Tag Archives: aspen

Grass Widow

11 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The only way

You’re like a lover

Abandoned

By her loved

Is in the wait

For your return.

If we lay down,

Together,

Among

Your scattered

Bunches and buttercups,

I’d tell you how it felt

When the world

grew silent.

Would you believe me?

I’d tell you of the cold

How it froze

Even hope,

How the aspen

Waved its branches,

Like arms,

Yelling out

In loneliness.

Would you believe me?

One morning,

Yesterday,

You returned.

Just like that,

Your elegant long leaves,

Emerged,

Your six, perfect,

purple petals,

Emerged,

Your three yellow-

Tipped stamens

Emerged,

Just like that.

All the world

I can see from here

Is ready,

It’s eager,

It’s desperate

For this,

For you,

For everything

You bring back

From wherever

You were

When you

Went away.

Advertisements

A Brew Of Buds

25 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Riding Through a Grove of Aspens

24 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

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.

Fear

22 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ll describe early spring,

Because it’s easier,

Than describing fear:

Waking at one a.m.

In a terrible dream.

Where are you,

Why don’t you answer?

It’s forty degrees,

And the wind is rattling

The darkness and the chimes.

Everything is touched:

The willow, aspen, and roses,

Just beginning to break

Into the tiniest buds,

Yet, still bare, still silent,

Still waving their branches

Like I see you waving your arms.

The Aspen’s Happiness: First Day of Spring

20 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

If Snow Could Form Into Tree

24 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.