05 Saturday Jun 2021
Posted in Poetry
The virtue of aspen:
quake of leaves
in soft wind;
you see one tree,
friend,
look beneath,
it’s a family,
a colony
of roots and starts,
a community of rattling souls.
I imagine, if one is cut,
all else will shudder.
08 Monday Apr 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
aspen, Divorce, Hope, Loss, Love, Masochist, Metaphor, Pain, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, Violence
I searched metaphors to describe you,
the aspen’s branches beating against themselves,
waving for help, like desperate arms,
but that was the work of the wind.
The coyote, who devoured all except the head,
and what appeared to be a shoulder
of our girl cat, and left her among the weeds,
but that was the work of hunger.
Then I thought, maybe the foal,
when they drove off with his mother,
her whinnying, more distant and more distant,
as he crushed his tender body against the rails,
but that was the work of love being torn away.
No, in the end, I came up empty explaining
your helplessness against self-loathing,
our loss of hope, and leaving,
but that, it seems now, was the work of surviving–
surviving the things even poems can’t explain.
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.
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.
22 Thursday Mar 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
aspen, Brook, Chimes, Death, Early Spring, Fear, Night Terror, Nightmares, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Roses, Spring, spring poem, Unknown, Willow, Wind
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, the aspen, and the 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.
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.
20 Tuesday Feb 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
I said the aspen was naked,
But maybe it’s me that’s naked.
The older I get,
The more naked I feel,
Like the aspen stripped by winter.
Its bare limbs standing still
In the fog, are they my limbs?
How terrifying!
How vulnerable!
How lonely!
Will it wake in spring?
Will I wake in spring?
