05 Sunday Apr 2020
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Poetry, Yearning, Poems, Poem, Death, Loss, Fear of Death, Hope, Winter, Loneliness, Grace, Alone, Survival, This Pendant World, CoronaVirus, Covid19
1.
Grace,
where are you now,
embraced in loneliness,
poetry was a kiss,
now it’s this:
today, a fog—
from doorstep
to trees,
to sky—
all blended in white,
our world reduced
to blindness.
04 Saturday Apr 2020
Posted in Poetry
Tags
CoronaVirus, Covid19, Dying, Life, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul Poetry, Survival, This Pendant World, Yearning
A bristling north wind,
just rambling now,
cameras rolling for hope,
distant, like the sun.
There is a sun,
we tell ourselves,
behind the clouds,
and cold of this breeze,
a life we once knew,
where poetry was a kiss,
an embrace,
a crowded room,
alive with chatter.
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.
12 Friday Apr 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Birth, Brook, Children, Courage, Fear of Death, First Born, Freedom, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Mothers, New Soul, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Son, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Strength, Yearning
Some, come into the world as old souls,
like they’ve been here a hundred times,
a bit weary, wise, or jaded, made cautious
by pain & an understanding of human hearts.
But not my son, whose eyes saw the earth
as if he, and it, were just created.
Yes, from first breath he was a wanderer,
like his father in his lust for the world,
possibilities stretched out before him,
no person stranger, no place strange,
a modern day viking making his way
across an infinite, angry sea, with no map.
Unless, music is a map. Song after song,
his heart in waves of hard-plucked strings.
He sang loud, and I wondered how
he could pour himself out in front of crowds.
I see him, even now, upon the ocean,
his wooden ship, the waves, the sails.
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.
19 Tuesday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Loneliness, Longing, Love, Love Poems, Need, Passion, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Spirits, Yearning
Need,
like a bliss of birds
who flow, spring to spring,
synchronized of sun and moon,
and wing of wing.
Love is best a mutual thing:
selfish, blind, and binding trust,
passion, that crushes
bones to must.
07 Thursday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Aging, Alone, Courage, Death, Happiness, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Survival, Tulip, Yearning
Like the yellow tulip,
who blooms every year
in the pit behind our house,
who was dumped, long ago,
after her blossoms were spent—
yet, she screams, I’m still alive!—
every spring, among garbage
and weeds; like that tulip,
you don’t belong here.
08 Tuesday Jan 2019
Posted in Poetry
Forgive me for wishing
life was more like a fairytale,
a place where once upon a time
we all struggled, our hearts
torn apart, put together again,
as we desperately journeyed
toward our happiest moments.
When we finally reached them,
and got a taste of what we knew
was out there for a few rare lucky souls,
some benevolent hand would write:
they lived happily ever after:
On my son’s twenty-ninth birthday,
He spun the big wheel at Fast Eddies,
it tink-tink-tinked past the free beer,
five dollars, and hamburgers,
to stop at the fifty dollar jackpot.
He danced with his hands in the air,
he smiled, that rare smile,
his lover kissed his cheek.
02 Wednesday Jan 2019
Tags
Belief, Courage, Forgiveness, Freedom, Happiness, Hope, Identity, Life, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Self, Soul Poetry, Yearning
He said, Tell yourself who you are,
or others will make you a minor character
in a play where they are the stars.
So, I gave myself permission to be
a poet, a musician,
a good all-of-the-above:
wife, mother, sister, friend—
the many roles I inhabited,
but always felt deficient.
I have rarely known love
in the way I need love,
yet, I am surrounded with love.
Tell me, self, where have you been?
Why haven’t you defended me
against the dark thoughts?
Why haven’t you picked me up
and protected me,
held me in your arms,
and told me I am worthy
of these simple things?
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.
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.
14 Thursday Nov 2013
Posted in Uncategorized
I am One.
I am what one is
And, what one is not.
One of us is wrong, or
Both of us are right
About the one thing.
One last time:
I am not yours,
You are not mine,
Though we will die
Trying to prove it.
Can I help it feels right
To think I’m one with him,
The momentary shared skin,
Then the frightening birth away.
Someone said we were halved
Long ago, halved,
And we are always seeking.
I am what one is,
And, what one is not,
Though I will die
Trying to prove it.
