If I knew another word for patience,
would it open me to the act?
Perhaps something that invokes the patience
in the zinnias after the first central flower has died
and before the next buds are formed.
Something that speaks to the patience of winter
while the field is greening more deeply every day.
To be patient is to believe there is a moment
beyond now that will be better than now.
So perhaps instead of patience, the word
I’m longing for is presence. The capacity
to be only here. Only now. Here in the garden
where the zinnia row is thick with leaves.
Here in the meadow where it’s warm and
the tall grass tickles my bare thighs. Now
in the week before my sweet girl arrives.
Ah, there it is, back to the anticipation.
Try again. Presence, as in now, in this moment
when swallows swoop and skate and swirl.
Now, when my breath opens in my chest,
opens like a zinnia, many petalled and red.
Posts Tagged ‘patience’
Beyond Patience
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged patience, presence on July 8, 2025| 5 Comments »
One Impatience
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, healing, impatience, patience on November 21, 2024| 8 Comments »
like asking the peach
to ripen before it has even flowered—
this longing to be healed
The Ripening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fruit, imperfection, marriage, patience, pears, ripening on September 19, 2024| 11 Comments »
At the roadside stand,
I buy you a flat of pears.
They are hard and slightly
scarred, lumpy as Bartletts
often are, still wearing
the deep green of unripe fruit.
Some bear a garish red blush
on their shoulders where
the leaves did not hide them,
and all are stippled
with freckle-like dots, each one
a small celebration of imperfection.
There will be a day soon
when the pears will golden
and the warm kitchen air
will be thickly strung
with the scent of pear,
sweet and floral,
a scent that reminds
me of walking the rows
of the orchard in long ago summers
gleaning the smallest fruits.
Sometimes what is left behind
has the chance to become sweeter
than what first seemed more prized.
Remember how we’d pull tree-ripe pears
from the branches to our mouths,
white juice baptizing our chins?
I like the way you lift one now
from the counter,
feel its heft as if testing
for goodness yet to come.
We are no strangers to patience.
Year after year, we have watched
what is hard become treasure.
We have taken the lesson into our bodies,
these imperfect bodies, slightly
scarred, more lumpy with every year,
but oh, the ripening.
At the Picnic with the Parks Supervisor
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged patience, time, trees on August 4, 2024| 4 Comments »
With thanks to Rich Hamilton
I remember when I planted that tree,
he says, and I look at the beautiful
sensation box elder that grows
in the park, tall as the fire station,
alive as I am. I bet you remember
when this park was a dustbowl with dandelions,
he jokes. And I do, though in this
moment my feet sink into bright green grass.
I remember chasing my children
around that tree when we were younger.
I remember when that pool of shade
where people now sit was all brash sun.
I think of how much time it takes
to nurture a place. I tell myself,
sometimes goodness grows
in the world if we wait. I tell myself,
sweetheart, time to plant trees.
Evidence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, flower, hope, joy, orchid, patience on March 9, 2023| 15 Comments »
After almost two years
of growing only leaves,
the orchid that sat
on the back windowsill,
the one I have dutifully
watered and whispered to,
the one I had finally
resolved to throw away,
sent up a single spiraling stem,
shiny and darksome green,
and I who have needed
years to hide, to heal,
felt such joy rise in me
at the site of tight buds,
the kind of irrational joy
one feels when something
thought dead is found alive,
not only alive, but on the edge
of exploding into beauty,
and now it doesn’t seem
so foolish after all, does it,
this insistent bent toward hope.
Lumbricus terrestris
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, density, patience, porosity, spaciousness, worm on November 13, 2022| 15 Comments »
On a day when the world is weighty,
dark and dense with need,
I want to be the earthworm
that gives itself over to tunneling,
its every movement an act
of bringing spaciousness.
And when minutes feel crushed by urgency,
I want to meet the world wormlike,
which is to say grounded,
consistent, even slow.
No matter how desperate the situation,
the worm does not tunnel faster
nor burrow more.
It knows it can take decades
to build fine soil.
To whatever is compacted,
the worm offers its good worm work,
quietly bringing porosity
to what is trodden,compressed.
So often, in my rush to repair,
I end up exhausted.
Let my gift to the world be
my constancy, a devotion to openness,
my willingness to be with what is.
Let my gift to myself be patience
as I tend what is dense and dark.
It’s Going to Take a Long Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, garlic, grief, patience, planting, time on November 6, 2022| 18 Comments »
is what you say when pressing
the garlic cloves into the soil in early November:
five inches down, sprout side up.
But no matter how well one plants them—
preferably six inches apart so they don’t compete
for sunlight or water or space—
it will still be a long time
before green shoots come up.
It’s the same thing I say to myself
as I sit by my husband and weep,
as I’ve done nearly every day
for over a year since our son died.
No matter how well one grieves—
whether the heart is cracked asphalt
or a lush peony—
it’s going to take a long time.
A long time, perhaps forever.
I tell myself, Go ahead,
cry when you think of how he used to race
to the car when you’d come home.
As if I could stop myself.
I cry because my body says cry.
Because I remember the shape
of his body crushed into mine.
Because sometimes my heart
is more dead bird than wing.
Because some things we simply live into.
Winter will come and freeze the dirt.
Next spring, there will be green shoots.
Late summer, we will pull thick bulbs from the earth.
We will welcome the taste, sharp and strong.
On the Longest Day of the Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, light, patience, solstice on June 22, 2022| 8 Comments »
There is comfort in knowing
that every year
since the earth was made
there has been
a longest day of the year—
a day when half of all life
wakes to an abundance of light
and then in that moment
of greatness leans again
toward the dark.
There is comfort in knowing
the light comes, the light leaves,
the light comes, the light leaves,
comfort in knowing
all the light that is
reaches toward us,
whether we can see it or not.
It is simply a matter
of staying out of our own way,
and if we can’t do that,
well, that is what patience is for.
Apricot Wine
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged patience, time, wine on July 30, 2021| 5 Comments »
for Dave
From this glass of chilled apricot wine,
bottled just days ago,
I drink the long days of summers past,
a potent sweetness that comes
only with time. I drink the memory
of the hands that harvested the fruit,
the memory of patience,
memory of soft rain and deep blue.
If I could bottle this day,
would there be enough sweetness in it
to make a wine I could savor?
Were there enough moments
when I fell in love with the world?
A laugh with a friend, scent of pine needles,
cold shower on hot skin,
and this glass of apricot wine.
Could I learn, as this wine has,
how to let goodness develop,
how to invite the taste of something wonderful
that wasn’t originally here?
In this wine, hints of pineapple, lemon,
plum. By what magic do they appear?
Oh world, teach me that patience.
Teach me to trust in time, to trust
in magic I don’t understand,
to improve with age, like apricot wine.
The Apology Speaks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apology, patience on July 21, 2021| 2 Comments »
How long ago did you forget about me?
I used to bloom in your mind like bindweed,
twisting and lacing through every thought,
but you were too afraid then to say my
two small words. I’m sorry. You wanted
to say them. You meant them. You knew
how much power I have. Even so, you knew
I wasn’t enough. And you knew
I couldn’t be heard in the windstorm
that raged for months. It’s quieter, now,
so quiet I’d think you could hear me knocking
inside your heart. When did you let
the blur of the days obscure me? I’m here,
waiting to be given voice. Though neglected,
I am no less important. Ah, there, I felt you
brush up against a petal, soft as forgiveness,
deep rooted as shame. I’m here, waiting. I’m here.