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Posts Tagged ‘moving’

Skate Skiing at Priest Lake

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 9, 2022| 9 Comments »




For two hours, I am
more lung than thought,
more legs than loss,
more heart beat
than heart ache,
and so holy alive
as I become rhythm
of push and glide,
push and glide,
pole and swing,
I transform into
a flying thing—
each shift from ski
to sliding ski
a calling on balance
that comes from
the core.
By the time
I ski back to the car,
it’s not that I have forgotten
my loss, it’s just
that every cell in me
now remembers
the dance between
falling and recovery,
falling and recovery—
how it happens
again and again—
how this is the way
we recalibrate—
we fall, we recover,
we move forward.

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While Unpacking Giant Wine Goblets

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »




At first, I wish my mother
would consider giving them away—
her new apartment is shy on cupboard space.
How many wine glasses do you need?
I ask, trying to sound reasonable.
She responds by saying,
But they’re for red wine,
as if that explains it—
as if of course, she needs eight
beautiful globe-shaped glasses
for serving pinot noir and merlot.
And they’re so hard to find
in this exact shape, she adds,
clearly pleased with these glasses
she has transferred
from home to home to home.
And so, I think, of course,
she needs these glasses
round as grapefruits, clear
as happiness. I imagine her
sipping a fruity red with easy-drinking
tannins and a super-soft finish.
I imagine the smile on her face
as she sips from the larger goblet
designed so the wine can contact
more air and thus open up
so its cherry and raspberry notes
shine through. I imagine the smile
on her face—and I slide
the glasses onto the shelf
and move on to the china,
the measuring cups, the spoons.

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Packing My Parents’ Home

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 5, 2021| 2 Comments »


Happy Birthday Dad!


Into the boxes I slip
my father’s birth certificate,
his high school yearbooks,
his wedding album,
and the diploma for his PhD.
I fold waders and coats,
pack saws and hammers,
wires and electrical things
I can’t name—but he can.
I pack journals filled with notes
of his favorite trips,
crossbow arrows
and feathers for tying flies.
But a life doesn’t fit in boxes.
No way to pack his glittering eyes,
his quick smile, the way he laughs
in recognition as I hold up
an old favorite knife.
No way to pack the hard years,
the wrestling with pain,
his drive to show up anyway,
day after day,
determined to bring his best
to the world, determined
to love life outside
the box.

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Daily First Step

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »



 
 
Every morning before I rise,
I crawl into my body, as if,
inside this grown woman
lives an infant still learning
what it is to be in a body,
what it is to move forward,
certain there is a world
I want to wobble my way through,
run through, even dance,
if only I can first find a way
to stand in it.
 

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What the Words Can Do

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »

 

 

Beat. Blending. Bolero. Breakaway.

Before bed, my daughter and I

do a word search. The theme:

“Social Dancing.” At the same time

we notice how closely related

Dancing is to Distancing.

 

The hidden words all snuggle

in their thirteen by thirteen square.

Brush. Cha-cha. Foxtrot. Polka.

They cross each other, touch each other,

overlap, congregate, connect.

Rumba. Samba. Slow Dance. Spin.

 

How I miss doing what these letters

are doing—getting lost in a crowd,

then emerging less as a self and

more as a spiral turn, upside down

and backwards, or heck,

showing up as a straightforward sway.

 

Oh I miss that glorious not knowing

where I begin and end, surrounded

by others as we swing, swivel, tango, waltz.

 

 

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First Day Back on the Skate Ski Track

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

 

 

 

Someday I’ll prefer to sit, to sit

and breathe and think or not think

and sit. But now, now when

the high mountains sing with snow

and the snowcat has groomed

a path through the nowhere of spruce

and the sky is a winnowing blue

that makes me unknow my name,

yes, now is the moment to slip deeper

into the self of myself

and snap skis on my feet

and let the day slap a smile on my face

that I could not possibly unsmile,

because for now, there is

this burn in the lungs, this wind

in the face, this spilling of laughter,

this joy in stride and push and glide,

this thrill in losing the breath.

 

 

 

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And I Said, No Thank You, But

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on December 29, 2012| 4 Comments »

All these years
I have coveted
her egg poacher,
yolks perfect every time,
the one we first used
in the small kitchen
with the black and white
tiles and then in the bigger
kitchen with oak floors
and over thirty years later
in a kitchen
only an hour away
from my kitchen,
but today when
she offered me
that Oster egg poacher
as we packed
her other things
into boxes going with her
a thousand miles away,
I knew all
I really wanted
was for her to be the woman
poaching the eggs
those yolks
spilling gold
in a kitchen close enough
we might eat
our breakfast
together.

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Chance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 27, 2012| 2 Comments »

First I thought
it a piece of cliff
tumbled
onto the highway,
but then became
visible four short legs,
then the horns,
the dark wool. But
it did not move,
not one inch,
as I passed it
going west,
passed it wishing
I were not so quick
in my travels,
wishing I could
stand on the road
and forget it was
a road.

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