I realize I am no longer a slender sapling.
No longer a pink cherry blossom in spring.
But I am not done with my blossoming.
I am not yet done with serving
sweetness to the world.
I am so grateful for all those years
that taught me the importance
of tending to soil,
how to meet drought, how to prune,
how to thin, how to plan.
But I am no longer a sapling.
Nor am I a workhorse of a pear tree
grafted decades ago.
I aspire to be more like purple mustard,
a weed growing exuberant and thick
in the long orchard rows—
grown to suppress all other weeds,
intent on improving the dirt,
a pest control, good for tilling,
a natural biofumigant.
But most of all, there is no stopping
that deep, sweet, surprising
and beautiful scent.
Posts Tagged ‘sweetness’
Driving Back to the Orchard Where Once We Lived
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blooming, growing, growth, nostalgia, soil, sweetness on March 1, 2025| 10 Comments »
Self-Portrait as Root Vegetable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beets, science, self-portrait, sweetness on January 28, 2023| 9 Comments »
It’s science, of course,
how the sugars in beets
will caramelize when heated,
a process that includes conversion,
condensation, dehydration,
collisions, and the formation
of thousands of volatile compounds.
And though it’s not simple,
and though this process of sweetening
is not fully understood,
sweetening happens. Every time.
Is it wrong this gives me hope
for other hard and bitter things?
Just asking the question,
already I feel myself begin to soften.
When My Friend’s Husband Brings Us a Morning Treat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grandmother, kindness, mango, service, sweetness, time on October 18, 2022| 11 Comments »
I want to go back in years
and find my grandmother Rose
when she is living in Illinois
with my grandfather,
a cruel and angry man.
I want to meet her
on a cold snowy day
when the world feels small
and she feels smaller,
and I want to serve her
a bowl of ripe mango
with a squeeze of lime.
I would love to see her face
when she tasted it—
the orange flesh
that sings of sunshine,
warmth, and the far away.
Would she love it
the way I do this morning,
astonished by the goodness
that exists in the world?
Would she thrill,
as I do, in the surprise
of being served?
As it is, I delight in sitting
on a deep red couch with my friend,
sighing as we slip the soft cubes
into our mouths,
making lists of people
we long to feed mango—
like Beethoven, like Etty Hillesum,
like my grandmother,
who likely never tasted
a mango, my grandmother,
who knew so little of kindness.
Over sixty years later,
I long to serve her mango
to make her feel seen,
cared for, special,
astonished by the sweetness
of the world.
Perennial
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, friendship, kindness, sweetness on July 20, 2021| 1 Comment »
Sometimes even a small sweetness—
a kind word, a kind act—
is robust enough to take root,
and though its perfume soon fades
and its petals wither,
the roots persist so years later
when you least expect it,
there in a forgotten field,
or perhaps in your own well-tended yard,
you catch the scent of sweetness
and follow it until you find again
the fragrant bloom of it, not at all
diminished by time. No, maybe sweeter
because it was forgotten.
Sweeter because with roots like that,
you now trust it will come back again.
One Hunger
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hummingbird, hunger, sweetness on April 27, 2021| Leave a Comment »
whir of the first hummingbird—
it’s come so far
for sweetness
At Some Point It’s Clear
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, mistake, sweetness, thanksgiving on November 26, 2020| 6 Comments »
So little of life’s sweetness
can be planned. Oh, meals,
of course, and sometimes
children. But mostly, joy
loves a surprise, loves
when schedules get shuffled
and agendas unravel and
suddenly there’s a space
for bliss to slip in dressed
in calamity’s clothes.
So easy to praise what
looks like success—
but teach me to give thanks
for the mess—
whatever is burnt, broken,
wounded, fumbled, missed.
Teach me to be open in each
unscripted moment
to the bloom of gratefulness.
Preparing the Strawberries
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged past meets the present, poem, poetry, preservation, strawberries, sweetness on July 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »
As I hull them
I think of the summer day
when Jen and I
rode our bikes
over Wisconsin hills
to the berry farm
and picked so many berries
we had to drive back later
with a car—
how hard it is
to be moderate
when met with abundance.
I froze the strawberries then
as I do now,
small red sweetnesses
for winter when
I will find it hard
to remember
just how generous
the sun.
Oh if that girl of twenty two
could see me now,
standing in the kitchen,
what would I tell her?
Nothing. Not a thing.
She has so much
to learn about trying
to save what she loves.
Better to just let her
see me as I am now—
red juice on my fingers,
red juice on my chin,
a pucker on my lips.
In the Raspberry Patch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged path, poem, poetry, raspberries, sweetness on September 4, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Eventually you decide the scratches are worth it
and you wade through the vines into the thicket
where the berries still hang red and ripe and profuse.
You leave a suggestion of a path behind you.
Tomorrow it will be invisible, like so many paths
you’ve made. The bushes, like convictions, will reclaim
their wildness. But for now, there is this sweetness
to follow, this hunger, this pleasure in finding a way,
this drive to harvest all that the day has to offer.
Ursa Major
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bear, hunger, poem, poetry, sweetness on July 13, 2016| 4 Comments »
Like the bear in the darkness
scavenging the campground
for chocolate bars,
I, too, long for sweetness.
It keeps me awake,
my hunger. I lumber
through these summer nights,
hunting, my senses alive.
Don’t let morning come soon.
I swear there’s a hint
of sweetness here somewhere.
September Harvest
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, rose hips, sweetness, wanting what is on September 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »
they taste better,
the rosehips, after the frost,
softer and sweeter—
even so, it’s hard
to want the frost
I Say Sweetness Because I Don’t Have a Better Name
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, poem, poetry, sweetness on June 22, 2014| 5 Comments »
Sometimes for no reason
a sweetness comes. A pink scent,
perhaps, just beyond a fence,
or the particular way that a friend
says your name. It never lasts,
and it usually passes too quickly to name,
but for that moment the body opens
to meet whatever the sweetness is—
the way the low light moves across
the field or the fragrance of rain—
and though nothing changes,
the world is a much different place.
Imagine we could constellate our lives
on these points of sweetness—
such a different kind of mapping
that would be—a life not told
in highs and lows but in the subtler
tones—the times we turned our heads
or breathed in more fully, or closed
our eyes so we might better notice
a taste. The times our hearts skip
a beat, like tiny silent thank you notes.
With the Juice Running Down Our Chins, Our Wrists
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cherry, love, now, poem, poetry, presence, sweetness on June 8, 2012| 2 Comments »
Standing in the cherry trees
all one has to do is reach
and there is sweetness,
red sweetness, dripping
sweetness, sweetness.
It will not last, but
standing in the cherry trees
this blazing moment
all one has to do is
open the hand, and reach
and there is sweetness,
not just pleasure enough, but pleasure
more than enough. It is not
a cure for whatever aches,
but it is sweet standing
in the cherry trees tonight, so sweet,
so red and so sweet.