I am all too aware of that permanent track
with its strict rails of duty and ties of to do,
how it structures my days
in inflexible ways, allows the engine
of time to move only on pre-regulated paths.
I would love to lose those tracks of time,
veer off the underlying subgrade
and stroll on foot through the fields of hours
and lay in the lazy tall grass of warm days.
Or so I say. And yet I commit
to new rails, new track that I pound in
with the iron spikes of yes,
like a pioneer hellbent on progress.
No. I did not lose track of time,
but perhaps I lost track of me.
Perhaps I lost track of you.
Perhaps it is not too late.
Posts Tagged ‘time’
No, I Did Not Lose Track of Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged time, train on March 27, 2021| Leave a Comment »
One Memoir
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book, love, thoughts, time, truth on February 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »
these beautiful thoughts
old pages turned yellow
every word still true
Disappointment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged disappointment, time on February 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Time lost its shoes.
—Pablo Neruda, “Too Many Names,” version by Anthony Kerrigan
And if the day
has lost its shoes
that doesn’t mean
it won’t walk barefoot
toward midnight.
Yes, even if it loses its feet,
the day will still crawl—
will slither till its raw
if that’s what it takes—
to make it to tomorrow.
Some days this feels
like a threat, but today,
that certainty, old
and Jurassic-slow as it is,
is the only thing
that keeps me
moving my own feet
toward the next hour.
And the next. And
the next.
Forecast
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, frost, garden, time on September 6, 2020| 8 Comments »
In two nights, the killing frost will come.
Because I know this, I wander the garden
and talk to the broccoli, the nasturtiums,
the cilantro. I thank the beets for their willingness
to grow. I tell the onions what is coming.
Tomorrow I will pick enormous bouquets
and fill the house with orange flowers.
Tomorrow I will sit in the garden
and try to store the beauty in my body
though I know it doesn’t work that way.
Please, just one more day, just one more month,
just one more life to try to get it right,
just one more chance to be as attentive
as I am when I know it is almost over,
the basil dark green, the marigolds crinkling with gold.
Remembering My Grandmother
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged granddaughter, grandmother, softness, time on July 15, 2020| 3 Comments »
for Merry
I loved to sit on that green and white swirled couch,
loved even more to sit on it with my grandmother.
Everything about her was soft. Her wrinkled hands,
her sagging face, her bosom-y body she was forever
trying to slim. Her voice was cloudlike. Her laughter,
fine gauze. And her eyes ever met me with silk-strong love.
Why do I always return to that one afternoon
when she let me sit beside her, reading her poem
after poem, as if she had no garden to tend, no meal
to make, no hymns to practice for Sunday’s service.
Forty years later, in my kitchen, I’m still with her on the couch,
hoping we’ll stay that way just a little longer.
Making Apple Turnovers with my Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cooking, directions, life, parenting, time on April 30, 2020| 4 Comments »
My own fault for not reading all the directions
on how to make puff pastry from scratch—
how after the shaggy dough phase, you shape
and then chill. And then roll and fold and roll
and shape the dough. And chill. And then roll
and fold and roll and fold. And chill. Then roll
and slice. And chill. And fill. And chill. So often,
mid project, I find myself thinking I would never
have started this project had I known
how long it would take. Flour on my pants,
on the floor, on the table.
Six hours later, nearly midnight, my daughter
and I baste the chilled triangles with water,
sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar,
then put them in the oven at last. We are tired,
but the house fills with the sweet scent
of baking apple, the home-rich scent of crust.
What is life, but a big project we are in the middle of?
A project I’m in no hurry to finish.
In fact, these days are like puff pastry dough,
guiding me to take it slow, slower, to rest
between steps. I haven’t read all the directions.
For now I am laughing. It’s so much more
than I thought I was in for. But I’m here,
hands ready. I’m willing to work, to clean up the mess.
- photo by Finn Trommer
Not the What but the How
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged home, memory, time on April 15, 2020| 4 Comments »
Mostly, we forget.
Mostly, the singular moments
that felt so important—
remarkable, even—
slip like raindrops
into a pond.
Most of my life
is blur, is watercolor.
But let me clearly remember
tonight, dying my daughter’s
hair blue, singing along
to the radio, laughing
about nothing in particular.
What I want to remember
is how little it takes
to make a moment light up
from within, light up
like dew infused by the sun—
each moment a teacher,
our own home the temple.
Daylight Savings: Spring Forward
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Daylight savings, loss of separate self, time on March 8, 2020| 4 Comments »
And what did you do with your lost hour?
—Harry Teague
Well, I didn’t sleep, that’s for sure,
nor did I bake bread. Didn’t practice piano
or write a poem, skate ski or do sumo squats.
Neither did I throw javelins.
Nor fake my own death in a gruesome car accident,
nor steal modern art nor moon rocks nor whiskey.
I didn’t spelunk. Didn’t sink in a ship.
Didn’t crawl through the sewer.
Didn’t get a tattoo. Didn’t twerk.
Perhaps there was part of me
that did what I am always trying to do—
untether from time and lose all sense
of who I am and what I think and
what comes next and how it’s supposed to be—
yeah, I’d like to believe that for a lost hour
perhaps some part of me thrived and joined
with the universe so completely that it knew itself
as the dawn that comes when it comes.
One Simultaneous
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, snow, time on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
One Almost Miss
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged airplane, poem, poetry, time on November 14, 2019| 1 Comment »