Sky Me

On finding an old photo of alpenglow

O clouds—

such brief beauty—

you sky me

with your glory. 

Ode to my Denim Shirt

Ode to my Denim Shirt        

 

Thirty-three years, you held up—

while my arms held high-school books,

tropical shells, college art supplies,

graduate thesis poems, European

train tickets, shovels and rakes, 

my first love and my last.

Thank you for waiting to tear—

until unwearable—until

I’d learned to hold each moment

with a sturdy gratitude.  

Laughing Earth

Letting Emerson (and the daffodils) say it best: “The earth laughs in flowers.” 

What a thing is spring

In this season of greening—

of already-but-not-yetness,

of muddy possibility,

of rainy enrichment,

of hungry wild ones

of pale tame ones—

I marvel at what comes up

seeking sun, seeking sky.

I give thanks for all

endings & beginnings. 

What a thing is spring. 

 

Winter Trees, Winter Reads

I have been diving into creative solitude this winter by writing, reading, and watching trees. One of my many book companions was May Sarton’s luminous Journal of a Solitude. Her wisdom on poetry alone astounds me. But so does her more general wisdom, some of which I decided to share on this first day of Lent: 

 

“Under the light of eternity things, the daily trivia, the daily frustrations, fall away.” (54)

 

“It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning, but when we can believe it—and I do and always have—then there is nothing we do that is without meaning and nothing that we suffer that does not hold the seed of creation in it.” (67)

 

“[S]olitude is one of the ways toward communion.” (73)

 

“I have said elsewhere that we have to make myths of our lives, the point being that if we do, then every grief or inexplicable seizure by weather, woe, or work can—if we discipline ourselves and think hard enough—be turned to account, be made to yield further insight into what it is to be alive, to be a human being, what the hazards are of a fairly usual, everyday kind.” (108)

 

“[R]eal joy. It is becoming exceedingly rare among artists of any kind. And I have an idea that those who can and do communicate it are always people who have had a hard time. Then the joy has no smugness or self-righteousness, it is inclusive not exclusive, and comes close to prayer.” (182) 

  

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude. W. W. Norton & Company, 1977.

 

The "is" in this

All the swallows sing of sky,

& I try to wintry listen

to the is of this

the is in this. 

Solstice Song

Inspired by reading Wintering this Solstice morning...

Solstice Song

Winter comes, kind & slow—

unseen behind the glitter of other gifts.

Outside, the trees root deeper.

Inside, the fire glows brighter.

And further inside, the spirit asks to rest—

asks for fewer shoulds & more stillness.

For less noise & more silence

 

& more silence

 

 

& more silence

 

 

& the winter lovers listen.