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Posts Tagged ‘longing’

One Night of Sustenance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on June 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »

after a dry spell
the long awaited song of rain—
even my dreams listen

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Oh, the Longing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on June 26, 2023| 6 Comments »




Let longing be longing.
Though it rises in me
with insistent hunger.
Though it clutches for my heart
with outstretched hands,
pins me with pleading eyes
Let longing be longing.
Never has it worked
to pretend I don’t hear it
as it shouts its demands
or charms me with silken promises.

In a vision I said no to the longing,
and the longing only grew
like a shadow on the wall.
But when I said yes, longing, I see you—
(and what was it that was saying yes?
a voice not me, but through me)—
the yes filled me like a warm and golden glow,
color of sunrise, color of pollen,
and there was nothing it could not touch—
this woman, this longing,
the shadow itself.

Where does this yes come from?
I don’t know. But now everything
is infused with its light
and the longing is longing
and I am a woman who sometimes longs
for what she cannot have.
Even the no is shining.

 

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Dear Heather,

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 13, 2022| 11 Comments »

on William’s birthday

There was a time before we lost our sons,
a time before the long walks in the frozen woods,
a full-bellied time when we cherished how they grew.

Today the snow came again, at last,
though it was more sifting than deep drift.
I notice I want more.

It’s so human to want more, I tell myself.
More snow, more time, more love,
more memories of making fires in winter,

tasting summer s’mores, feeding hummingbirds,
making cookies, speaking silly languages,
skinny dipping in the river, singing to Rusted Root.

It feels right their birthdays should feel heavy—
heavy as the snow that didn’t fall today,
heavy as the bodies they didn’t grow into.

Oh, the weight of love—light as the sunshine
that slanted through the room between squalls,
substantial as the tractors our boys are not driving.

I think of how much we’ve grown in their absence—
which is to say how much we’ve grown
in the company of heartache, the company of love,

how powerfully loss has stretched us.
Somehow, these boys linger in our being.
They arrive through song, through silence.

In this after time, we feed them with memories—
some true, some more than true.
Each time we say their names, they grow.

It’s so human to want more, no matter
how reconciled we are to what is. Oh,
for more time, somehow, between forever and now.

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The Song Speaks

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 4, 2021| 4 Comments »

Lyrics from “Golden Slumbers” by Paul McCartney and John Lennon


 
I love when my lyric
slips into your thoughts,
when I float from your lips
for hours. Once there was a way
to get back homeward.
Sometimes I even believe
my own lines.
Once there was a way
to get back home.
Sometimes when you sing me,
I have faith in home.
Please pretty darling do not cry.
And yet you do cry
and make me want to forget
I am a song about longing,
a song of loss.
I want to be the song of finding,
song of arriving together,
song of coming home.
I want to be the song
that lies down to sleep
beside your heart each night.
I will sing a lullaby.
I want to be the song
that that makes you breakfast.
The song that dances with you
in the living room.
The song that always stays.
 

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Out of Reach

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 13, 2020| 2 Comments »

 

 

The crystal vase on the top shelf,

the one that holds two dozen roses.

The Hallelujah Chorus’s high A.

The perfect word that flutters away.

The name of the man walking toward you.

The card that slips between the seats.

The itch on your back. The dream upon waking.

World peace. Inner peace. Any peace.

 

In the kitchen, a persimmon

with its stubborn glossy skin. A knife

with its shrewd steel edge. Oh this art

of choosing to want what’s in hand—

sweet honeyed flesh, yielding and soft.

Oh this craving for blood oranges, tart and red.

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More Intimately

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

from Erik Satie’s Gnossienne 2

 

like an almost breeze

like sunshine slanting through

afternoon clouds—

touch me like that

like the rain I’m not sure is there

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One Trick

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

seeing them on the branch

the bright yellow tanagers

gone until summer

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Parched Heart

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

all day the gray scent

of distant rain—

ripe apple just out of reach

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Always Arriving,

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 7, 2016| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

the train

just around

the long curve,

with its cars full

of velvet-lined songs

and sparkling tomorrows.

I stand at the edge of the rails

my good arm always already raised

and waving, afraid that when the train

finally arrives, the conductor will smile and

wave back as the train trundles merrily

along the track, afraid he’ll mistake

my gesture for a greeting, not

seeing I’m trying to wave

the engine down. I have

songs in my pockets. I

learn the joy of

spending them

on the curve.

 

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In the Last Flush of Summer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 1, 2015| 1 Comment »

oh but I swear

it smelled so sweet today,

that rose bush

we didn’t plant together

all those years ago

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