blue on blue
suddenly
there is all this color
all this light
shining green through
blue glass
and
it seems absurd
to think winter
equals hibernation
but i awaken
and there it is
a new year
that did not exist
yesterday
.
.
.
suddenly
there is all this color
all this light
shining green through
blue glass
and
it seems absurd
to think winter
equals hibernation
but i awaken
and there it is
a new year
that did not exist
yesterday
.
.
.
a hatchmark of trees
filters lavender sky
the blue heron swings right
just overhead
flying over a house
marking time and
strong weather
the storms have filled
the swamp again
the grass goes green
a single daffodil
blooms from a nest
of brown leaves
nothing and everything
beginning
.
.
.
you sing me songs of february summer
and i laugh at the absurdity
because
nothing makes sense anymore
and everything
is a tune
from those long ago years
when we believed
in certainty
still
i smile and i dance
at words
spilled from
wist and sunshine
so ripe with yesterday’s
short season of naiveté
when we were young
and you were golden
and i
was just a rose
.
.
.
snow falls gently through a sky bleeding sunshine
through the closed door i hear geese
warming their way through a morning
most of them will survive
i cling to small things. moments, really
and wish i could gift them to you
i know a whole list of people with that name
the miracles gather and hover
hoping to land, gently
winter is coaxing autumn to bed
with an ever-changing quilt
of cozy promises
a patch of blue peeks through worn cotton batting
needs no mending
.
.
.
.
and hummingbirds, too
.
tree frogs and sunshine
and a big bowl of sky for breakfast
.
my heart dances on the morning
when spring came to town
.
.
.
this is not a poem and i am not my shadow
the wall is solid but the light is not,
yet you cannot feel the difference
there is no baby bird begging for food
beneath a dark cloud
in a pot full of tulips
perhaps there are no tulips
perhaps where i see purple you see green
perhaps this is skin and not plaster
there are no certainties
on this day
in this sun
or this room
with ghost shapes
dancing
but this is not a poem and
therefore none
are necessary
.
.
.
light on dark, old on new, shiny on dull. we’re married to the magic of remembrance, made bold by possibility, held aloft on a nail in the wall of existence.
a new calendar cracks open, full of empty days, blank spaces, blocks of time.
i want to leave it, the entire book, unmarred.
i know i won’t. i know there will be appointments to schedule, birthdays to remember, plans to be reminded of, just as i know i’ll forget to look sometimes, when i get caught up in the vortex of living.
it’s winter again, it’s new years again, it’s thursday again. we march like soldiers through a forest of seasons and wish to be the one in command.
.
i bought a new small frying pan in december, to replace the old one i’d burned peppers in one too many times. but i don’t use it much. the old cast iron one discarded by my 89-year-old friend as she moved from home to apartment sits on my stove now, always at the ready. it turns my eggs just a little dark, but i love flavor of the stories it adds to my food.
.
i don’t have a word or a resolution or even an intention pointing my way on 2016’s compass. i have this pan made of borrowed promises, i have these same four walls to hold me in, i have this sky that is forever creeping in my window.
.
i have everything i need.
.
.
.
.
A week of too much that left me longing for balance. The scales are always tipping, on way or another, and we do this dance, don’t we, to keep ourselves in the game.
Too much work, too much rain, and a tiny tornado touch-down one road over… and yet, here I am, still standing, still hoping, still growing.
Resiliency is a beautiful thing. All the ups and downs are connected, somewhere.
The birds are still singing.
And here we are, in a brand new, fresh-washed now.
I look out my window and think: lush.
Too much is just abundance looked at crosswise. Or vice versa.
There.
I wrote my way to a smile.
.
.
.