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 perfume, poem, poetry, quince, transformation on October 18, 2015| 2 Comments »
one lumpy
unripe
quince
turns
to stirring
perfume
given
the chance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growth, poem, poetry, shedding, surprise, transformation on October 9, 2015| 2 Comments »
carrying that sled
uphill for so long, I forgot
it was for riding
*
shedding the roof
when the house no longer fits—
now nothing between us and the stars
*
but I miss the weight
say the hands, too free after
setting down the stone chest
*
running full speed
into my own fear, I ricochet
into the arms of god
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, poem, poetry, transformation on January 1, 2015| 3 Comments »
for Michelle
On a snowy hill
with the sky soft gray
and the wintering sage
all scrubby and dark
we wandered in circles
around the white knob
and spoke in circles
sage and gray, about
the dark and what is soft,
we were not lost, just
happy to be wandering
inside a snowy afternoon,
we found our own footprints
and stepped in them again,
though already we were not
the same women who’d made them.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, self-destructive behavior, transformation, unlearning on June 3, 2014| 1 Comment »
I am perhaps like the fish
who is attracted to the hook,
the thrill of the line—
though barb is sharp,
at least for a moment
I know what it’s like
to fly.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, possibility, spring, transformation on May 26, 2014| 1 Comment »
From across the parking lot
on an early spring afternoon
you see a yellow butterfly
just before it disappears
behind the roof of the grocery store
and I am certain no scientist
could ever prove this, but
in that moment on the pavement
in the swirling chill of breeze
you are somehow saved, though you don’t
have a hint what that might mean, except
that it feels like, at least for that instant,
everything is possible.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, transformation, unfolding on May 23, 2014| 1 Comment »
just a hint of pink—
all day I fall in love
with the unfolding
*
it looks like waiting—
betcha the caterpillar
has a different story
*
the heart opens—
but first it erases
its list of shoulds
*
and what is it in us
that keeps opening—in each
blossom the next seed
*
kicking off
its shoes, the heart loves best
barefoot
*
oh foolish woman
who saw a prison here
instead of a playground
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, light, poem, poetry, transformation on May 15, 2014| 1 Comment »
in the rearview mirror
a sunset so extravagant—
I pulled a u-ey
on the main street
and stepped on the gas
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, apple, pleasure, poem, poetry, transformation on September 8, 2013| 2 Comments »
Not once
has the worm
said to the apple
your flesh
does not taste
good enough.
But it is so much
nicer, you don’t
need to be a worm
to understand,
when the fruit
is full of sugar
and the dark,
lonely work
is also sweet.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chicken little, poem, poetry, seeing the world anew, self-portrait, sky, transformation on August 30, 2013| 1 Comment »
Of course there’s the sky,
puddles of blue and
and mounds of white clouds
all around Chicken Little’s
scaly orange feet.
It occurs to him
only then, as he draws
his own ineffective wings
that perhaps the sky
is not falling at all.
Perhaps he is, at last,
learning a new way to fly.