I see them everywhere, hearts.
In cumulous clouds and sunflower leaves.
In thinly sliced strawberries
and the dark hollow of a split hickory nut.
I see them in white bird shit splatted on a bench,
these symmetrical kissing curves
designated as an ideograph for love.
And how many hundreds of heart rocks
have I slipped into my pockets to bring home
like sedimentary and igneous proofs
of love manifest in matter.
I don’t know when I stopped collecting
the rocks, finding more joy in picking
them up and displaying them trailside
so others could delight in them, too.
Later, I took pictures of the hearts
where I found them, wanting not to disturb,
perhaps trusting that love shows up
exactly where it is needed most.
Now, when I see them,
I will most likely smile to myself
as I walk by, no longer needing
to stockpile or keep a record.
Still, it surprises me every time,
the joy of loving things just as they are,
the joy of leaving things whole.
Posts Tagged ‘rocks’
As It Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged collecting, heartsong, leaving things, letting go, rocks on June 23, 2026| 2 Comments »
Gesture
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart, kindness, kyra, love, rocks, simple, small gesture on February 7, 2026| 2 Comments »
Most days, I rearrange the small stones
on the front porch into a new semblance
of a heart. What moves them? The wind?
A mouse? I gently reshape them with my palms.
They have been here over four years now,
since the day you placed them beside the door,
the day my son did not come home.
Two dozen-ish penny-sized gray and white stones.
Rough to the fingertips, soft to the spirit.
You taught me how simply we might care
for each other with whatever is here.
Small rocks. Fallen petals. Tall stems
of dry grass. A touch of love.
Two willing hands.
Choosing the Sorrow
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, grief, love, river, rocks, sorrow on January 22, 2024| 6 Comments »
In my heart today, a river of love for you—
sparkling, clear, easy to wade in.
Some may not understand
why I sometimes reach down
to pick up a smooth stone of sorrow,
not because I have stumbled on it,
but because I want to know its weight again.
I search beneath the glossy currents,
and always I find what I seek.
There are thousands of such stones,
enough to cover the whole river bed.
Every one of them precious.
Every one of them, a memory
of how it was to love you when you were alive.
Stone of you waking in your crib, pointing to light.
Stone of you doing tricks on your bike.
Stone of hiking up cliffs. Stone of undone dishes.
Stone of your eyes. Stone of long fingers.
Stone of you whistling across the room.
The river of love is no less powerful
for all this sorrow. When I am still,
often I choose to go wading here.
I notice how beautiful they are, all these stones,
worn as they are by the currents of love.
I notice how the current never stops.
Standing Beside the River with Lulu
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged loss, paradox, river, rocks on August 9, 2023| 9 Comments »
Within minutes of weeping,
we are tossing rocks
into the river, the bigger
the splash, the larger
our laugh, and we toss
and we toss in a sweet
and urgent ritual of loss.
Slipping in the mud,
it feels right we should
lose our balance. What is
this life, after all, but a constant
slipping, a constant recalibrating,
a constant learning to find
new paths toward each other?
This life, it turns out,
is likely to pick us up
and throw us into the deep
to see what happens next.
But on this night,
we pick up more stones
and toss and toss and toss.
Not one of them floats.
But we do.
Beside the River with My Daughter
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.
Watching Rachel Balance Rocks beside the River
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged balance, falling, poem, poetry, poetry friends, Rachel Kellum, rocks on June 1, 2012| 5 Comments »
She does not choose
the flat rocks, the ones
that might stack like bricks.
She chooses a slender volume
of gray sandstone, rounded
to a point on one side,
and balances it on the beach,
point side up. The next rock
is also a misshapen thing … not
at all a likely candidate
for balancing, much less on its edge,
but with gentle fingers
Rachel sets it on its knobbed
end and moves her hands away.
It is not at all straightforward.
What balances, balances
through patience and some odd grace,
and Rachel adds an egg shaped oval
rock into the notch at the top and backs away.
The pile miraculously stands.
Though I try to turn my mind
toward metaphors for love,
there is nothing to get here
except the pleasure of sitting
beside the river, the hatch
catching in our hair, stacking rocks
one on top of the other, one unlikely
sweet spot at a time before they all
fall down.
Here
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being present, cairns, clarity, obstacles, path, poem, rocks, the way on December 20, 2011| 3 Comments »
Perhaps
these rocks
that look
like stumb-
ling blocks
are cairns,
and I
have, with
such diligence,
been kicking
them from
my way—
oh foolish
woman
who thought
that she
was lost.
13 Ways of Looking at the Rocks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 13 ways, dreams, gilgamesh, holding on, letting go, rocks on November 13, 2011| 1 Comment »
Gilgamesh, too, found rocks
in his path. They were like crumbs
for Hansel and Gretel, like
Ariadne’s red fleece thread.
It’s so hard, sometimes,
to see how we are being led.
We think we know the path.
We think we know something.
*
In a dream, I say,
It’s the rocks
that I just can’t let go of.
*
By the river, all the rocks
are softened, tumbled and smooth.
They are nearly impossible
to balance, to stack—
but possible it is.
*
So on the path
Gilgamesh, in his urgency,
smashed the rocks.
*
The ice
is thin.
The rocks,
flung underhand,
make such
satisfying holes.
Why is it satisfying?
The sound of shattering.
The sksksksksksk of pond ice resettling.
The hole.
*
Inside the stone,
it is dark.
Not like a shadow.
Like dark.
*
He broke everything
he needed
to find his way.
*
I do not know
why I break
what I need,
why I repel
what I love,
why I hold on
to rocks in a dream.
*
It’s not a path,
says my teacher,
it’s a beckoning.
*
By the continual
creeping of ants
a stone
will wear
away.
*
A stone
thrown into the pond
will not move
for many, many, many years.
A stone
thrown into the pond
is not lost.
*
There is no permanence.
*
My son says, Mom,
they’re all so beautiful,
every one of these rocks.
We toss them,
rock by rock,
into the river.