crooked staves
aspen shadows on snow—
our attention the song
Posts Tagged ‘snow’
One in the Woods
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aspen, shadow, snow, song, winter on January 3, 2021| 2 Comments »
Concurrent
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, nature, praise, snow, wound on December 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »
On a morning
when the snow
falls and drapes
everything in shine,
it is not that I don’t
feel the wounds—
raw and throbbing—
it’s just that it’s
so beautiful,
this tender world,
that I want
to praise it
forever.
The Snow People, Three Days Later
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged praise, snow, snowmen on November 30, 2020| 2 Comments »
Their hats are cockamamie.
One has lost its carrot nose.
Stone buttons and eyes
have long since succumbed
to gravity. But there is
something yet dignified
about the snow people in the yard,
their knobby stick arms raised
as if, in their declining state,
there’s still so much to praise.
Clear Instruction
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged memory, purity, snow, thirst, water on October 26, 2020| 2 Comments »
Tonight my daughter
closes her fist
around the first snow
squeezes to make it
into a small cold ball
the shape of her hand,
and then offers it to me.
It tastes like sky,
like electric charge,
like winter, like childhood,
like curiosity.
And once again
I’m a girl who walks
to the neighbor’s yard
for a drink at the well—
I pump the heavy lever
and it draws clean, clear water
from the ground.
There’s a red metal ladle
hanging from a nail
on a nearby tree,
and the water tastes of moss
and rust and freedom.
There is a thirst
that’s been bequeathed us—
a thirst for what is
untreated and pure,
a thirst I somehow
manage to forget.
If it could speak,
the thirst might say,
Remember, remember,
remember.
Second Chance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, play, snow on February 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Next time the boy
throws the snow
at my face,
please let me see
an invitation
to play,
though it’s cold,
surprising,
his eyes bright requests.
One Simultaneous
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, snow, time on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Forty Years Later, The Snow
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.
A Small Bouquet from Grand Staircase-Escalante and Salida
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged desert, poem, poetry, snow, travel on October 28, 2019| 2 Comments »
Hi friends, I was off camping in the desert for a few days, then travelled to the glorious little town of Salida for a reading, and finally back home … here are a few small poems from the last few days …
hell’s backbone grill—
the mouth begins to thrill
from two-hundred ten miles away
*
in the slot canyon—
knowing myself as water
moving through these walls
*
wind storm in the desert—
even my thoughts
fill with sand
*
this revolving door—
certainty, uncertainty, certainty
uncertainty
*
she sweeps the leaves
from the walk—
red carpet in reverse
*
waking in a blizzard
while in my ears, my scalp
still red sand
The Blizzard Reminds Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, parenting, poem, snow, spruce, tree on March 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The way the spruce tree
holds the wet snow—how
in a blizzard its branches
will bend and bend
and bend until they release—
that is the way I want to love you,
want to trust that I can hold
the weight of you as you fall,
as you continue to fall,
hold you until it seems I will break
and then, just when I’m sure
I can’t take any more,
release you back into yourself—
not in anger, not in fear,
not with guilt—release you
with green resilience
so that come the next storm
I am prepared
to catch you again, again,
and let you go.
One with a Cup of Coffee
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, shoveling, snow on March 10, 2019| 2 Comments »
Riding the Chairlift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, poem, poetry, pretend, skiing, snow on March 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »
By then, the blizzard was strong enough
that we couldn’t see past the chair in front of us—
all was white oblivion. And though I knew
the world, though obscured, was still there,
part of me trusted the illusion.
It reminded me of when we were kids
and at slumber parties we’d play the game
“stiff as a board, light as a feather,” in which
one girl would lie in the center of a circle,
and another would tell the spooky story
of how the supine girl had died, and how, on her death,
her body was said to be “stiff as a board, light
as a feather,” and the rest of us would slip two fingers
beneath her and carry her about the room.
I knew, of course, that my 100-pound friends
were not truly feather light, but we played the game
over and over and swore it was true. There is some thrill
in sharing a myth that defies common sense.
And so today, when I say to my daughter
that we are entering a hidden realm through a veil
and she disagrees, I am shocked how disappointed
I am when she doesn’t share the game. In that instant,
the snow is just snow, the day just a day.
There is a joy here, too, in calling things as they are.
A woman. A girl. A storm. A chairlift traveling through.
One Growing Clarity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clarity, poem, poetry, snow, thoughts, winter on February 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Awake at Midnight
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, moon, poem, poetry, shoveling, snow, winter on February 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The snow was light and the moon was near full,
and the shovels skated across the drive.
The rest of the world was asleep
except for the shoveler and her shovels and the moon.
The snow was light and her thoughts were quiet,
quiet like leafless cottonwood trees
with branches that tangled with the forward moon.
There are nights when though we are alone
we are not alone,
nights when the darkness doesn’t seem so dark,
nights when our work feels not like work
and we step out of our homes, then out of ourselves,
and we are somehow unsurprised
by the way everything shines.
One Friendship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, poem, poetry, skiing, snow on February 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »
for Corinne
skiing into the blizzard
finding laughter in gusts and drifts
skiing out into sunshine
Love Poem
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fight, love, peace, poem, poetry, snow, storm on February 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »
One Double Black Diamond
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, self-doubt, skiing, snow on January 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »
snow so deep, so soft
even the me who thinks she’s not good enough
laughs, whoops, falls, rises
One Palette
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, silence, ski, snow, sound on January 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »
shush of skis, sharp heave
of breath, wild red thump of heart—
silent trees, silent snow
The Next Storm Comes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beginnings, magic, new year, poem, poetry, snow, storm on December 31, 2018| 4 Comments »
And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.
—Meister Eckhart
And suddenly you know it’s time
to shovel the drive. For though snow
still falls, at this moment it’s only
three inches deep and you can still push it easily
with your two wide yellow shovels.
Yes, it’s time to start something new—
though it doesn’t feel new, this
shoving snow from one place to another.
In fact, your shoulders still feel
the efforts of yesterday.
But with each push of the shovels,
the path on the drive is new again. At least
it’s new for a moment, new until snow
fills it in. Then it’s a different kind of new.
How many beginnings are like this?
They don’t feel like beginnings at all?
Or we miss their newness?
Or they feel new only for a moment
before they’ve lost their freshness?
There is magic in beginnings, says Meister Eckhart,
and sometimes we see beginnings all around us,
a new path, a new promise, a new meal.
A new prayer. New snow fall. A new song.
Is it too grand to call it magic, this new calendar year?
Too grand to call it magic, this momentary
clearing on the drive? Too grand to be magic,
this momentary clearing in my thoughts?
Or is it exactly, perhaps, what magic is—
something we allow ourselves to believe,
despite logic, despite reason, something that brings
us great pleasure, makes us question
what we thought we knew, our sense
of what is possible changed.
How to Unshovel the Snow: An Evening Conundrum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, poem, poetry, shoveling, snow, thoughts on December 27, 2018| 6 Comments »
It’s not so much that you want the snow
back in the drive, it’s just that your back
felt so much better before the shoveling,
and so, using your sideways logic, you think
to yourself that if the snow were unshoveled
your back might unhurt. And while
you’re at it, you think you might unthink
those thoughts you thought the night before
shoveling the drive. Though they didn’t
amount to any action, now that you’ve
thought them they’ve become a frame
that’s changed everything. So you start
with the snow, because revising that seems easier
than anything else, but to shovel it back
in the drive would seem to exacerbate
the problem with the back, so
you consider ways the snow might unfall,
all of them fanciful. At least for a while,
it amuses you, the idea of ten million
million snowflakes rising, but then
the reality of drought returns and you
feel guilty for unwishing the snow. No,
better to put your hope in perseverance,
better to put your hope in healing.
It happens. And you walk up the drive,
so snowless and clear you can safely look up
at the sky and see all those stars. The snow
gathers whatever light there is. It can’t
unshine. You thrill a bit in the chill. Some
of the shine reaches into you. Some of it stays.