Wanting more

On Friday I took an airplane down to NJ to meet up with DH and the Bean who’d gone on ahead (the prospect of a 7 hour car ride with toddler suddenly overwhelming after a long week of six year olds.) The plane took off through a partial cloudcover just after sunset, and as […]

Self portrait challenge: Elements (Water)

Sun high on the meridian, humidity making my hair curl and the cat nap, a sprawling stripe of fur on the windowsill. Reason enough to head down to the local hardware store for a blue plastic kiddy pool. Cold water splashing on our sun-hot skin. A perfect afternoon

Morning Poem # 6

All night the cat slept curled
on the chair opposite the bed,
content to hear the heartbeats of her humans
lost in slumber.
Now she wakes and stretches
a beautiful apostrophe of feline ease,
becoming a comma, then an M
before she struts away.

What it’s like

This morning, all I could muster after a too-busy weekend with houseguests and rainstorms were these few lines written in dark ink, the words running together as water dripped from my hair.
I throw myself into the face of the day
waiting like an expectant martyr
to be handed alms
or be run over.
I’m at that point right […]

Learning about showing up

A week of waking up, stumbling to the shower, making my way to the coffee pot and out the door just as the pale fog is lifting. I drive along the dirt road, the gravel slick with mud from the evening rain, and watch each how the leaves are turning. Now, at the end of […]

Morning Poem # 3

I wrap my towel like a turban around wet locks
and suddenly I am ten again, tossing rocks with the new girl
who wore a turban and was not allowed
to ever cut her hair.
We were fast friends, for those short months just shy of summer
at the end of our fifth grade year when the sun filled the […]

Morning Poem # 2

In the gradual lightening of day,
I wait for words to come.
Outside my window, the bright flames
of leaves speak the language
of planetary tilt and early sunset.
Like the widespread skirts of a peasant woman
the sky trails tattered bits of clouds;
a lone jet streaks overhead.
Behind me trail remnants a dream,
smeared with sweetness: the addict
gets better, the killer
pauses before […]

19 months

Dear Bean,
You sit at my feet making a picture all by yourself with the skinny markers I keep in a jar in my studio. Carefully you uncap each one, recapping it after you have added its color in bright stripes to your page. It is raining out and for a few short moments, we’re both […]

Morning Poem # 1

I open the corral gate to a new day and
the white pony of hope gallops out long legged.
Both of us are throwing back our heads,
pressing our knees to the mud, praising the sun.
But shadows grow long, and the sickle of sorrow
makes the grass lie down. Things are never what we expect.
Already you can see […]

“Think In Ways You’ve Never Thought Before”

I went to hear Robert Bly speak tonight, and felt, after listening to him read in his Minnesota accent, from his newest collection of poems, utterly vibrant. It was a little like touching the glass on an observation beehive, where the warmth from the thousand beating wings transfers instantly into the palm of your hand. […]