Category Archives: Uncategorized

not wrenches or hammers
no stethoscopes, no spatulas
no calculators. Instead, we sit
with a school calendar
and thousands of words, built into
sentences, bound into books.
We stack stories around us on the table
as we plot, gambling that this book,
or maybe this one, can reach
from our side of the computer screen
to yours and shake you into a connection,
shake you into being interested,
awake, happy to be alive
and happy to be yourself, with a future
in front of you full of possibilities

the effort a pomegranate requires
now transformed by your hands
into a bowl of deep red seeds–
a tiny hum in the way back of your mind
how it feels to know a happy secret
or a delicious new word
like arils

Poems are easily hidden
in all this dark
tucked into a sleepless night
or behind a stack of old carols
waiting to be found–
they hide the same way that
moms hide Easter eggs for toddlers
“hidden” so they can be found
This one, for instance,
popped up when I opened the box
that held the pink Christmas tree

When Natalie reads
she goes someplace
else
and when she gets there,
sometimes,
there are dragons.

twinkle is the job
of holiday lights
glow and glisten,
sparkle and shine

Later, when the world
isn’t so dark,
I’m already planning
how we’ll remind each other
of what it was like, now.
How we’ll say, in sunlight
and sandals and summer health,
Remember when
dark was so deep
even the words for light
were sparks of solace?

the neighbor’s inflatable Santa
is facedown in new snow
with more falling fast
on his red and white backside
Oh, buddy, I think–
I know just how you feel

Last night,
fog turned streetlight
to ribbons of gold
flecked with silver mist
shining so bright
on an ordinary Monday night
that it stopped me
in the middle of my quiet street
This quiet night
This quiet reminder to breathe
and to see

Long ago
pride of a working farm
that old barn collapsed
folded in on itself
hay and horse stall
chicken musings
dung and rafters
opened to the rain
all the moments held
within the wooden walls
thoughts and breath of
cow and farm hand,
their worries and plans
and memories
released
to rise through the air

hours and hours
since our votes were cast
Counting takes time.
Any preschooler or store clerk
could tell you that.

Counting
Not even counting but
Waiting
while someone else
Counts.

birds and the shadows of birds
is a line of a poem
which flew in my window
and nestled in my lap
while I was meditating

or if I wasn’t meditating
I was at least sitting still
in flickering sunlight birds and the shadows of birds
is a line of a poem I
may never finish
seven counted syllables
the middle of a haiku
while I sit and breathe
not looking, not listening to news