Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘noticing’

No Detail Too Small 

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 7, 2026| 10 Comments »


 
The weather changes the beans, 
Svetlana tells me as we sit in her home.
I sip the coffee she’s made me, 
a blend she and her partner created
from five different beans that they roast
themselves. She can taste in her cup
whether the growing season was rainy 
or dry. Everything changes everything. 
No detail too small to link us to the world
of the real, to help us remember who we are. 
I am thinking of the piano player 
today in Santa Fe. As her hands
flew across the keys, passionate 
and precise, it was the way she moved
her eyebrows that stirred me,
her utter commitment and wonder 
expressed in a single arch or furrow, 
lift or frown. I am thinking of how 
my friends Don and Mindy have written 
the word wisdum on the wall in their home, 
and how all day I have giggled about it.
They can seem so trifling, the details 
that capture us, claim us, rearrange us.
I once thought redemption was something grand. 
Something costly. Unlikely. Now I believe
the lost pieces of ourselves can, in part, be 
recovered through noticing the smallest of things— 
the raising of a brow, a handwritten word, 
the treble notes in a roasted coffee bean. 

Read Full Post »

Sacred Pause

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 30, 2025| 2 Comments »


 
 
Only when I stop hiking
do I finally see the flowers
of the wild blueberries,
first one, then five, then
they are everywhere—
everywhere! How did I
miss all the tiny pink bells
that will soon become
dark sweet fruit? How often,
in my haste, do I miss
what is right here, the thing
I most long to see? Once
I start seeing the blueberry
flowers, I can’t stop seeing
them. Sometimes it’s like
this with kindness. With peace.
With beauty. With love.
 

Read Full Post »

One Threadbare

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 20, 2024| 4 Comments »

frayed, this wonder,
the world no less filled
with magnificence

Read Full Post »

How Long Can It Last?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 15, 2014| 5 Comments »

They had razor-sharp teeth
and powerful jaws,
those words I almost
let charge out of my mouth.
They were looking
at your neck, your chest.
And then, with my hand
reaching to undo the leash,
I noticed through
the window how the juniper
is more silver than green.
It’s a silly thing, but
it stopped me long
enough to notice how
the silence, too, has
a silvery hue. And
for that second, I chose
not to fill it with gnashing.
Not the next moment
either. Suddenly, in every
moment, there is more
to notice. The words
follow my gaze and perk
up their ears. We all get
very quiet. None of us want
to miss a thing.

Read Full Post »

How to Receive

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 2, 2013| 2 Comments »

tethered only
to the breeze
this strand
of floating
spider silk
catches
nothing
but
light

it’s a swing
for the
imagination

a rope
thrown
from
heaven

to dance
with it
all we need
to do
is breathe

Read Full Post »

A Little Noticing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

Still,
still,
and then new leaves
are ruffled by
the morning breeze
and shimmied, trembled,
shaken till they’re
still.

Silent,
silent
till the birds
all trilling through
the trees are heard—
they sing their spirals,
coo and call until they’re
hush shhh.

Quiet,
quiet,
till the bloom
of anger does
what angers do—
riles, outcries
and tells us lies
until we live
it through

and then it’s quiet here
and silent, still,
till something rises
as it will
from nothing—
and how always
we return always
to nothing.

Read Full Post »

Taking off the Hood

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 7, 2012| 1 Comment »

It was no wolf
in grandma’s kerchief
that tricked me,
but I thought
it was I who opened
every door, thinking
I knew what was
behind it. Now
I watch as doors
I never knew were there
open themselves,
come unhinged,
fall off.

Read Full Post »