Posted in Uncategorized, tagged movement, path, progress, thoughts, worm on August 25, 2020| 4 Comments »
Perhaps I am more like the earthworm
than I thought—
one part of me anchored in place
while the rest of me moves forward.
Every time I go, I also stay.
Every time I reach ahead, part of me holds on.
Over and over, I pull myself along.
What looks like progress is slow.
No path except the one I make
by letting the world move through me.
In order to proceed, I make of myself a wave.
In order to proceed, I must let go.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, journey, path, perspective, walking on August 24, 2020| 2 Comments »
Who is this woman so concerned with arrivals?
Doesn’t she know we are writing about paths?
What is her rush to get to the meadow?
What does she think she will find there?
She missed the sunflowers in the garden,
a whole row of luscious bright yellow bloom.
She missed the chatter of the chipmunk,
the hot scent of rabbit brush almost like sage,
the mica glistening like crushed starlight beneath her feet.
She is like one of those trucks on the highway,
a blur, a roar, an impersonal thundering.
Oh, see, now that she thinks she’s arrived somewhere,
now she starts noticing the field,
the crunch of dry grass, the dirt, her own short shadow.
Funny, she looks lost, standing there with her pen and paper,
her longing to find something worthwhile to say.
Should we tell her it’s okay,
that the lack of arrival could be her new point A?
And everywhere she looks, a new path.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, mountains, path on June 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
for C, A, A, A and J
I want to share with you a trail with no map
and the clean scent of spruce and a clear Colorado sky.
I want to spend an afternoon above tree line
in a field of corn lilies and alpine buttercups
the pica chirping brightly in the rockfall.
Let’s not find the lake we were looking for.
Let’s stop where our feet say stop.
I want to share a leap and a shimmy,
a chocolate cookie, the mighty salt of love.
I want to slide down snowfields on our raincoats,
to find more paths to take another day,
to wade through the cold rush of change.
I want to take a bolt cutter to any door
that won’t let us in, to let the ears of my heart
attune to your words, to lose our hats to the wind
and find them again. And as the night
fills the room, I want to sing as the guitar
of friendship finds a new tune. I want to hear it
play on long after the day has gone.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choices, direction, path on February 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »
It’s like any new landscape. At first,
You don’t know which direction to look.
Each time you look east, you regret
you can’t at the same time look west.
Soon you become a spinning top, unable
to focus anywhere without wanting to turn
and see what you’re missing. For a time,
it serves you, this willingness to see every side,
keeps you from making poor choices. But then,
spinning and spinning becomes dizzying.
What would it be like, you wonder,
to make a clear choice and then walk
that direction and never look back?
And so you try it—at first by forcing yourself
to look only one way. It’s not easy to walk
a straight line when you’ve been spinning.
Then you begin to notice how good it feels
to put one foot in front of the other
and walk a single course. It is, after all,
all a single person can do. How easy, now
that you’re not always looking away,
how easy to notice every detail about this landscape,
to revel in each step, to focus being
here, and now here, and only here.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged certainty, journey, path, poem, poetry on July 26, 2019| 4 Comments »
On the path, I am the one
who forgets to look up—
the one who doesn’t see the mountain
because I am focused on the path.
I am the one who fears the dead end,
who worries and obsesses about it,
only to discover it wasn’t an end at all,
just a sharp turn, and the path goes on.
I am the one who fears she’s not good enough
for this path, who wonders if there’s another path
somewhere that I am supposed to be on.
Everyone else seems to know where they’re going.
I can’t even seem to spot the signs.
Confused, I stop, which allows me
to notice the weeds gone to seed,
notice their tiny white globes, notice
how good it feels to stop
and notice them. I am the one who
cares so much about the path and still
fails at staying on it. In fact,
the more I pay attention, the more
I am the one who forgets there is a path.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, parenthesis, path, poem, poetry, punctuation on June 25, 2019| 4 Comments »
She wanders the parenthetical garden,
each curved stem an invitation to step
away from the trail (remember how the Stoic
said to dwell on the beauty of life, to run
with the stars), and soon she is what some
call lost (Any fool can know, said Einstein,
the point is to understand), and there,
lost in the sound of the bird she doesn’t hear
(Heard melodies are sweet, said Keats,
but those unheard are sweeter), she sits
on the swing of her thoughts (what is it
she is so afraid of) (seek those, said Rumi,
who fan your flame)(how comfortable
can she become with her errors)(false start)
and notices how it is the knots that hold up
the swing (what story is she ignoring?).
This garden, my god, it is beautiful.
She was going somewhere, wasn’t she?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged field, lost, path, perspective, poem, poetry on September 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »
lost in this meadow
deep in the grass
so easy to think
there is no path—
ask the mice
ask the stars
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged challenge, path, poem, poetry, rain on August 3, 2018| 2 Comments »
And let there be rain,
though the path is easier
when dry, and let there be
a bend in the road.
Let us think we know
where we are going—
and let us be wrong.
There are wings in us
we’ve forgotten.
Let us walk until
we remember them.
And then, let us walk
for the joy of walking.
Because puddles.
Because the path.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lost, path, poem, poetry on June 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Just because we can’t imagine
what it will look like, this path,
doesn’t mean it won’t appear.
Just today, I took a detour
off the interstate when a rolled semi
closed down all the lanes.
The GPS suggested
a back road, which turned
into dirt road, which turned
into dozens of switchbacks,
one hairpin turn after another
rising up and away from the route
I had planned. The GPS died.
No one else going the same way,
which always makes a mind wonder.
Just because we have little idea
where we are doesn’t mean
we are lost. And being lost
doesn’t mean we aren’t right where we
are meant to be, off on our own,
more alert than before
amongst the ten thousand
shades of evergreen.
Eventually, the detour proved true,
and I was back on pavement,
then back on the interstate.
the taste of dust on my lips.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged path, poem, poetry, shoveling, snow on March 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »
