Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communication, language, light, poem, poetry, transformation on June 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Just as the sun enters the room
and changes the feel, the warmth,
and the power to perceive,
the right word, too,
can be a beam, can shine
into an evening, bring
glimmer, tidings of light,
make even the darkest corners
shine. Yes even one word
can become a prayer,
a gate we pass through
to find ourselves luminous.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged father, Father's Day, healing, poem, poetry, rain on June 17, 2018| 4 Comments »
for my father
And when at last
the healing comes,
may it come like the rain
after a long drought,
so soft that at first
you aren’t sure
it is raining,
but the fragrance
overcomes you,
green and wet,
and the world
looks dewy and
you feel it in your lungs.
Yes, may the healing
arrive on the edge
of perception
and then feel
wholly present,
as today when the rain turned
long and steady,
the kind that slowly
saturates and changes everything
so quietly that
you almost don’t remember
what it was like before
and everywhere you look,
all you see is promise.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boundary, fence, mother, parenting, poem, poetry on June 16, 2018| Leave a Comment »
for parents of teenagers everywhere
planting flowers
all along the fence—
the fence is no less sturdy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moon, poem, poetry, surrender on June 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged patience, poem, poetry, tree on June 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged armageddon, death, gratitude, life, poem, poetry on June 11, 2018| Leave a Comment »
I decided to take
the invitation seriously.
Nothing changed.
I made breakfast.
Went to work.
Walked.
Made a date
to speak with a friend.
Swore at the magpie
that dive bombed
my head. Ate popcorn
for lunch.
Made plans
for four months from now.
Took vitamins.
Drank green tea.
Watered the seeds
planted yesterday.
Talked to the seeds,
encouraged them to grow.
Read a book, stopped
at the penultimate chapter.
Some things are better
left unfinished.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, emily dickinson, literature, magic, mother, poem, poetry, reading on June 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Mom, she says, I don’t know what it was about that book,
but the pages were falling out and it smelled old
and I think it cast a spell on me.
And I recall the first time I read Emily,
an old cloth book with the text debossed,
how I ran my fingers over the words
and felt them as I read them:
“As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away—”
Mom, she says, I didn’t even understand
a single word I read, but I couldn’t stop reading.
And now, I think that book is haunting me.
We are making her bed just before she sleeps,
and I tug on the covers to straighten them.
Yes, I say, her words are like spells.
I memorized that poem, though I was
too young to know of “courteous
and harrowing grace.” I knew only
that when I said the words, they gave
me such an openness, a wideness, a delight,
as if morning found its way into my chest,
and now, thirty years later, the early light
still touches me, still thralls.
The bed remade, she slips beneath
and I lay at her feet and for a time we read.
I want to talk more about Emily,
but the spell is her own and I don’t
want to trespass her magic,
the wonder she feels.
Perhaps someday she, too,
will read these lines,
“Our Summer made her light escape
into the beautiful.”
and know herself more beautiful
for having let them touch her.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged god, gold, poem, poetry, real, spirituality on June 9, 2018| 2 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged generosity, poem, poetry, universe on June 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »
