Past the blacktop, past the swings
a girl has wandered into tall grass,
dry and golden and high, and look
how she tucks in beneath the seed heads
and makes in the stems a nest,
lies on her back and looks up at the sky.
She can hear the screams and squeals
of other children as they play.
But here she is daughter of silence,
fallen angel of sunshine. There are wings
inside her breath. What does she know
that I have forgotten? What does she
love that I now squint to see?
Where does she still live in this woman,
this wanderling who was me?
Posts Tagged ‘nature’
Recess, Second Grade
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aloneness, childhood, grass, inner child, nature on April 28, 2024| 13 Comments »
Between Calls
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged nature, outdoors, quiet, silence on April 23, 2024| 4 Comments »
I walk out the door and
lie on the ground and
let the earth hold me,
let the sun soak me
let breath do
what breath does.
And if there is any
part of me that doesn’t know
it is part of everything,
it is lost in the vast peace
that fills me when
everything warms
and the kingfisher flies
over my silence
with his clackclackclack
and the air smells of river
and greening grass.
It doesn’t last,
but for this small eternity,
I am what a wind is,
only more, only less.
Bringing You with Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, Earth Day, eduardo rey brummel, kindness, nature on April 22, 2024| 14 Comments »
for Eduardo Rey Brummel, on Earth Day
I walk on the long dirt road
with fat bumblebees
and dark red rocks,
not to distract myself
from you in your death room,
but to bring you with me
into this miraculous day
with it wild iris just beginning
to push through the earth
like curious green tongues
and its patch of buttercups
blooming right through me
all waxy and yellow and bright.
Far away, your heart is erratic
and your breath is slowing.
Far away you are becoming
less flesh and more mystery,
less the man who wrote
uplifting quotes on the lunch board
and more whatever it is
that drives the willows to blush,
whatever it is that causes the crows
to caw, then hush, then caw again.
You who called me Hermana,
you showed me how to be more kind,
and now you grow within me,
an essential part of my biome.
What gift more precious
do we have to offer than kindness?
I don’t know how it happens,
but the day is more beautiful
because I carry you with me—
even the thorns seem
to call for my honest attention,
even the leafless oaks,
even the dry stream bed
waiting for rain.
Dear friends,
If you know my friend Eduardo and did not yet know about his stroke and his recent blood infection, I know this is not easy news to receive. He responded to almost all of my poems here on this blog with such thoughtfulness and support. One of the most kind, generous people I have ever met.
If you would like more information, you can find it on his caring bridge.
In Less Than Fifteen Minutes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged becoming, joy, nature, outside on March 6, 2024| 5 Comments »
As easy as stepping out the door,
this chance to drop the self who does,
the self who walls and calendars and phones,
the self who dishes and bills and desks
and become the self that becomes—
become whispering field and bright
squawking jay and full silence rising
mid squawks. Become sun-puddled,
sky-muddled, breeze-ruffled
heartbeat, spruce-reaching,
blue-winging, leaf-whirling heartbeat,
snow-melting, cliff-lifting,
grass greening heartbeat, become
heart warmth beat heart breath beat
heart sun beat heart cloud beat
heart heart heart heart
as if this time I’ll never forget.
The Day Before the Hurricane
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being present, nature, yosemite on August 21, 2023| 4 Comments »
Tuolomne Meadows, Yosemite
The meadow is a vast embrace for light
and does not prepare for predicted rain.
White slabs of granite gather warmth
in their mass with no thought
of storm, and for a sun-drunk moment,
unshackled from purpose,
I’m undone from myself,
more becoming, less someone,
less trajectory, more field,
more attention to cinquefoil, dragonfly,
thin sweetness of mountain air.
In loving the world that is, I am exactly here
Buzz of fly. Beat of heart. Path of ant.
Beat of heart. Dry needles. Dry moss.
Beat of heart. Beat of heart.
Sage. Beat of heart. Stone. Beat
of heart. Deep spring. Tall pine.
Beat of heart. Beat of heart.
For Four Hours
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hiking, nature, smiling, trail on July 3, 2023| 2 Comments »
Not that I was lost
as I climbed through
the rocks and meadowrue,
I just didn’t know
where I was going,
but every step felt
like a small arrival
and no one step
felt like a place to rest;
the trail was sometimes
too faint to trust
and my legs were tired
and dusty and I was
sweaty and sticky,
while on my face,
I could feel it,
the truest smile
opened like sky
above the horizon
as I moved higher
through each switchback,
the town below
smaller and smaller,
then gone.
Letting Go of Knowing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forest, knowing, nature, scent, unknowing, walkiing on June 13, 2023| 14 Comments »
Walking in the sweet honey
and musky scented woods,
I keep searching for what smells
so good, until finally I let
myself be content to walk
in the woods with a honey scent,
and I give up for a time
on naming the world,
and let a step be a step,
let a scent be a scent
and know only I am lucky,
lucky to walk in the musky woods,
the air so refreshing, so sweet.
How Sweet It Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, community, goodness, nature, wildflower on June 9, 2023| 9 Comments »
They’re small, the flowers
of mountain mahogany—
little white and red trumpets
with barely a scent, but
today, on a trail lined
with millions of tiny blossoms,
the air was hung with sweet perfume
and I breathed deeper,
as if with each pull
I could bring beauty into my lungs.
When I lose faith
that my smallest actions
make a difference,
let me remember myself as one of millions,
remember the wonder of walking today
through the bushes in bloom.
Hours later the scent is long gone,
but I can’t unknow
how sweet it is.
When Everything Is Field
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, Earth Day, field, love, nature on April 24, 2023| 13 Comments »
Again I fall in love with the field
as if for the first time—the first time
I ever saw a pair of geese land there
then waddle through tall dry grass;
the first time I ever watched it transform
from drab ocher to brilliant green;
the first time I ever felt its spaciousness—
how it becomes a basin for light.
Every day I fall in love again with the field,
many times a day. Every day, I marvel
there are new ways to fall in love.
Once, I didn’t know how intimate it was,
this relationship to the land.
Now I know it as the truest thing.
Inevitable, this love affair with color,
texture, change, scent, the sound
of grass moving against grass.
Inevitable, the love that rises
out of dew, out of frost, out of vastness,
out of wholeness, out of loss,
and reteaches me what it is to love, to be loved.