29 Friday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
aspen, Aspen Trees, Beauty, Courage, Death Poems, Dying, Hope, Life, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Spirit, Spring, spring poem, Survival, Women's Poems, Yearning
early spring,
a cold aspen, clothed
in soft buds, robed in white,
like ash, born of snow;
to touch her is to quake
with the anticipation
of a thousand leaves
desperate to unfold;
a thousand leaves
desperate
to unfold you.
07 Monday Jan 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, aspen, Aspen Trees, Conversations With Maggie, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Happiness, Heaven, Hope, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Maggie, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Winter, Winter poem
Looking back, I see you
looking back, smiling,
I say your name,
as if to summon
the dead to life,
and it works,
for a moment.
It’s winter,
and the earth feels
like your absence,
the once living things,
here, but not here.
How many times
did you sit
next to me looking
out at the aspen?
And now, here it is
bare again, waving
its naked branches again.
Today, it looks like
it’s doing The Twist,
and, I think, it hears
a song I don’t, no,
a song I can’t, hear.
Looking back, I see you
looking back, smiling,
your secrets, a dance,
a song that plays
while the world listens,
and twists to a secret melody,
it cannot hear.
26 Sunday Aug 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Alone, Aspen Trees, choices, Conversations With Maggie, Crocus, decisions, Hope, Isolation, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry
Only you can answer the question,
for we’re alone in our decisions;
Can the aspen advise the crocus?
You and I are that different, she said.
Yet, their roots are intertwined, I said.
25 Sunday Mar 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
aspen, Aspen Buds, Aspen Trees, Balm of Gilead, Healing, Olive oil, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Poplar Buds, poplar trees, Spring, Toads
We acclimate to early spring,
Wind, rain, and fifty degrees,
Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor,
Because the world is opening to us,
Like the gentlest of heavens.
Poplar buds, sticky with resin,
Ready to be picked from their branches,
Mixed, and set aside to ferment in oil.
A balm for brokenness:
Stir together early spring toad-sound,
Coming to us from a darkened pasture
Where it overflowed with melted snow
And rain, a pair of killdeer nesting
Out by the north fence among the dry grasses,
And the aspen, still bare, but breaking in buds.
24 Saturday Mar 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
aspen, Aspen Colonies, Aspen Trees, Forgiveness, Horses, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry
The sweeping of our horses’ manes
Showed us the wind, and which way it blew,
But it was the aspens that gave it voice.
Swirling leaves,
Like erratic wings of butterflies,
Shimmered, shook, slapped,
Simultaneously clapping as we passed.
Grace in the grove, the ticking,
whispering clatter of the breeze,
Passing, back and forth, between worlds.
20 Tuesday Mar 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
aspen, Aspen Trees, Bird Poem, Bird Poems, Birds, First Day of Spring, Loneliness, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Robin, solstice, Spring, Winter, Winter poem
I think the aspen is happy today,
The way the robin perched
On its bare branches.
The skin of her feet,
The skin of that branch,
One warm body pulsing blood,
The other pulsing with spring sap.
To be touched after so long,
As your buds begin to break
The surface of what separates:
Your ability to drink of the sun,
And that long and naked loneliness.
24 Saturday Feb 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
aspen, Aspen Colonies, Aspen Trees, Dreams, God, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Shades of White, Spirits, The Perception of White, White, Winter poem
If snow could form into tree,
It would be the aspen.
Snow, one of a thousand
shades of white,
The perception of light and brightness–
And Spirits, rising up like like colonies,
Covered in it. The snow. This aspen.
Our hopes. Our dreams. The good dreams,
That is. The ones where fairy god mothers
Float down and save us.
Did you know, aspen bark heals?
They say it takes away pain–
Like a friend, a lover, my mother
rubbing my back until it burns.
And, like a child, that’s what I want it to be.
Yet, its naked trunk rises like winter–
So unafraid, so unalone,
So rigid, intractable and distant.
Yes, if snow could form into tree,
It would be the aspen,
And the cold, white stillness of what seems
A winter that won’t go away.
21 Wednesday Feb 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Aspen Trees, frost, hoar frost, Poems, Poetry, Rime, Winter, Winter poem
The consolation of cold:
Rime on the branches,
Aspen lifting their arms
To worship the day.
02 Tuesday May 2017
Posted in Uncategorized
We must move together,
One mind, one soul,
One body, one purpose,
Says the herd.
We’ll bend our necks
To the ground,
Bite off blades of grass,
Like so: the Mustang,
The palomino mare,
The old sorrel gelding.
See how our heads line up?
Front, right legs forward,
One ear to the herd,
The other to the sky,
And bird sound:
The high pitch
Of the kildeer,
nesting in grass nearby,
The chattering of the geese,
The barn swallows,
returned to their nests,
Above our stalls.
We hear their song,
A composition,
Carried by the wind,
Through pine,
Through aspen,
Through crocus
And snowdrops.
We must move together,
One mind, one soul,
One body, one purpose,
Says the herd.
28 Saturday Jan 2017
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Aspen Trees, Hope, Lilacs, Loss, Mt Spokane, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ponderosa Pine, Yearning
The way the sun lit the branches of the aspen,
Traced the snow-lined needles of the Ponderosa,
Shone off each blade of grass in the dry circle
underneath that great pine, surrounded by snow.
I said, the way, as if it would lead to a thought,
But, in fact, it leads to fog, or the lifting of it,
Near the tiny Lilac bushes,
And, further still, across the blanket of snow–
A blanket that someone lay upon,
But not under, leaving an impression of a body,
The soft parts, blown away
From the crisp, frozen parts.
Look further still, through the lifting,
You’ll see the great Spokane Mountain,
And all the trees and houses
Which lead from here to there.
For a moment, you may think you can touch it,
Stretch, reach out your hand,
Trace your fingertips along its lonely edges,
And lift it into your arms.
Bits of Poetry 