for Vivian
Just today, you asked me
to hold the front door open,
your own hands too full
with a peach smoothie,
a cup of tea, your backpack
and dance bag and lunch box.
It gave me such joy,
this small act of service,
though now I also see it
as practice in letting you go.
I followed you out the door
into the frost-limned world,
yellow leaves falling before
the sun had yet risen.
It would be easy to forget
this moment with you.
We didn’t even pause
to enjoy it, just inhaled
the chill morning air,
both of us mumbling
how glorious it was
before you walked to the car
and I walked back inside.
Now, I see they’re everything,
these slim moments we share,
for a day is slim and a
year is slim, and soon your whole
childhood will also seem
slim. I hold them to me
like treasure, these slender
chapters, charged as they are
with beauty, hold them to me
even as I practice letting you go.
Posts Tagged ‘moment’
The Holding
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daily, daughter, holding, letting go, moment, morning, mother on October 17, 2025| 6 Comments »
And It Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ballet, dance, daughter, moment, mother on March 23, 2025| 10 Comments »
When you were small
I watched you dance
on the sidewalk, your arms
raised high as if inviting
the world to meet you,
rain and sun and all.
I watched you dance
in the living room draped
in hand-me-down dresses
and colorful scarves,
watched you dance
in small windowless rooms.
Now you dance on the big stage,
floating in on pointe shoes,
your hair in a perfect bun
you pin up by yourself.
I wonder if every other mother
sitting in the dark also forgets
every second of her life save this one,
this second when you raise
your arm with such grace,
this second when your effortless smile
sweeps across the crowd,
this second when you are so shiningly
yourself, a radiant being dancing
for the love of it, as if this is
the only moment that matters.
Still Life on My Mother’s Birthday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, happiness, moment, moon, painting, puzzle, time on November 15, 2024| 9 Comments »
In the painting no one did,
we don’t see the Beaver Moon,
but it is there, full and shining
on the other side of the earth.
What we do see, as if from a bird’s
eye view: the hands of three
generations of women hovering
above a square wood table.
They hold bright puzzle pieces,
and beneath their fingers, a vibrant garden
has begun to emerge.
What we don’t see is the light
and gauzy conversation—the kind
that swoops, swallow-like, through
the field of the moment, the kind
that swerves and lifts, suggesting a space
unconstrained by straight edges.
In the painting no one did, the garden
is always blooming, the hands never age,
nothing sad ever happens,
the candles on the cake, also not pictured,
are never blown out, the banter
never ends, and like the unseen moon,
the love is there, reflecting, radiant,
shining beyond the frame.
Because in a year or twenty I won’t remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, indwelling, memory, moment, time on January 7, 2024| 10 Comments »
the way this afternoon my daughter
wraps her arms around my shoulders
and hangs for a moment on my frame,
because I won’t remember
the simple curl of her smile
and how our necks bow forward slightly
so our foreheads lightly touch,
because I don’t remember hundreds of millions
of other small and precious slivers,
I let myself fully dwell into these seconds—
the warmth of her skin, the cool air of her room,
her window open even mid-winter—
and I pour myself into this moment
knowing how a liquid takes on the shape
of its container, and oh, how I long
to be shaped by this, even if it’s only for now.
Falling All the Way In
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, eternity, happiness, moment, mother, tenderness on January 2, 2024| 7 Comments »
Late, and I lie on the couch,
my head in mom’s lap,
eyelids heavy as she pulls
slender fingers through my hair,
and I am more loved
than lost, more soft
than strong, more flesh
than worry, more no self
than self. I am not
thinking of happiness,
which is, perhaps,
the truest kind of happiness.
The moment loses any lines
that might try to define
what a moment is
until all is suffused with eternity
and tenderness is uncontainable.
Her hands move slow
and the room is quiet
and the night is a nest
big enough to hold us all.
The Miracle of Becoming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged becoming, love, moment, morel, mushroom on May 18, 2023| 15 Comments »
Add this to my list of small ecstasies.
—James Crews
It’s a small ecstasy when,
strolling through the field,
I see the mottled tip
of the blonde morel
pushing up through bent grass.
And another. And another.
They were not here yesterday,
but now I kneel on the earth
with my blade sharp and true
and slice through the strange
and rubbery stems
and hold the handful of treasure
to my nose and breathe in
the earthy, woodsy scent.
So curious to think how they go
from not being here to being here.
Like when I realize I love someone,
but can’t say precisely when love began.
A life is made of such moments—
this wonder that rises
at the miracle of becoming,
this sweet gift of passing through.
On a Thursday Afternoon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, love, moment, mother, photo, surrender, wholeness on January 13, 2023| 7 Comments »
We sit on the carpet in the entry,
and Vivian balances her ring
on the head of the cat and
for a long time we stay like this,
speaking of school and friends
The phone doesn’t ring.
The texts don’t chime.
The afternoon light
seems to hold each thing in its place
like photo corners in a scrapbook
and minutes stretch into forever.
There is a wholeness to the moment
so perfect I almost try to escape it.
Instead I stay and fall deeper
into the pages of this simple story.
A girl. A mother. A cat. An afternoon.
The certainty there’s nowhere else to be.
Real Time in the Uncompahgre River Valley
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moment, nature, time on August 27, 2022| 2 Comments »
An hour means nothing
to this rivulet
unbraided from the stream.
To the towering spruce,
what’s a day?
What know these red cliffs
of a week? A month?
To the deep meadow,
what’s a year?
But for those who give themselves over
to the wind-kissed field,
the quiver of grass,
the great rise of Mount Abrams
and the quieting,
for those who linger on this timeless land,
a moment could mean everything.
Sunday Morning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breakfast, friendship, moment on January 24, 2022| 6 Comments »
A soft poached egg
and a slice of pumpernickel toast,
a cup of English Breakfast
and my oldest friend and I
sitting at the round table a sunlit room
laughing and talking—
there are moments so ordinary
as to be perfect—moments
we feel so completely ourselves
we don’t try to hold on to the minutes.
Such moments don’t try
to put themselves in a picture frame,
don’t pretend to be necessary or grand.
They ask us for nothing except
that we spend them like change,
as if we had a lifetime supply.
Practical Application
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moment, mortality on January 16, 2022| 8 Comments »
Knowing now how one moment
rewrites every moment after it;
how in an instant, the heart can trip
over its own beat and need to be retaught
how to love; how irreversible takes
only a second to say and yet
contains all eternity; how quickly our breath
can be claimed by the tides of forever,
for this I buy deep pink tulips for the table.
For this I make Dutch apple pie.
For this I walk through the canyon
in moonlight. I remind myself no guarantees.
For this, I pull you in and hold you. For this,
I stand still in the spruce trees and breathe.