10 Sunday Nov 2024
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Belief, Eternity, Fear, Forgiveness, Freedom, God, Gratitude, Healing, Infinite, Longing, Mercy, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Saguaro National Forest, Soul, Soul Poetry, Spirit, Spirits, Strength, Survival, Yearning
I thought, If all paths lead to God,
why should I care
about a right, or wrong, path?
I picked up a stone
and carried it four miles
through the desert to lay it down
at the broken, stone house.
But I took a wrong path, and laid it down
in an unmarked ravine, instead.
18 Saturday Feb 2023
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Ash Wednesday, Dad, Death, Dying, Eternity, Father, Love, orchid, Parents, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, symbols
A death, a flower, a funeral:
A flower the widow turned away,
An orchid, left to me,
Child, and killer of orchids.
The months passed, and passed,
Yet, its stubborn blossoms remained.
Yesterday, the last bloom
Spent itself, I could tell
It wanted to be clipped.
It was dull, a bit brown,
And it drooped,
As if, life well lived,
But now there are seven,
New blossoms, ready to open.
I think how appropriate,
A symbol of our mortality,
Four days before Ash Wednesday.
And me, not even Catholic,
Yet impressed–
With what it means to die,
And not die, to live forever,
Even as we’re gone.
24 Thursday Nov 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Alone, Death, Death Poems, Eternity, Heaven, Hope, Ice, Infinite, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Snow, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, The Universe, Winter, Winter poem
A white blanket was pulled over
Our homes, the earth, our heads,
As effortless as sliding on ice,
As uncontrollable as dying.
And, it was hard to see beginnings
Of fields, or endings of hilltops;
In that way, it was a blur of (also white) fog.
Who’s to say what lay behind it?
The infinite forever of lost souls–?
Just there, and there, look where
My finger is pointing, beyond the trees.
I see myself only as far as the fence-line.
All else sparkles back, a vision
Of what is here, and what has been here,
Always within the margin
Of what we can so easily see.
19 Wednesday Oct 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Eternal, Eternity, God, Hope, Life, Lost, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Powerful, Prayer, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, The Universe, Unity, Water, Yearning
The way water comes
In many forms,
Lapping here, at my feet,
Or droplets, from a dark sky;
Let me be like water.
My father told me
God is like water:
Ice, steam, and ocean,
The way it evaporates
Then moves in clouds
To mountaintops,
Over and over.
Let me be eternal,
Like water.
Last night, I cried,
Tears of salt, and water,
They spilled out of my body
In waves, and clouds,
Emptying my grief
Into the great God
Of the helpless-lost.
I was poured out
Into some common,
Wet universe–universe–yes,
Let me be that vast,
Powerful transformation;
Let me be like water.
01 Monday Aug 2022
Posted in Poetry
30 Saturday Jul 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Alone, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Fathers, Infinite, Life, Loneliness, Longing, Losing, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Regret, Soul, Souls, Yearning
oh, they are right
with their cliches and memes
about how you will regret
when they’re gone
the missed opportunities
to hold them
to ask them
to listen
yes, it is obvious
isn’t it
but you are doomed
like I was
to never fully understand
the precious lives
so goddam important
to your own
so ubiquitous of shared moments
it is impossible to appreciate
their value
yes, it’s true
you’ll only know on the other side
of losing
welcome to being human
you will find it is full
of regrets
29 Friday Jul 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Dad, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Fathers, Hope, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Survival, wolfhound, Wolfhounds
Some gifts are better than others,
The way I saw your heart extend
Into past memories of her—
Tears from your uncrying eyes—
Her loss was the one loss
That broke you like that,
Like that,
The sobbing unashamed.
And then, it’s as if we fast forward
The great movie of our lives together:
You’re dying,
I’m a middle-aged woman.
You give me a dog.
A wolfhound,
Like the one whose loss broke you
Way back then. Riagan. Riagan.
Whose eyes held our gaze,
Whose eyes sought to impart wisdom;
Perhaps, her eyes saw beyond this life,
To where you are now.
Wouldn’t it be something
If our lives are that special,
They continue forever,
Two points–three–an infinity of dots
On some great line that extends forever.
14 Monday Mar 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Belief, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Heaven, Hope, Infinite, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Survival, The Universe
If there’s a heaven,
Who’s to say
It’s not right here,
Next to us,
Rather than far away?
Another dimension,
Our souls
Walk through at death,
More whole,
than in life.
Scientists say,
Our lives replay,
As we pass,
They can map
Our brain’s waves,
An almighty flash
Of memory cells,
Flashing.
What’s that about,
If not
Making us better?
And so
I talk to him,
In woods and fields,
My father,
Who loved woods
And mountaintops,
And me,
Less alone than before
He walked across,
Or flew across,
Or emerged across
The invisible line
Between life
And death,
The breadth of which,
Seems smaller
Than I knew before.
03 Thursday Feb 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Aging, Beauty, Belief, Children, Death, Dying, Eternity, Family, Gratitude, Hope, Life, Loss, Love, Memory, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits
In the end, we don’t know
How the end will come,
Peaceful, as we sleep,
Or, under the thumb
Of morphine. Memories,
Like flotsam, from the depths
Of our once bright existence,
Form a tunnel toward our exit,
Each day, one step closer,
Almost touching what was lost:
mother, child, father.
02 Sunday Jan 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Aging, Belief, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Fear of Death, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Survival, Winter poem
A fog over the snow-covered hills
Of the Palouse, loosed delineation
Of hill and road and sky,
It seemed an infinity of cloud,
A shroud, over our eyes,
As we returned from a ‘last visit,’
The one where we said ‘goodbye.’
A great chain is about to snap,
The ties that bind crackle,
Grow weak, tremble, cry:
This too shall pass, everything must die,
But at last, we don’t believe it’s true,
Do we? Life is all we’ve known,
And its roads extend for our ever,
And ‘our ever,’ doesn’t come to a tidy end,
But it does begin to blur at the edges.
10 Friday Dec 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Family, Fear of Death, Forgiveness, Life, Loss, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Yearning
“Once I heard a song of sweetness,
As it cleft the morning air,
Sounding in its blest completeness,
Like a tender, pleading prayer;
And I sought to find the singer,
Whence the wondrous song was borne,
And I found a bird, sore wounded,
Pinioned by a thorn.”
I.
The song of joy comes
From the same place as sorrow:
All losses bound together
With all gifts,
Wonder and tragedy,
Sifted, then mixed.
I will hurt no more, I said,
And it was as if my soul
Was dead to happiness, too.
But now I stand,
Ready to let go of you.
18 Saturday May 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Bird Poem, Bird Poems, Bird Poetry, Birds, Death, Divorce, Eternity, Forgiveness, Freedom, Grace, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Infinite, Life, Longing, Love, Love Poems, Mercy, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Rain, Sacred, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spring, spring poem, Starting Over, Survival, The Universe, Unity, Women's Poems, Yearning
Even the stars are made of this:
sunshine & sweet petrichor.
What comes from above,
and we are made right,
our thirst, our life—
forgiveness,
after years of anger;
we finally feel love again.
The earth wreaks well of redemption,
grace permeates the dry ground.
And, the only sound we hear now,
birds,
who sing of starting over,
or, at least that’s what we hear,
like the smell of fresh water,
among grass, and clover:
sunshine & sweet petrichor.
09 Saturday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Belief, Cedars, Death, Death Poems, Eternity, Flower Poetry, God, Hope, Infinite, Life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Trillium, Truth, Unity, Women's Poems
O, Jamie, it’s beautiful—
everything is connected,
she said, before dying.
And Jamie thought of trillium
blossoming beneath musty cedar
at the edge of the sound,
the whole world epitomized
in heart of flowers,
and spirit of ancient,
mouldering trees.
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.
10 Monday Sep 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Afterlife, Death, Death Poems, Eternity, Hope, Infinite, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Yearning
Sometimes, missing feels like stone,
a fear that what seems over,
really is over. To be alone,
is no small thing, even though,
it seems, we always are.
Between us, an invisible thread
throws itself out, and stretches—
have you seen a silk thread
blowing itself out with the wind,
reaching, reaching—how far it reaches,
attached to nothing, but air.
17 Thursday Dec 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Sit deep, deep in the saddle,
Your ankle, hip, and shoulder
A line, that dissects some star
And continues past,
“Where does space end,”
The question your teacher asked
In the fifth grade.
Which is to say, it never ends,
And I can’t help thinking,
I don’t either,
Nor does this horse,
Engulfed in her own heat,
Evaporating into the cold air
Of another December.
What is it about two souls
That makes the one feel alive,
Connected, two dots, through which
A line extends forever,
Pierces a fabric, so thin,
We were together all along,
Though we didn’t know.
22 Friday May 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Animals, Beauty, Cowboy, Eternity, Gratitude, Hope, Horse, Horse poetry, Horses, Meditation, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Spirituality
You can feel the warm blood
Under his summer coat,
Sun-slick and shiney,
Sweat, that smells of grass,
Which is to say, sweet,
His breathing, his gut-sounds.
Take a moment and trace,
With the palm of your open hand,
From the softness of his muzzle
To the enclave between ears,
Then down along his thick neck,
Under the chestnut of his mane.
Keep sliding your hand along his withers,
To his broad back and belly,
His hips, buttocks, tail.
Take the trust and the quiet
Into your heart
And unfold it over and over
Throughout your day.
Think, grace.
Think, gratitude.
Think, peace.
Hope.
14 Thursday May 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Beauty, Death Poems, Dreams, Eternity, Lyrics, Music Poems, Passions, Poem, Poems, Poetry
Who are you,
And where are you beautiful,
Where’s your song,
And what you want to be?
Tell me now,
Where are you beautiful,
What makes you cry,
What makes you sing?
Lose yourself,
In all that is beautiful,
What’s torn apart,
What’s crumbling.
Let me hear
Your sweet sound,
What you want to say
When no one can see.
It’s you and me
On the edge of losing
All we have,
To eternity.
13 Tuesday Jan 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Bits of Poetry 