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Posts Tagged ‘husband’

This, Too, Is What I Was Born For

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 8, 2025| 10 Comments »


                  with a phrase from Augusta Kantra
 
 
To sit late at night by the small fire
my daughter has made using cedar wood
split by the man I married over thirty years ago.
To feel the good heat of it reach through
the thick muscles of my back, infusing
me with such honest contentment
I unfold in the warmth.
To feel grateful for this small constellation
of family, humbled again and again
by the tenderness we offer each other.
Is it everything, this whispery moment,
with its soft glow of enoughness,
this ease that arrives in me,
as quiet as evening, when I am able to honor
every wanted and every unbidden thing
that conspired to bring me here to this hearth
in winter’s dim light. And like a violet
that can’t help but open at the slightest warmth,
I fall in love again with this life.  

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The Moment that Mattered

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 4, 2024| 11 Comments »


 
 
In the midst of a gnarled aspen grove
where the tree trunks were contorted,
distorted and knobby, my husband,
hiking behind me, joked,
These trees have been through a lot.
And they’re still here.
And I stopped mid trail
and turned to face him.
We’ve been through a lot,
I said. And we’re still here.
And there beneath the misshapen
trees with their leaves still green
and trembling in the wind,
we hugged and cried and cried
and hugged, knowing the full weight
of everything that might have kept us
from this moment.
Surrounded by aspen
and fields of purple asters,
I knew full body that this
was the moment that mattered.

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The Changing View

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 18, 2024| 4 Comments »


 
 
He walks along the river’s edge,
boots up to his knees, pitchfork
balanced on his shoulder,
his handwoven bucket hat
balanced on his head. And
I fall in love again. Not with
the man I married, but with
the man he’s become—
the man who has pruned
the coyote willows for days,
for years, so we can see
the river as it changes from clear
to bright red from the storms.
Watch as it runs clear again.

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The Forecast Is for Freezing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 22, 2020| 6 Comments »

While I heat curried asparagus soup,

my husband and son cover garden beds

with thick gray blankets.

I watch them from the kitchen window,

my son now taller than his dad.

How quickly he bolted, bolts still.

I think of the ways

we try to protect what we grow.

The threat of frost is real.

Like the bean sprout that didn’t make it last night,

despite the fact we covered it.

This morning it was waxy, shriveled, dark.

How quickly it died.

But because my husband made row covers,

everything else survived.

I would like to make a row cover

for my son, for the world—something

to protect against what is harshest, most cold.

Instead, I mix lemon juice, yogurt

and chives that we’ll swirl into the soup.

I can fortify him on the inside.

My husband tacks down the cloths

with hammer and nails—I think

of all that will be saved tonight.

We are charged to take care

of each other, the world. Impossible charge.

My son catches my eye and smiles.

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