Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, mistake, sweetness 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.
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.
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.
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.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, rhubarb, sweetness, transformation on May 26, 2016| 1 Comment »
when I was four or five
and my mom took me
to a home where rhubarb
was growing.
The old woman there
cut the thick red stalks,
peeled back the tough outer skin
and then sprinkled
the naked stem
with sugar. The crystals
stuck to the wetness.
Take a bite, she urged,
my first invitation
to learn how
it takes so little sweetness
sometimes to transform
a sourness into something
we might learn to love.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged betrayal, bitterness, friendship, poem, poetry, revenge, rhubarb, sweetness on May 5, 2015| 6 Comments »
My son cuts the rhubarb while I
hull the strawberries. We sing
scales and talk about hacking.
That’s a lot of sugar, he says,
as he pours the measuring cup
into the mixing bowl. I think
of all the things I wish I could sweeten.
Just today, I kept returning
to the same bitter views.
It was like touching a bruise
to be sure it still hurts.
It still hurts. I think about how
the Dalai Lama might tell me,
go ahead. Pick up the burning coals
and throw them at the man
you think deserves them. Of course
the only hand to get hurt is mine,
but all day, I reach for the coals,
even now as my son and I
turn our talk to growing things.
This summer, we’ll harvest
our own rhubarb stalks after waiting
for three full years. I try to turn
my thoughts toward sweetnesses.
My boy. The honey of singing.
The way that the ground brings forth
what is green and vital,
year after year after year.
The pie fills the house
with a wonderful scent
as it bakes, the marriage
of sharp and sugar. You can’t
bake a pie without fire, I think.
I leave the coals where they are.
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
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.
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.