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 ‘life’
In These Dark Days
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged amaryllis, dark times, hope, life, life force, trust on January 28, 2026| 4 Comments »
On the Street in Lancaster, Ohio
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, costume, greeting, life, self, soul on October 8, 2025| 10 Comments »
I like your costume,
the woman said, and I said,
Thank you. Thing was,
I wasn’t wearing a costume.
I was dressed as me,
a middle-aged woman
in tall black boots,
black yoga pants,
a long gray sweater
and my dad’s gray hat.
It wasn’t till after she left
I laughed, delighted
to be called out on
dressing up as myself,
a person I’ve been
trying to be my whole life.
And where, I wondered,
does the costume end?
Does it include my hair?
My skin? My name?
My stories? My resume?
My voice? All of it
a costume of self
worn by whatever
is most alive inside.
This human frame
is just some get-up the infinite
has slipped into for a time,
even as it slips into other
costumes, one that looks
exactly like you. And hey,
I like your costume.
Fountaining
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fountain, life, water on September 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Inside us, life
like water leaps up
from the source
to discover itself
in relationship
with light and
air, glittering
as it catches
the sun, changing
its shape in the wind,
returning to source
as one water,
leaping up again.
Learning to Treasure What’s Here
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, garden, gratefulness, life, rose on July 23, 2025| 6 Comments »
I believed I had lost it,
the rose bush I planted last year,
what, with the way it died back
after that hard spring frost.
Died all the way to the ground.
Every stem turned brown.
Was it for hope or laziness
I didn’t dig out the roots?
This year, the rose stayed dead
until one day, green. More green.
Then burgeoning, vibrant green.
And now flowers, so many flowers,
flowers of palest pink. The scent
greets me at the garden gate
every time I enter. How precious
it has become to me, this treasure.
Not because I thought it had died,
but because now I remember
it will.
How
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, emptiness, geese, life, loneliness, spring on March 17, 2025| 12 Comments »
The pond ice gone a single day,
and already the wild geese
have returned, filling the open water
with riotous honking. Even
the backyard feels like a teaching
of how every emptiness invites
something to fill it, if not feather
then feeling. I think of how
in my most lonely moments,
some strange beauty has wandered
into my vision or woven its singular
song into my ears and I can’t help
but feel infused by life, the way
a trickle of water slowly—
almost imperceptibly—
will eventually fill a vast basin
till its water spills out the gulleys.
Perhaps you’ve felt it, too,
when you’re barren. Void of hope.
Then. A pink cloud.
An unruly clamoring of geese.
Still that barren, hopeless feeling,
but also, there it is, a single green tip
of garlic planted five months ago
that finds its way up to the sun.
For This, I Walk Outside
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged life, nature, outside, service, stellar's jay on November 8, 2024| 9 Comments »
Not to escape the world,
but to be more wholly in it.
Sharp cold stings my cheeks—
not like a slap, but like the thrilling burn
of whiskey as it blazes down the throat—
the kind of wild aliveness
that brooks no choice
but to wake up to life,
to champion it, to know life
as the most wondrous thing
even as I steep in the ugliness
we humans commit.
This is what life asks of us.
I walk outside to be more wholly here,
here the way the Stellar’s jay is here.
Even on the coldest day,
its every fluffing, every peck, every head bob,
every flight is in service to life.
It’s never confused about its purpose.
I want to be in service.
Outside, everything is teacher:
the cold, the snow, the bird, the day,
this fallible, fabulous human race,
this improbable, beautiful planet in space.
To serve life, I must inhabit it wholly
and be inhabited by it, too.
As if it all could end tonight.
As if it goes on forever.
Lately, Art Says, I’ve Been Thinking About Clumps,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art Goodtimes, clump, conversation, friendship, life on June 30, 2024| 6 Comments »
and for hours we drive through clumps
of mountains called ranges, clumps
of cars we call traffic, clumps of homes
we call towns. We speak in clumps
called subjects as we laugh in clumps
called laughter tokens. And sometimes
we’re silent in a flexible clump called silence.
I think of clumps of grief and clumps of joy,
clumps of celebration and clumps of time
when I forgot to wonder what comes next.
How many clumps does it take to screw
in a lightbulb? How many clumps make a day?
Something so satisfying about the clump.
Humble as dirt on the roots of a tree. Natural
as tufts of wheatgrass in the field.
Creative as a clump of atoms that, when infused
with heat from the sun, become a petunia.
Clumps of words make a sentence. Clumps
of notes create song. Clumps of time
build a friendship. And what is peace
but a clump of moments when we choose
not to fight? What is age but a clump
of memories? What is love but a clump
of surrenders? What is now but a chance
to be alive in this wondrous clump we call our life?
for Art Goodtimes
Not a Still Life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aliveness, birds, life, may, spring on May 23, 2024| 10 Comments »
As if they’d been waiting for the wild wind to wane,
the mother and father goose guide their goslings
on a walk through the field, a dozen small graylings
bumbling between them, and the May evening light
has not dulled yet to dim so every new birch leaf
and every spring blade and every bright red willow stem
seems to outgleam itself with aliveness, and the air
blurs with hummingbirds, whirls with violet-green swallows,
and it’s spring, my god, it’s thrumming inside me, this life saying
Live, live, live, live, as everything I am unfurls and expands,
even the parts I thought seemed dead, yes even the sticks
now swell into bud, erupt into reckless bloom.
Smack Dab in the Middle of a Thursday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, life, miracle, softening, sunlight on December 7, 2023| 10 Comments »
Why do I resist calling it a miracle,
this light that streams now through my window,
this light that has travelled ninety-three million miles
through solar wind particles and radiation
and countless numbers of solar neutrinos
to land here on my living room floor.
As if because it can be measured
and tracked it is any less divine.
As if, just because it’s been happening
for four point five billion years
it is any less extraordinary,
this journey of warmth and radiance.
I let the light-loving animal of my being
curl into the spaces of the room
where the sunlight pools in bright invitation,
and I soften, soften into my breath,
soften into the wonder
of being alive in this very moment
in this very body with this very heart
meeting this very gentle amazement
at how very good it can be, this life.
Two Thousand Three Hundred Thirty-two Miles from Home
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art, friendship, life, museum, surprise on November 24, 2023| 12 Comments »
for Brad & James
There in the lobby of the Musée des Beaux Arts,
I walked out of an exhibit to find my daughter
sitting on a long bright red couch
beside the sweet husband of my beloved friend.
And though I enjoyed each curated installation we saw,
nothing compared to this art of surprise, of love.
It was like stepping into the museum of my own life,
reseeing how every minute might be something of great value,
unexpected and wonderful, a moment I’d like to frame
just so I can remember how beautiful it can be,
how much larger than life it can be, this life.