Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flowers, garden, seeds, speaking, sunflower, truth on January 20, 2020| 2 Comments »
Inside the bright words
there are other words
that want to be said—
small words
in dark shells.
.
It reminds me
of the sunflowers
that grew in the fall—
how we loved them
for their golden petals,
but they were true
to the small dark seeds
that grew them,
to the small dark seeds
they grew.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heaven, poem, poetry, stealing, truth on October 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, parenting, poem, poetry, truth on April 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The Truth and What-I-Want-to-Hear
sidle up to me like two old drunks,
one wearing a heavy coat and the other
stark naked.
“You know,” says the one,
leaning in to whisper,
“You know you are doing thish
perfectly. You are the besht mother
there ever was. Your children
are sho lucky to have you ash their mom.
You desherve a medal. Really. A medal.”
She hiccups at the end.
“Don’t lishen to her,”
says the other, grabbing
my arm and tugging me strong.
“You get it wrong a lot. And even
when you do your besht,
there’sh always more to do.
You fuck it up even when you’re trying
to get it right. It’s jusht what mothersh do.”
And we walk like that through the alley.
And we walk like that through the store.
And we walk like that through the living room.
And we walk like that to the car.
And the naked one laughs like a maniac
as she tugs on my arm again.
“But you love them, don’t you,
You love them chillens. Love is never
enough. And it’s all we have.”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, horse, kindness, mother, news, poem, poetry, truth on March 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Mom, she said, is it true? And it wasn’t
that I’d tried to keep the truth from her,
it just never came into conversation,
old horses are sometimes used for glue.
Yes, I said, wishing I could soften the message. It’s true.
She knew its truth already, but don’t we all
sometimes long to be wrong? New tears dammed
in her eyes before they fell. Is that really
the world I belong to? she rued, then buried
her face in the couch. Two hours later,
I thought her same thought as I read the news:
Anti-Semitism. Bribery. Child sexual abuse.
I wanted to hear the stories weren’t true.
Oh world, so broken, still, unglued, I choose you.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged coffee, poem, poetry, practice, seeking, truth on January 30, 2018| 6 Comments »
I asked the world
to teach me of truth
and waited and waited
for a lesson. Anything.
A bird. A rainbow.
A bug. A storm.
But nothing.
And so I went in
and made a cup
coffee—ground
the beans and steamed
the milk and cradled
the cup in my hands.
And I tasted it.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, poem, poetry, truth on October 23, 2017| Leave a Comment »
How soon the flowers wilt.
Wasn’t it just yesterday
you planted them, just an hour ago
there were mounds of bloom
shining in the rain?
You want to believe there’s a flower
that never stops opening,
want to believe that flower
is you.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged nightingale, philomela, poem, poetry, truth on January 25, 2016| 1 Comment »
cut off my tongue, then,
so I can’t say what I know,
and turn me into a nightingale
there are other ways to sing—
feel the sun, how it always tells the truth
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lie, mother, parenting, poem, poetry, surprise party, truth on July 29, 2015| 1 Comment »
When they ask what you did this morning,
tell them, “Oh, nothing much.”
When they say, “What are you doing tomorrow,”
shrug and say, “Oh, I’m busy.
We have plans.” That is true.
Say goodbye today as if you mean it.
Do not mention the cake, the balloons, the gift.
I know. It’s hard to keep a secret.
And just when you think you would burst
if you could, remind yourself
it’s for their own good.
Tell yourself, it is better this way.
No. Sweetheart. Forget what I say.
If it’s not a surprise, that’s okay.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, poem, poetry, self image, sweet clover, truth, woman on July 1, 2015| 2 Comments »
The field is full of sweet clover.
This is the truest line I can write.
There was a time when,
with discriminating precision,
I cleared this field of sweet clover,
preferring only rushes and grass.
Now, after a rain-rich spring
and a sweltering summer,
the deep field is startlingly aglow
with millions of tiny yellow flowers.
The field full of sweet clover is beautiful.
This is an opinion.
A woman can think what she wants to think.
Sometimes her thoughts think her.
Beautiful. Not beautiful.
This argument stretches
past the open field.
Sweet clover has a taproot
is difficult to pull up when the earth is dry.
This is a fact.
In a woman, there are ten thousand
tap-rooted lies about how she looks
and who she is. If she pulls one up,
and even a bit of the lie remains,
it comes back twice as vigorous.
The field is full of sweet clover.
There is something so comforting
about knowing it is true,
so comforting I say it again.
The field is full of sweet clover.
There are thousands of honeybees.
The field is full of sweet clover.
I look into it like a mirror.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moment, poem, poetry, truth on October 16, 2014| 4 Comments »
It had not yet hit the cement floor
and shattered into incalculable smithereens.
I was, of course, in a hurry.
It was, of course, glass.
I can freeze it, the moment
I knew the bottle was going to fall
and there was not a thing
I could do to stop it—
that moment as brief as when
I decided to tell the truth
after he asked the question
I hoped he would never ask.
All those shards—they never
go back to a whole. How the sunlight
gathers in them, thousands of prisms
scattered all over the floor.
