seeing them on the branch
the bright yellow tanagers
gone until summer
Posts Tagged ‘longing’
One Trick
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, bird, longing, poem, poetry, tanager on January 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Parched Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry on February 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Always Arriving,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry, train 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.
In the Last Flush of Summer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, memory, poem, poetry, rose 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
Sonnet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry, sonnet, wishing on April 19, 2015| 1 Comment »
I’m tired of wishing longing’s hold would soften,
tired, I’m tired of wishing I could steer.
Though what’s the use in steering when so often
after steering wishward, I’m still here,
yes, here again, same face, same empty pocket,
same despair. But not hysterical—
too tired to rail. Exhaustion’s tourniquet
is good for that, at least. No oracle
worth reading here. They never forecast what
I wish to see. No shaman, no, no priest
worth heeding. They just tell me I should cut
my wishing, and that’s never helped the least.
Of course I wish to shelf these wishes, shelf
the shelf. But everywhere I turn, myself.
This sonnet was inspired by an exercise I did yesterday on the plane on the way home … I saw my good friend Karen Glenn had suggested in her weekly poem email that we might want to write a sonnet with 14 line end words that she gave us … so I did!
You might want to do the same thing … just take the last words off each line and write your way into them. She had a poem about aging vampires … and mine turned out in another voice, too … funny to see what happens when certain words are given to you …
On a Night When You Feel Far Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apricot, longing, poem, poetry, possibility on March 28, 2015| 2 Comments »
I would like to find you
in the shade of an apricot tree
with rounded white petals
caught in your hair
and the hypnotic humming
of bees in our ears,
and we would lie there
draped in the scent
of warm sage and sweet bloom
and stare up at the blue
through the flowering limbs
and forget who we are
for just long enough, perhaps,
that anything could happen.
Three Recklessnesses
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry, recklessness on March 22, 2015| 2 Comments »
these crazy thoughts
cross the center line, play chicken
with all other thoughts
*
in the sun glazed pond
not one sandhill crane—
the beauty of wanting
*
just when the bonfire
is too big to control—
throwing in another stick
For all my talk of surrender
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged desire, humanness, longing, poem, poetry, surrender on March 15, 2015| 1 Comment »
and saying yes to the world as it is,
my body craves what it craves.
Oh this terrible, beautiful bright stitch of longing
sewn into my breath
with red, red thread,
it pulls, tighter and tighter,
then catches on something
deep in my core,
and some voice,
is it mine? insists,
more, more, I want more.
And Burned My Own Fingers, Too
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry on January 6, 2015| 4 Comments »
how many times
I have burned it
that letter
you never
sent
Dusting the Breasts of the Doris Caesar Statue
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, dusting, ekphrasis, longing, poem, poetry on December 8, 2014| 3 Comments »
They are large, the breasts,
more than two handfuls’ worth.
I move the soft cloth over them
slowly, gently, though she is bronze
and does not require tenderness.
I give her tenderness. I touch her
the way I long to be touched,
unhurried, deliberate, leisurely.
Outside the window, the cottonwood trees
are as naked as she is. Last night,
I saw the full moon in their limbs
and my thoughts let fall all their leaves.
I want the full moon to linger on me
the way I linger now on the narrow stretch
of her body, putting a shine on every
inch. She is lovely, God, she is lovely,
with her head flung back and her
arm flung high, staring at the world
with her unchanging eyes.
Through the window, I watch
as no birds fly from tree to tree.
The emptiness between the limbs
is empty. My thoughts grow
faintly green.
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