Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, fairies, mother, poem, poetry, purpose, river, rocks on November 17, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Hundreds of smooth red stones—
we gathered them that summer
and spent days carefully laying them out
into a wide and winding red path.
It had no real starting point, no destination.
We tucked white daisies between the rocks.
We said it was for the fairies.
I wouldn’t have said it then, in fact,
I hesitate today to say we didn’t believe in them.
They gave us so much purpose.
Even now, I’m following that path.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, autumn, poem, poetry, river, trees on September 6, 2019| 2 Comments »
The rocks that were underwater
two months ago are dry now,
and a woman can sit on them
beneath the bridge and escape
the September sun. But she can’t
escape herself. There was a time
she really believed she could control things.
Now she sits with her own brokenness
and invites the inevitable autumn into her,
the autumn that’s already come.
Invites the lengthening nights. Invites
the dank scent of the garden, moldering and dead.
Invites the loss of green. You can’t be
a sapling forever, she tells herself,
though another part of her argues,
Yes you can, yes you can.
The river has never been so clear—
every rock in the bed is visible now,
and perhaps clarity is one of autumn’s best gifts.
She imagines the leaves of her falling off—
how she loves them.
She imagines them golden in the wind.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boat, heart, love, poem, poetry, river on April 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged invertebrates, love, poem, poetry, river on February 1, 2019| 2 Comments »
Beneath wide bands of ice,
the river hides, barely visible,
but when we come closer,
we can hear how alive it is,
playful as ever, babbling, rippling.
And somewhere in and around the water,
the stonefly larva keep moving,
the midges produce their own antifreeze,
the damselfly eggs diapause,
all of them adept at surviving the cold.
There are times I have wondered
how love survives, even when
we starve it, freeze it, offer it nothing,
turn our attention the other way.
Perhaps it adapts, as macroinvertebrates do.
Or perhaps it is more like the river itself,
persistent, singing as it goes, making its own path,
and all we ever need do is meet it.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged canyon, change, love, poem, poetry, river on November 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »
ever conversing
the canyon and river—
one carves,
one contains,
one sings,
one resonates,
summer, winter,
sun, rain,
both endure
both change
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, river, stone, thoughts, transformation on March 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »
the rocks move
more than we think they do—
after the ice floes,
the mudslides, high water in spring
take note, you stone-like thoughts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cold, heart, poem, poetry, river on December 9, 2017| Leave a Comment »
when cold enough
the river becomes its own obstacle—
oh heart, stay warm, stay warm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged creativity, love, poem, poetry, river on April 20, 2017| 4 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged journey, love, poem, poetry, river on March 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »
I’ve got a wide, a wide river to cross.
—“Wide River to Cross” by Julie Miller, Steven P. Miller
Perhaps when the river
we must cross is so wide
and the journey
to just to get to the river is so long
that our legs and arms are weary
before we even reach the shore,
perhaps that is when
it helps to remember
that the heart is infinite
in how much it can love,
and dang if that journey
across the river
doesn’t seem all that far
after all and the body
shudders and trembles
finds a way to take
one more step, and
one more step.
