Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alabama, bird, meditation, pelican, poem, poetry, stillness on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The pelican dives
into the water,
rises again. Hovers.
Dives. Rises.
Each time, the water is quick
to forget the intrusion
loses its ripples,
stills. A thought
is a kind of a pelican.
A woman is a kind
of a bay. The pelicans
will always dive.
The bay will always
return to stillness.
A woman might
learn to live this way.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged candle, flame, hope, poem, poetry on December 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »
It’s not that way with all things. Some that go are gone.
—A.R. Ammons, “Eyesight”
And so it is that
even after the candle flame
is gone, yes, after
the flame is gone,
the carbon and unburned
wax vapor in the smoke
will still combust when touched
by a match, will travel down
the smoke and reignite
the wick. It sounds
like magic—looks like it,
too, a small ball of flame
dropping bright through the air.
So tonight when
my friend sends me
a video of just such
a marvel, I play it
again and again.
And all the burned out
wicks in me stand up
just a little bit straighter
and I stare at them
to notice if there is
still any smoke, and
my god, if I don’t just
run to the drawer
and find me
a box of matches,
their sticks brittle,
their tips as red
as hope.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged broken, meeting the moment, poem, poetry, saying yes to the world as it is on December 4, 2019| 2 Comments »
Again the urge
to bring gauze
to the broken world—
and medicine
and a plaster cast.
Again the urge
to fix things,
to heal them,
to make them right.
Again the chance
to do the work,
which is to look in,
to touch the pain
but not become it,
to see the world
exactly as it is
and still write it
a love letter,
to meet what is cracked
with clarity,
to mirror and grow
whatever beauty
we find.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, poem, poetry, possibility on December 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »
this eager heart—
in a stuffy room, suddenly
the windows flung wide
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, friendship, poem, poetry on December 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »
no wine, so we toast
with our laughter—
our joy half full
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged earth, poem, poetry, snow, winter on December 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »
When we were nine, we’d build
elaborate cities of snow
in the fifteen minutes before
the wail of the recess bell.
The boys would outwait us,
and as soon as we’d run
toward the school, they’d
knock our snow realm to the ground.
What is it in us that loves
to create? To build worlds?
To imagine a life taking shape?
And what is it, equally human, that
thrills in seeing it all fall down?
This morning, without me
lifting a finger, the world
remade itself in snow—
everything softer now,
smoothed and linked,
a unified kingdom of sparkle,
crystal and shine.
And once again, I am nine,
the winter grand. And once again, I long
to protect it, this beautiful world,
want to give it my imagination, my hands.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, openness, poem, poetry, relationships, tiger on November 30, 2019| 7 Comments »
Easier to keep open the doors of the heart
when a feathery breeze comes through, or
the scent of lavender, or slant of sun. Harder
when a wounded tiger comes in. Of course,
the impulse then is to run it out and close
the doors. Lock them. Barricade and block them.
But now is the time to take those locks
to the second hand store and to pull the chairs
away from the door and place them at the table,
then pour two cups of water. Say grace.
Let the tiger pace. And always, I pace, too.
Of course, I’m afraid it will hurt me.
That’s what wounded tigers do. And when
the inevitable happens, it’s hard to not wish
it were some other way. And it’s tempting
to lock those doors. But when I do, I quickly
note the lack of light in here, I want
for lavender, I rue how very stale the air.
Rather to die by tiger claw than live cut off from love.
Even now the wounds are raw, but oh, the breeze,
it touches them, and how soft it licks at my chest, my cheek.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, poem, poetry, thanksgiving, walking on November 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Perhaps that is when Thanksgiving
matters most—when you
walk the empty street alone,
scarred and scared and unsure.
That’s when giving thanks
becomes less of an abstract and more
like the way to take a next breath—
something that seems elusive, but
in fact it’s essential, and it’s right there,
just waiting for you to meet it,
to open yourself, to let it in.
Yes, for now it feels worthy of thanks
that the air is cool and clean and feels
good in the lungs, and the feet know
to walk you closer toward yourself
and the day holds you, holds you
in its soft gray arms, throws
a carpet of dry leaves at your feet,
suggests you keep walking into your life.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, memory, poem, poetry, self image, sister, thanksgiving on November 27, 2019| 2 Comments »
Forty years later, my brother and I
go to the Jewel to buy evaporated milk
and egg nog, and part of me doubts
I will remember the way that we scoured
the produce aisle for green beans. Then again,
who could say why I remember
with incredible clarity the moments
when I was ten and we had just finished
the great turkey feast and my brother and I,
as we loved to do, asked to be excused,
but instead of leaving the dining room,
we simply lay on the floor beneath the table
with our feet up on our chairs
and conversed with each other
there across the green and white shag.
I don’t recall what we said or what we wore,
and it was no important moment, but
I remember the feel of it:
I knew we were together in this—
this moment, this family, this life,
so much so that forty years later
the memory of these ten minutes
is as real to me as the scent of the pumpkin pie
my sister-in-law baked tonight.
How is it that such a short snippet of time
defines us? How it comes to be
the moment we return to again and again
to remind ourselves who we are,
who we love, and why we are here—
those moments, stolen, and still
they give us back ourselves. Even now
in the produce aisle of Jewel, I can feel it—
the carpet against my cheek, can smell
the cranberry salad, can hear my grandfather
and grandmother laughing over our heads,
my brother’s eyes widening, mischievous, so alive.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, thanksgiving on November 26, 2019| 2 Comments »
beside the great lake
holding hands with the sun—
every step a thanksgiving