09 Saturday Feb 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Aging, Azaleas, Children, Death, Flowers, hydrangeas, Life, Lilies, Love, Memory, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Winter, Winter poem
Winter returned, unbroken,
and I bought azaleas, hydrangeas
and stems of lilies
to stand against white windows.
How like memories,
these flowers in winter:
smiles, laughter, love,
eyes, cheeks, toes, and fingers.
Mama, mama, mama,
I hear them calling,
as I cut their stems.
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.
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.
01 Thursday Mar 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Bird Poem, disappointment, Future, Hope, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Winter, Winter poem
The second Winter was the cruelest,
The way it buried our hopes.
Even the ground had opened its mouth,
Like a baby bird, waiting to be fed.
I swear the grass was starting to green,
And I’m sure I heard a frog that night–
We sat outside and said we smelled spring.
We were wrong, as we always are
When we try to divine the future.
The only animal who tries to divine the future—
The only one who knows disappointment
In buried grass, bare branches, and silence.
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.
22 Sunday Dec 2013
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Who deserves the gold of the stripped willow,
Or the absolute stillness of fog upon snow?
Who deserves the overhead flight of geese,
The way their honking helps spirit take flight?
Who deserves to be the one not killed
In the five car wreck on I-90 just yesterday,
The first day of the first real storm we’ve had?
I don’t understand why I was able to run
Heat-drenched and naked
Into the snow under stars,
Wave my arms and legs through powder
Flying like a ground-driven angel
Sent by some winter-driven god.
We plunged back into the tub,
Passed happy dogs wagging tails,
Caught up in the joy of seeing humans
Act like they would, were they human,
We felt the glorious sting and stab
Of hot water upon closed pores,
a calculated game,
To revel in being alive, to pretend,
For a moment, we control it.
It’s a curious thing, grace,
Every second we breathe
Our bodies are bathed in it.
