On this gray morning, sitting on the porch,
my whole self tunes and re-tunes to a single
swallow stitching figure eights above
the field, attunes to garden marigolds
all radiant and red, and wetland rushes
wicking gold, the river currents thick
and brown from mudslides after last night’s rain,
the sour scent of autumn in the air—
and for a time, I’m charged with raw contentment,
visceral and deep. How is it true
that if I could, I wouldn’t change a thing—
this moment forged by ache and grace, this hour
that knows no striving, this wet-winged astonishment,
this quiet koan: nothing’s missing.
Posts Tagged ‘sonnet’
What Is Here?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blank verse, embodiment, gratefulness, nonstriving, presence, sonnet, what is here on August 31, 2026| 10 Comments »
The Fall
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged sonnet, time on August 18, 2026| 14 Comments »
There is a slip of time before the foot
missteps and twists and breaks, that moment when
the bone’s still whole, the woman still upright.
And from that slip, well, then there’s only after.
After, when the bone is cast. After,
when the child has left. After, when
the callous words can’t be unsaid, the missing
ring can’t be unlost, the train can never
be unmissed. And now, and now, and now
is both before and after and a tip-
ping point on which we cannot pause or stand.
But if we did trip off the tip of time,
what would we find beneath it all? A chance
to play in the infinite? Or would we simply fall and fall and fall?
Ritual
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, blank verse, holiness, losing the separate self, miracle, sonnet, swallows on May 20, 2026| 9 Comments »
As if the losing makes us more of what we are.
It’s not as if the clouds were parted and
some waterfall of golden light poured forth.
No rainbow smeared its hues across the storm-
bruised sky. No wondrous star. No kings with gold.
No angel choir. The sun did not stand still.
No burning bush. No parted seas. No feast
of fish and bread. Sometimes the aching heart
wants blatant, flagrant proof of holiness.
Tonight it was the swallows as they keeled
and curved, converged, dispersed and re-appeared
that altered me. Though truly, it was not
the birds and more the watching as they swooped,
the watching till the watching self dissolved
and the world was only space and darkling wings.
Perception: A Sonnet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moon, night, perspective, sonnet, walking on February 11, 2025| 8 Comments »
I take a walk with my whirling thoughts
and the near-full moon and the dark,
and for a time, all that seemed large
in me is no less large, but it’s also a dot,
a blip when compared to the whole
of the night, as if the entirety of my life
and the life of my country and the life
of the earth could all fit in a fourteen-line poem
with two lines left blank. Because nothing I write
seems to touch how vast, how sublime it is—
the snow moon rising above red cliffs—
only space can convey how humbling it is, the night.
.
Reciting Hopkins by Heart with Peter and Gabriel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blank verse, friendship, gerard manley hopkins, reciting poetry, sonnet on December 23, 2024| 3 Comments »
The first few words we all knew well, but then
we stumbled, stuttered, reached for precious lines,
our halting voices so unlike the smooth
and sweeping windhover that Hopkins wrote
about. And still, despite our bumbling,
despite our clumsy starts and awkward spurts,
an ecstasy of plume still winged through our
attempts. The language sang, its embers glowed,
its music stirred vermillion. And our eyes
were shining, too. No wonder of it: even
plodding, ploughing fields can make the soil
gleam. With love, we ploughed that sonnet’s lines
until they shined, until the air between
us plumed and swooped, until we, too, were shining.
here, friends, is the poem we were reciting.
Amen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, gratefulness, holy, paradox, praise, sonnet on July 17, 2024| 8 Comments »
When I forget that the whole world
is holy, even the tiny dark bugs
that slip through window screens
and flock and stick to kitchen lights,
even the charred black remains of forest,
even the river as it floods bright red,
even when my cheeks are tear-stained
and my body tightens with fear,
that is when a kind letter from a stranger
arrives in the mail, or the rabbit will stand
on his back legs to nibble on mint,
or the meadow will blaze with the day’s
last slant of sunlight and my heart opens
so wide that inside the fear rises praise.
Storage
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, song, sonnet on June 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I want to hear the green song in the veins of the leaves,
the dark song of soil as it warms in the midsummer sun.
I want to learn the low ballad of beets as they swell,
the racy soprano of strawberries flirty and sweet,
the slow bass of the lonesome potatoes as they fill out their lumps.
How have I not harmonized with the thrust of sunflowers?
How have I missed the chive chorus? The verses of nasturtium?
The chanting of onions as they steep in their own minor key?
If there is a garden holler known by the garlic,
world, teach it to me. I want to hear the carrots
as they reach trustingly down, down, down.
I want to carry those midsummer songs in my bones
so when winter comes, and I forget how things grow,
though it’s quiet and cold, I’ll remember, I’ll remember.
simplified
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged adjust, play, sonnet on June 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Sonnet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry, sonnet, wishing on April 19, 2015| 1 Comment »
I’m tired of wishing longing’s hold would soften,
tired, I’m tired of wishing I could steer.
Though what’s the use in steering when so often
after steering wishward, I’m still here,
yes, here again, same face, same empty pocket,
same despair. But not hysterical—
too tired to rail. Exhaustion’s tourniquet
is good for that, at least. No oracle
worth reading here. They never forecast what
I wish to see. No shaman, no, no priest
worth heeding. They just tell me I should cut
my wishing, and that’s never helped the least.
Of course I wish to shelf these wishes, shelf
the shelf. But everywhere I turn, myself.
This sonnet was inspired by an exercise I did yesterday on the plane on the way home … I saw my good friend Karen Glenn had suggested in her weekly poem email that we might want to write a sonnet with 14 line end words that she gave us … so I did!
You might want to do the same thing … just take the last words off each line and write your way into them. She had a poem about aging vampires … and mine turned out in another voice, too … funny to see what happens when certain words are given to you …
Little Lie
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lie, poem, poetry, sonnet on February 24, 2015| 2 Comments »
Today it’s blessing fine enough I did
not fall and break my favorite crystal vase,
I did not choke, nor lose my daughter’s place
in her new chapter book. I didn’t trip
on fallen logs while running, did not flip
my car. I didn’t die, did not replace
my toothpaste with the Preparation H,
I didn’t drop a baby, didn’t slip.
And as for that sweet thing you didn’t say
that I had wished you might have said, it’s so
okay, that detail seems extremely small
amidst these other blessings of the day,
it’s no big deal you didn’t say it—no
big deal. I barely noticed it at all.
*If this looks familiar, it is … it’s an older poem I turned into a sonnet …
Have You Felt It, Too?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged delight, poem, poetry, self, sonnet, surrender on February 18, 2015| 5 Comments »
In spite of everything, an odd delight
upsurges in the body, like a tide
that claims a rocky shore, or like a wide
and widening pool of morning light—
except it’s messier. It spills, despite
our thin attempts to hold its force inside.
It sloshes, splatters, overflows. It slides
and slips, it floods, upends, engulfs, unrights.
Oh fierce irrational joy! It doesn’t care
about the setting. Doesn’t care who sees.
It soaks us with its ecstasy, its strange
unruly grace. And then it’s gone. No prayer
or pretty please will make it stay. And we
are changed: yes, still ourselves, but rearranged.
In the Black
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, sonnet, taxes on March 3, 2014| 3 Comments »
Someday they’ll learn to levy tax on love.
At least fifteen percent, but likely more.
Say thirty-five percent. With guarantors
in case we can’t pay up. Of course the gov
would want its due. There’s never quite enough
of anything. For years they thought that war
could be the country’s answer, how it pours
in money, power, makes the people tough.
And then there’s love. In fact they’ll wonder why
it took them centuries to think of it.
For unlike currency, there is no end
to love. It’s infinite. So they’ll apply
a love tax, hug tax, wooing tax. Remit
away, my friend. Preserve the country: Spend.
The Price of Right
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, love, peace, poem, Right, sonnet, unknowing on January 27, 2013| 3 Comments »
So much grace available, but how we receive it depends on what we can let go of.
—Joi Sharp
Inside the place where we are right, the rain
can never fall. Inside the place where we
are right, the leaves fall yellowed off the trees.
No breeze. No bells. No peaches. We explain.
We judge, contend, defend and claim, maintain
our certainty. And meanwhile, we don’t see
the lilacs wilting, grasses browning, bees
without their hives, lost crows, the sunset drained.
But sometimes in this shrinking cage of right
wings in a doubt. A question. Nothing’s clear.
And see how soon the crows return, a slight
of breeze, a scent of rain. I’ll meet you here,
this open place, exposed, unclosed. How light
spills in as our defenses disappear.
Regarding Forgiveness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blank verse, ego, forgiveness, garden, poem, poetry, shame, sonnet, weeds on July 22, 2012| 7 Comments »
I am not fit to tend that garden yet.
Though I walk by it every day. Though it
is on my property. Though there’s a thriving
patch of shoulds sprung up around the fence.
The gate is twined in bindweed, green and dense.
The rows are long-since overgrown with grass,
oregano gone viral, clover, spears
of mullein, dandelion rosettes. I’ve grown
familiar with neglect, at times forget
it’s mine to cultivate. But there it is.
Last week, I stepped inside the disarray,
took one long look at shamed disorder, tried
to see a place to start, and quickly left.
I am not ready for that garden yet.
The Proper Care and Feeding of the Self
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged how to, lose the self, poem, sonnet on July 7, 2012| 3 Comments »
Step One: locate a room, a lovely room,
perhaps with Persian rugs, the softest kind,
and pillows, lots of pillows. You will find
the silken ones feel best. And maybe blue
delphiniums, and pink hydrangeas, too.
Two glasses, one for water, one for wine.
Dark chocolates. Bach. And lots of books to line
the shelves, and pictures that your children drew.
Oh yes, a lock to fasten on the door,
a heavy one. You’re set. Step Two. Now pull
together all your thoughts about the needs
the self perceives, I’m sure that there are more.
Arrange the thoughts until they’re comfortable.
Forget them. Lock them. Lose the key. Step Three.
What Isn’t Mine
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, ownership, snow, sonnet on November 2, 2011| 1 Comment »
a fifteen-minute sonnet on a title by Veronica Patterson
No not this day with all its sudden snow
and not the sunshine sliding through the white.
Not my children, though I call them mine
and feed them, drive them where they need to go.
My car? It’s in my husband’s name. My home?
The bank owns part of it. The words I write?
I steal from all my heroes. My delight?
I learned it from my mother. There is no
computer, cell phone, cookbook, shirt or cat
that I can point to and say I own that—
for anything I think is mine can steal
away like snow in sun or autumn leaves
in trees. The less I hold the more I feel
whatever owns the trees is living me.
No Path, Just a Beckoning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aloneness, crow, sonnet, the call on October 28, 2011| 1 Comment »
We follow the call. It leads us deeper and deeper.
—Joi Sharp
Inside, I think I hear the call of crow,
and walk outside to find where it is singing.
Crow is nowhere to be seen, no winging
cross the blue. Not in the trees. And no
more song. I listen. Listen. Listen. Oh!
I hear it there, through pinions, a small hinging
in the air, and try to follow, swinging
my legs over cactus patches, deer scat, snow,
an old barbed wire fence strung low, what’s that?
Another bird. What’s that? A hidden creek.
Where is the crow? I stop, perch on a stone.
Caw. I startle, looking for the black
outline of bird. It’s here, I think, and meet
my shadow, flapping in the sun, alone.