It could be any ordinary midsummer day
when the world redefines green
and the field leaps into leaf and bloom
and the birdsong plays in a nonstop loop,
but I’m sitting inside because it’s Monday
and there are bills to pay and deadlines
to meet and stovetops to scrub
and children to feed. I know
I’m supposed to seize the day and
walk in the waist-high wildflowers
that even now splay into deep purple bloom
in the alpine meadows still rung with snow,
but I know, too, there is work to be done.
Perhaps there is no such thing
as balance. There is only this story
of should versus should. For a moment,
I step out of the story and notice how
good it feels to not believe any of it,
to let myself be led by the next true thing—
this word asking to be written, this breath
asking to be breathed, this life wanting
to be loved no matter how I spend
these ordinary, precious hours.
Posts Tagged ‘summer’
Monday, Midsummer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, shoulds, summer, wildflowers on June 28, 2021| 2 Comments »
June Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meter, solstice, summer on June 16, 2021| 3 Comments »
I wake into the summer light
with summer skin and summer
eyes and breathe the summer’s
perfumed air and wear the sunshine
in my hair; and all around me
summer sings, cicada clicks and
broadtail wings. And evenings
steep in a honeyed glow
that transforms all the world
to gold. And if there is a winter
dream, I cannot find it in this
time when swallows wheel
and all is green and I’m
a wild and summer thing.
Now Everlasting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cottonwood, forever, now, summer, tree on June 12, 2021| 2 Comments »
The cotton is starting to fall from the trees
and already handfuls of white cover the ground.
Every year, it happens, this mid-summer snow,
and sitting here, I seem to exist in a now
that includes every summer—a now
of goose honk and bright pulse of cricket song,
deep green fields and whitewater.
I feel utterly tethered to the moment
and startlingly eternal—daughter
of blue sky and swallow flight, red cliff
and low golden light. What is forever
to the cottonwood trees if not now,
this very now when the tiny green seeds
are given fluffy white froth to travel on.
What is forever if not for this moment
of summer when I forget
whatever else I should be doing
and give myself up to scent of chokecherry,
prickle of grass, the unpredictable breeze.
Riding Bikes with My Brother at Fifty
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, family, love, summer on June 26, 2020| 7 Comments »
We ride on the rusty old bikes
in the swelter of June,
legs pumping, waving at strangers,
the wind making a kite
of our laughter—
The eight-year-old version of me
would never believe
about how happy we are—
she’s still ratting her brother out
to the recess guard.
But here we are, like two
young kids, playing in summer—
sticky hands and suntanned arms,
the years an ocean,
our love a boat.
Only one day a year gets to be the longest day,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, solstice, summer, sun on June 22, 2020| 5 Comments »
though during midsummer in Finland, the sun will float
above the horizon line for weeks, and each light-soaked
day seems longest. That is what I wish for you—
day after day of unsetting love, whole months when you feel
the most beloved, the most seen, the most embraced
for exactly who you are. I want to send you
giant bouquets of days, all of them the loveliest,
all of them invitations to feel the most wholly yourself.
And on the shorter days when warmth feels distant,
those are the days I want to remind you that it’s normal
to feel unlovable. It’s normal to feel not enough.
It’s normal to wish (unreasonable though it is)
that those days would disappear and every day could be
the best day, the longest light, the day most soaked with love.
Stolen Hour
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, summer, the moment on May 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »
for Danny, Wendy & Art
The breeze was warm
and the day was hot
and the shade on the porch
was generous.
It was nothing magic.
It was total magic—
each moment, each word
a spell.
We spoke of news
and poetry, we spoke
of healing and loss.
It was forgettable.
I will never forget it—
the hush of our voices,
the currents of laughter
that wound around
the trees and the willows,
surrounding us like moat.
How could we predict the moments
that shape us the most?
The dogs lying at our feet.
The summer just starting
to burn.
After Hiking an Hour up the Mountain
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hiking, love, meadow, summer on May 17, 2020| 2 Comments »
A big green meadow
opened in my heart
filled with dark purple larkspur
and fragrant sage—
and I stepped into it,
wondering how I had ever
stepped out of it—
come, meet me here,
here in the temple
of pulse and blue sky,
where everything
seems possible,
even love forever,
even love right now.
Just After Midsummer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, summer, time on July 1, 2019| 4 Comments »
Tonight we wander the fresh mown grass,
barefoot. Winter feet refused to believe it were possible—
but here we are, naked of sole and stepping slow
on soft green earth. Sometimes a whole life
folds into a moment, a moment such as this one,
when the scent of grass is bright in the air
and the sun slants a long and golden trail
and the breeze barely whispers
and the swallows redefine gravity
and you know you belong among the wildflowers
and you start to believe in impossible things
like now, like here, like soft green grass.
In Mid-September
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, parting, poem, poetry, summer on September 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Summer travels beyond itself and
warms the stones and gives
the flowers more of what they love.
it is like a lover who, though he
has told you he is leaving, returns
and kisses you until you are panting,
makes you believe he will always
hold you. But then, even as your lips part
and you lean in, he is gone again,
taking his warmth with him,
leaving your skin somehow more fragile
in the thin autumn air.
Unlikely Love Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged drought, poem, poetry, praise, summer, water on July 4, 2018| 8 Comments »
Praise the summer, with its
endless drought. How you’d rather
revile it, change it, pray
for the world to be another way.
Praise the sky, relentlessly clear,
and the dry field that crunches
beneath your feet.
You dream of green, dream
of laughing in the rain, dream
of puddles and the thin river
rising. But praise the scarcity,
how it teaches you what
you would rather not know—
how fragile the balance,
how every drop matters,
how lucky it is
to grow.