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Posts Tagged ‘imperfection’

A Little Self-Talk

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 25, 2025| 8 Comments »


 
 
My god, woman,
your feet. Those
are the dirtiest
heels I have ever
seen. Have you
been mowing
the yard in flip flops
and walking
barefoot in dirt?
For days?
Something
about it makes
me so darn
glad to be
in your skin.

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The Ripening

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 19, 2024| 11 Comments »

At the roadside stand,
I buy you a flat of pears.
They are hard and slightly
scarred, lumpy as Bartletts
often are, still wearing
the deep green of unripe fruit.
Some bear a garish red blush
on their shoulders where
the leaves did not hide them,
and all are stippled
with freckle-like dots, each one
a small celebration of imperfection.
There will be a day soon
when the pears will golden
and the warm kitchen air
will be thickly strung
with the scent of pear,
sweet and floral,
a scent that reminds
me of walking the rows
of the orchard in long ago summers
gleaning the smallest fruits.
Sometimes what is left behind
has the chance to become sweeter
than what first seemed more prized.
Remember how we’d pull tree-ripe pears
from the branches to our mouths,
white juice baptizing our chins?
I like the way you lift one now
from the counter,
feel its heft as if testing
for goodness yet to come.
We are no strangers to patience.
Year after year, we have watched
what is hard become treasure.
We have taken the lesson into our bodies,
these imperfect bodies, slightly
scarred, more lumpy with every year,
but oh, the ripening.

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Beyond Perfect

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 31, 2024| 9 Comments »

with thanks to Heidi
 
 
It is not the best raspberry.
There have been berries sweeter,
more perfectly formed,
berries I’ve harvested
warm from the bush,
berries that have made me
close my eyes and rhapsodize
about the perfect, juicy,
bulbous joy of raspberry.
Still, this small and fragile fruit
packaged in a plastic shell
sings ripe and red on my tongue,
and on this January morning
it brings news of sunshine somewhere.
I delight in its tartness, its bite.
Bless what is good enough.
Not only bless but cherish—
Cherish this good enough morning
with its good enough fruit
in this kitchen cleaned well enough
for this good enough woman
living into the good enough day,
my mouth slightly puckered,
taste of raspberry still bright
on my tongue.
 

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Altar Ego

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 2, 2023| 17 Comments »

 
Because I hate to make msitakes,
today I practice messsing up.
Spell check tries to correct me,but
I thwart it, I INsist on my errirs,
retype what is right till its wrong.
It hurts a littel. And I like it,
that it hurts. a little. SEee;
I say to my inner prefectionist,
it’s kinda fun to fook up,
and soon Im laughing in the dark,
itching to stumble out teh door
and run passed the same choices I
’ve always made, gigling
with this holy wreckless woman,
I liek her, I decid, as we blunder into the night.

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We Want to Believe We Can Live Forever

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 5, 2020| 6 Comments »

And if I can’t live forever,

then let me make the most

of this sliver of eternity,

these slender days I’ve been given

in the ongoing story.

Let me be recklessly curious

about what I will never know—

driven to dance with the secrets

of galaxy and spruce cone.

Just this morning, I wondered

what wake will I leave behind?

Let me be relentlessly kind.

Let me find peace

with the imperfect self.

Let me find love

for the imperfect world.

In my smallest moment,

let me lean into enormity.

If I can’t live forever,

let me at least believe in forever

and love the world

accordingly.

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Sugar in Plenty

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 20, 2012| 2 Comments »

Not the perfect ones
hanging from the bough,
red and hard in the hand,

but the fallen ones,
sun warmed, likely bruised,
often with earwigs

that squirm out the top,
oh these soft ones
nearly gone,

more nectar than flesh.
Do not be offended
when I offer you this peach.

I gaze into my heart.
It, too, is blemished,
scarred, bruised,

mottled,
fallen, ready
to be yours.

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