Posted in Uncategorized, tagged erik satie, love, poem, poetry, song, time, time signature on August 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »
after Erik Satie’s Gnossienne 2
for you a song
with no measures
and this tessellating metronome
that ticks only love and slips
into each moment a forever
Dear friends,
You have perhaps guessed by now that I am doing a whole series of five-line poems on Satie’s Gnossiennes—five lines for the five lines of the staff. And each poem is titled based on the directions he wrote above the staves instructing the musician how to feel the music. There will be quite a few more … they’re really fun.
r
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged camping, poem, poetry, time on July 19, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I ask the earth
please, a little more time?
it spins on, spins on
*
finally dipping my toe
in the lap lane, already
I dream of the finish line
*
a bucket of anything
is best drunk a sip at a time—
even bliss
*
news from the heart—
it knows how to heal
its own holes
*
resolving to treat
all my concerns as poems—
now doubt, too, is beautiful
*
packing up the tent—
if only all habits could be folded,
bagged, stowed away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, poem, poetry, radish, time, waiting on July 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Pulling the long red radish bulbs
from the garden, I marvel
at their pinkness, rub off the dirt,
bite into the crisp white flesh.
There are few tastes that bite
just right this way—make the mouth
happy to be a mouth and it teaches me,
without trying, that sometimes
when we wait too long,
a thing turns bitter. But oh, get
the timing right, my god, it’s sweet.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daisies, poem, poetry, time on July 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
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.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hug, poem, poetry, time on June 29, 2019| 2 Comments »
It’s the time it takes
to sing up to “k.”
It’s two full cycles
of breath. It’s less time
than a red light, and nine
more seconds than it takes
for a cheetah to go from
zero to sixty.
It’s one fifth of a minute waltz.
It’s $4,629 more dollars
for Bill Gates.
And, my friend tells me,
it’s how long it takes
for a hug to stimulate
the vagus nerve and trigger
oxytocin, helping the heart
to slow down and the cortisol
levels to drop. All day,
I practice long embraces—
and while we hug
the earth rotates at least 5,520 meters
and the universe expands
over 816 kilometers.
All day, I notice
how darn good it feels.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bedtime, mother, parenting, poem, poetry, time on June 16, 2019| 2 Comments »
Stepping into my children’s room
it is nine years ago and I almost trip over
the rocking chair that isn’t there,
can almost smell the calendula cream
I used for their bottoms, hear
the drone of the humidifier.
How different those quiet nights,
the amber glow of the night light,
the way their new bodies curled
so easily into the curve of my arm.
Not that I want to go back to those nights,
but how sweet they are now, how long
they were then. I want to tell that younger
version of myself that there will come
a day when she will wish she could
sit in the quiet and hold her children
through the night. But she wouldn’t believe me.
Too tired for belief. She just keeps
humming that lullaby, rocking back
and forth, her eyes closed as if to dream.
Dear friends, I’ll be camping the next few days, so no poems posted for a while … a bouquet when I return. xo
r
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, friendship, letting go, poem, poetry, time on February 26, 2019| 8 Comments »
It took five days, but at last I thought of you, old friend,
friend I loved and wanted to trust, friend
who burned every bridge I tried to build between us,
who turned gratitude and apology to smoke, to ash,
who taught me that love is not enough—a lesson
I never wanted to learn, which is why I am grateful
you helped me to learn it.
No one gets through life without injury.
Still, I wanted to believe that a kiss and forgiveness
could make things better, but some things
are better left broken. Thank you for teaching me
that all passes, that even without a road, without
a bridge, without a track, the train of time
finds a way to keep moving, eventually
speeding by so fast that what seemed
unable to be overcome becomes a blur
and that hope gives way to something even
more beautiful: saying yes to what is real.
So though you will never know it, I forgive you
for your scissored words and sharpened
silences. I forgive you for giving up on love,
for saying no, goodbye. It takes almost no effort now.
Even uranium has a half-life—albeit 4.5 billion years.
How much sooner forgiveness has come. More like a lawn
that went unwatered and dried to brown, to dust,
but then when seasonal rains returned, turned green.
Yes, thriving and lush, here is the new lay of the land,
ready for anyone to arrive. Anyone. Even you.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged driving, poem, poetry, present moment, Socrates, time on January 23, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.
—Socrates
And so Socrates says, Enjoy yourself,
and I tattoo those two words
into my thoughts, but then, no matter
what the clock says, no matter
what the mirror says, no matter
what Socrates says, I tell myself,
I am right on time.
Like the moon, which this morning
still hangs in the west as the sky
all around it turns red.
The moon isn’t late, isn’t early,
isn’t anything but the moon doing
what the moon does. Do that,
I tell myself, staring at its light
as it drops through the rear view mirror,
at the same time keeping my eyes on the road.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, snow angel, time on December 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »
