whole thirsty world,
a song that soaks into
our parched hearts,
stunning us with just how fast
even the harshest world
can transform.
Then What Might I Do?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, hummingbird, inner wisdom, migration on April 24, 2025| 5 Comments »
There is nothing more hopeful
than hearing the whirr of the first black-chinned
hummingbird returning to the feeder,
knowing he has flown five hundred miles
to arrive at my porch within hours
of the same time the black-chinneds arrived last year
and the year before and the year before.
What inner directive is still intact,
despite the chaos that breeds all around?
I want to show up that faithfully.
Want to listen to the wisdom within
that says This is the way, now go,
go, go, and trust I have the strength
to do so, though the way is long,
though the world is vast, though
the trip must be made alone. If
this tiny bird can fly through cold fronts,
headwinds, hard and heavy rain.
If it can wing across vast open waters.
If it can arrive and make a new nest.
The Man Who Rings Me Up at Target
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, hope, labor, mother, transformation, work on December 19, 2024| 4 Comments »
tells me he used to be mean.
Tells me used to not like
who he was. Tells me he dreamed
of his mother after she died
and she told him that though
she was no longer with him,
she still could teach him
how to be alive, which,
in practical terms, meant
how to be kind.
In the time it takes for me to buy
lint rollers and lip balm,
I am so moved by this woman
I will only meet through
a dream and a checkout lane
conversation that I walk out
into the night with a smile
on my face. This is the way
we share hope with each other,
one thin strand at a time.
By the time I get to the car,
I’m still smiling, wholly tethered to life
by a gift that appeared so slight
at first I didn’t even know
it was there.
There Was a Time I Disdained Hope
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, mystery, seed on November 26, 2024| 7 Comments »
But now
what can I do
but marvel
as hope grows
like a seed
without soil,
putting down
roots despite
lack. And isn’t
that what hope
is—a sprout
that grows
when conditions
are poor,
as if to prove
that sometimes
potential
depends less
on what
surrounds us,
more on what
is living
through us.
Lucky
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, weed on August 10, 2024| 7 Comments »
Like a stupid
weed, like
a persistent,
stubborn,
unrelenting
weed grown
from a seed
no one planted,
it thrives now
in the rubble
of my heart,
this unasked for,
perfect, spreading
tap-rooted
hope.
Hope, Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, feel it all, hope, nakedness on June 26, 2024| 8 Comments »
I wanted to wear it,
this shawl of hope,
but today, it scratches
against my bare skin.
It is beautiful.
The kind of loveliness
that makes even
the plainest of wearers
feel beautiful just because
they wear it.
Hope is warm.
And the world is cold.
But today, I feel the call
for there to be nothing
between me
and the nakedness
of what is.
Even when I’m shivering.
Even when it hurts.
I want to feel
the slice of fear
because it is true.
And isn’t it strange,
when I let myself
feel it all,
then I can wear it again,
that beautiful shawl.
One When It Seems Impossible
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope on February 19, 2024| 3 Comments »
this surprising hope—
like finding in this old, familiar house
a new room
In a Time of Little Hope
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flowers, grief, growth, hope on December 23, 2023| 18 Comments »
In one day, the paperwhites
surge into life—
this heart, too,
has been forced to grow quickly.
Is it any wonder I thrill
to see this leaping up
toward light?
Any wonder I’ve begun to believe
in impossible things?
The Small Stuff
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, kindness, long marriage on December 13, 2023| 8 Comments »
There is kindness in the way
he goes to four stores until he finds
the pink and purple tapers I asked for.
Kindness in the way he folds back
the sheets on my side of the bed
when I’m late to come to sleep.
Kindness in his hands
when he rests them on my shoulders.
Kindness in how he fills the hot pot
with water in preparation
for the next time I make tea.
And there is in me wild gratefulness
for such kindness,
the kind beyond the grand gesture,
the kind that arrives so quiet, so humble
it could almost be overlooked,
the daily gesture that says I see you,
I know you, you matter, I’m here.
The kindness so small it can find its way
into a heartache so big
and somehow tip the scale
toward hope, toward love.
Terce
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, hope, light, prayer, sun on October 11, 2023| 9 Comments »
It’s the light this morning
that opens me. How is it
a certain changing angle of gold
can make the heart leap up
all nimble and sprightly and eager to praise
as if it’s never before seen such beauty,
as if it doesn’t happen every day,
this radiance that reaches
through space to find us
wherever we happen to stand
on this unlikely planet.
I don’t know how it is the light
works as a luminous key to unguard me
and swing wide my gates,
but on this morning filled with news
that makes me shutter, shut down,
close off and clench,
this stroke of light, it’s everything.
Evidence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, flower, hope, joy, orchid, patience on March 9, 2023| 15 Comments »
After almost two years
of growing only leaves,
the orchid that sat
on the back windowsill,
the one I have dutifully
watered and whispered to,
the one I had finally
resolved to throw away,
sent up a single spiraling stem,
shiny and darksome green,
and I who have needed
years to hide, to heal,
felt such joy rise in me
at the site of tight buds,
the kind of irrational joy
one feels when something
thought dead is found alive,
not only alive, but on the edge
of exploding into beauty,
and now it doesn’t seem
so foolish after all, does it,
this insistent bent toward hope.
Longing to Be Seen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, ekphrasis, hope, Kayleen Asbo, still life, Van Gogh on July 1, 2022| 6 Comments »
after the painting “The Bedroom” by Vincent van Gogh and the piano composition “Yellow Bed” by Kayleen Asbo
In the tilted room with the yellow bed,
hope waltzes on the wooden floor—
one, two, three, one, two, three—
not that you see it there,
it’s not obvious like the windows,
the paintings, the mirror, the pitcher, the chairs.
Hope is what you don’t see.
But it is there, beside the water glasses,
beside the long towel.
Hope sways so keenly
to snatches of melody
the whole room seems to sway.
And it’s one, two, three,
one, two, three; Who, hope says,
will dance with me? It promises
friendship. It promises rest.
Will you dance? it asks, a dizzy mess.
It promises community. It promises fame.
Will you dance? it asks, but it smells
of paint and faraway dreams.
It smells of madness and longing to be seen.
Will you dance? it says, its arms flung out.
Here is where Vincent said yes.
Some see a still life, but others see
the whirling, the twirling, the beautiful
spinning of hope, reeling hope,
fragile hope.
Almond Blossom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bloom, blossom, ekphrasis, hope, Kayleen Asbo, spring, Van Gogh on May 28, 2022| 6 Comments »
inspired by Almond Blossom by Vincent van Gogh and music by Kayleen Asbo by the same name
I want to hang a painting
of almond blossoms
above your bed
so when you wake
the first thing you see
are delicate white petals
and a sky a thousand shades of blue.
I want you to wake every morning
into an ever-emerging sense of spring—
wake into sunshine,
wake to a world of splendor
and extravagant blossoming.
Of course, the fall.
Of course, the struggle.
Of course, the difficult days.
And of course, the almond blossoms,
painted in creams, pinks and greens
each one an insistent grace note
that lingers beyond its season,
promising something improbable
and utterly necessary,
like ever-blooming beauty,
like the light and airy perfume of hope.
Proof
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apricot, hope, persistence, proof on March 18, 2022| 6 Comments »
So insistent
the apricot petals
press against
the winter buds
to emerge
first white
then pink,
like millions
of tiny proofs
for hope:
somehow
the softest
parts of us
struggle and
swell against
the hardened shell
of I can’t
and open
anyway.
Becoming the Bird
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, emily dickinson, grief, hope, wind on November 14, 2021| 13 Comments »
Once on a bridge
I had met a hope,
a radiant maybe,
a glint of perhaps,
but I am so far
from that glint today
that when I stand
again on that bridge
I almost hate hope
with its stupid wings,
always promising
to carry us toward
something better.
I stand on that bridge
and stand on that bridge,
my inner perch
empty, silent.
I turn to face
the autumn wind.
It batters my bare skin.
I sing full-throat into the gale.
*This poem is in conversation with Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers …” which you can find here