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Posts Tagged ‘snow’

Today’s Sermon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 17, 2024| 12 Comments »


 
 
was a single drop
of melted snow
that clung to the tip
of a tight red bud
at the end
of a naked branch.
It didn’t have to
shout or sing
to make me fall in love
with the way afternoon light
gathered inside it.
Such a simple pulpit,
such humble gospel,
this radiant preacher,
this silence in which
the prayer is made
of listening.
 

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From Where, This Inner Spring?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 21, 2024| 14 Comments »

Midwinter, the snow on the roof is melting.
Not just a trickle, but a steady pour.
Inside, I feel it, too, a thawing,
a surprising liquescence
as stories about myself
I thought were true
become less solid, less icy,
more current, more flow.
I didn’t even know I was frozen.
I didn’t know I’d created walls
until this unexpected inner spring
arrived out of season
and offered me a glimpse of freedom.
How vast a day is without those stories.
Was it always possible, this openness?
Perhaps we cannot know it
without first experiencing constriction.
Outside, it is melting,
though I know soon the cold will come again.
Inside me, it is melting,
a whole world of ice turning to rivulet.
I fall in love with the sound of melting.
Drip. Drip. Drip.

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An Opening

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 15, 2024| 4 Comments »

Mourning settles in like a midwinter storm,
clouds low, snow thick in the trees,
snow thick on the rooftops, thick
in the road where you’re forced to go slow
if you go anywhere at all—
squall after squall of thick fat flakes falling
till they break the boughs and thickly cover
the whole visible world
and then,
a parting, a lifting,
a clearing so startling, so blue you swear
you will never see the same way again,
not the snow, not the sky, not even yourself,
having as you do now, some small hint
of the weight of this life.

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One After the Sauna

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 11, 2024| 13 Comments »

 
in deep, new snow
a naked angel makes wings—
her song, how it soars

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Memory, Like a Passport

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 27, 2023| 8 Comments »


That winter night you streaked
down the walkway in your undies
and jumped into the snowbank,
I think of it now,
your raucous laughter,
your feral joy
as you emerged frosty and grinning,
I think of how you wore your elation
on the outside,
not hidden up a sleeve,
not tucked in a pocket
where no one could see.
It didn’t save you, your wild joy—
perhaps that’s not what joy is for—
but some nights it saves me.
I still smell the clean sharp cold of it,
hear the glee-giddy,
mirth-ringing choruses of it 
like an anthem to a country
that has changed its borders
and still, somehow, lets me in.
 
 

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Contact Shine

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 26, 2023| 7 Comments »

Sometimes we don’t know
what we’re capable of
until we find ourselves
in the light of another;
suddenly we’re radiant,
downright incandescent—
as tonight, the blue snow
gathered the light of the full moon
in its facets and it flashed and sparkled,
though the snow owns no shine of its own.

This is how it is with my heart—
when I am with you,
it becomes a luminous living thing
and I barely recognize it,
resplendent-sprung and bright-winged,
where just moments before
it was dull. Even the memory of you
can make me shine.
As if nothing is lost.
As if we are made of memory.

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Tobogganing with My Teenage Daughter

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 24, 2023| 7 Comments »


 
 
Perhaps I wish for something dangerous—
a rush, a breakneck ride, a snow-drunk risk.
Instead, my daughter and I slide the toboggan
down the drive with a languid, slow-motion
sluggishness. And we laugh as we urge
the wooden sled forward, creeping
down the hill. After a few laps, the run
is fast enough we can build a small jump
at the bottom, but it’s more of a bump
than a launch. What is it in the heart
that loves a surge, a swell of excitement,
a dance with danger? Why is it fun
to be out of control when the stakes are low?
 
Oh, my girl and I know, we know what it’s like
when the stakes are high. No wonder
we laugh as we slide at the pace of a stroll.
We know what it’s like to be out of control.
We know. I hold her by the waist as we barely move.
And part of me longs for speed. And part of me
is grateful to move in a way that lets me hold her
a little bit, even just a few seconds, longer.

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That Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 21, 2023| 11 Comments »


It was like driving through a winter storm
   for years, day after week after month
     after night after morning of white-knuckled,
   stiff-shouldered worry. No tracks to follow,
no sign of a centerline, no rails on the edge,
   and where are the snowplows, and what
     good is a map when you can’t read the signs?
       There were whole months of white out, driving snow-blind
    and slow, whole seasons of running the wipers on high
   in an attempt to see just one inch further.
       It was icy roads, skidding with the baby in back.
         It was wishing I could ask someone else
       to take the wheel. It was frozen-slick and slippery
     with no studded snows. It was sliding with no brakes.
   It was what I woke to everyday
and what I dreamed at night.
   If there was beauty, I was too afraid to see it.
I wish I could tell you I was brave.
   It was slow to change,
     like a spring that arrives only to leave again.
       One day the drifts were gone and the roads
         were dry and the sky was wide blue and clear.
           But it wasn’t like snow, was it?
         Some things don’t just melt away.
       Some storms transform the landscape forever.
     Some storms transform the driver.

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One Unmappable

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 27, 2022| 6 Comments »

 
in the cemetery
new snow—
why does it bring me joy
to see it,
this thin foot path to you

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After the First Snow Storm

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 24, 2022| 5 Comments »




Just when I believed
autumn would last forever
it didn’t.
Not that I really thought
the gold leaves would stay.
Not that I really believed
the warm days were endless—
but part of me wanted them to be.

And so this cold morning,
driving on ice
when I feel the slip of the wheels
as they lose traction,
the heart resonates
with the skid.

Oh, this lesson
in losing control.
Oh, this remembering
how quickly it all slides by—
the light, the warmth,
the deepening gold,
even this fleeting understanding
of how quickly
it all slides by.

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