Category: poem

Poppies and Lupine

A long El Niño winter filled rivers

and drained the sky into a palette

of whites and grays, but now above is flush

with blue, and in November’s stubble fields

wild grasses grow chest high. Gnats

and apple blossoms glow in the morning sun,

and in California meadows

poppies and lupine mingle

as if they’d invented the color wheel,

like friends who love bold

fashion and go shopping together,

noontime and midnight meeting for drinks.

How can I blaze like they do,

exuberant and heedless of burning out?

Step out your door

and seek your shadow.

Savor and serve it all,

mystic and hedonist,

hostess and hermit,

the good daughter and the performer

who’s only acting the part.

For every purpose under heaven

there is a time —

for yes, for no,

for beholding beauty

and for giving it away. 

O poppies, o lupine,

I want to kiss the world.

Teach me how to flaunt orange,

show me how to dare purple!

With appreciation to all my writing friends who helped me make this a better poem

I Will Always Remember

man holding a mug of tea

A drizzly morning thirty years ago.

I rush along a path of dripping oaks

from coffeehouse to early morning class.

Across the quad (it seems so far away)

a man much older than I  rakes wet leaves.

My coffee steams as I stop now to sip

and in the distance see a girl approach

the gardener, holding out a cup of tea.

He shakes his head, polite but firm, no thanks.

The mist and space between us cloak the two,

a snow globe or a silent movie scene.

Again the girl entreats and lifts the cup.

It’s almost eight, I may be late for class,

but I remain. How will this story go?

At last the man accepts the cup, he nods,

she smiles, nothing left for them to say.

Who gave a gift to whom that winter day?

Let My Soul Sing

dog playing on the beach

I light a candle at dawn and invite

my soul to sing with the angels –

which means that I sit my body down

and repeat a mantra in my head to hush

the buzz of plans, desires, and worries.

The soul knows the secret

riffs and melodies

you forgot when you were born

and delights in her play among them

as a dog racing across the sand

to the scent of the sea delights

endlessly in the game of fetch.

The master-tossed ball

arcs across the sky

in a marriage of mass and motion,

and the dog chases and fetches,

chases and fetches.

So, I release my soul

to play on the beach

and beg the Holy One,

open my ears to hear the verses

You are singing to me.

Open my lips to join the chorus.

Sleepytime Tea

box of sleepytime tea next to a teapot on a stove

Seductive valerian and maidenly chamomile,

same herbs my great

great grandmother snipped and brewed,

summer garden wrapped in tissue,

insomniac’s aphrodisiac,

you promise I’ll wake in the morning

like wood sorrel opening

its neon yellow flowers

to the first

touch of the sun.

Come, blessed leaves,

soak in this boiling bath;

release slithers of scent

into steam if you must,

but save every single soporific cell

of sleep-inducing power

for me.

O liquid lullaby,

soother of worry

and dream enticer,

drift away with me

into a nightlong

river of rest.

Crossroads

Trail through the redwoods

The same breeze that sifts

through the redwood boughs 

and flutters the aspen leaves

also lifts a strand of hair from my face,

brushes my cheek and wrist.

What arboreal aerosols

has it lifted on its way

to trace on my skin?

We can’t see what happens underground,

roots and beetles, tinge and seep of water,

the faint white mycorrhizal threads

doing work beyond human imagining.

The power of the barely there

becomes visible in trunk and leaf,

honeysuckle nectar for the bumblebee.

Like the magnetic pulse that tells

wild geese where to fly,

something is calling you 

to the place

where your joy meets

your neighbor’s need. 

At this crossroads 

in the kingdom of enough,

listen to the gull’s cry,

the squawking of crows,

the warbling coo of mourning doves.

Here is the delight of the realm

singing your name.

With gratitude to Frederick Buechner, who wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

The Beauty You Love

open notebook lying on a bench in dappled light

Dappled light on a blank page,

breeze sifting through pine boughs

faint as a whispered prayer

invite a spray of words

to fill these vacant lines —

an empty universe waiting

for stars and stones,

crustaceans and curlews,

waiting for the endless

bubbling up to begin

yet already longing

for a still point

within the hurtling.

When the Holy One commands us,

love me with your whole heart,

and with your whole being,

and with your whole strength,

doesn’t She also mean,

adore the pine tree whose shade you sit in

and worship the sun that feeds you?

Praise them worthily, She says,

and you will praise me.

Title from a poem by Rumi

Sit With All Your Senses Alert

Thank you to my friend Kim Woodland for this guest post. I met Kim in Carolyn Flynn’s writing group and have had the pleasure of hearing her work for many years now. A naturalist and retired teacher, Kim shared the experience of outdoor education with kids from preschool to high school, and now I’m delighted to share with you a view of my garden through her poetic eye.

photo of garden

My Friend’s Backyard

the sun

bathes my skin in warmth

like the steam curling up

as I sip my morning chai

on this cool spring day

photo of chard

winter rains have resurrected

last autumn’s chard,

dark green leaves flutter

on four feet of ruby red stems

individual asparagus

stand like sentries

in the oblong wooden rimmed

garden bed

some tipping their heads

like snakes ready to strike

the oak titmouse,

a small gray bird

with a fancy crest,

flies proudly from tree to tree,

a chickadee visits the suet feeder,

turning like an acrobat

to find the choicest bites,

a golden crowned sparrow

flits nervously in a bush

waiting for its turn

while the Bewick’s wren

trills a daring song

and waggles its stiff,

upturned tail feathers

I sit with all my senses alert

photo of oxalis

as I observe the neon yellow

petals of the oxalis

reflecting the sun’s color

back to the giant star

the smell of jasmine

arrives on a warm breeze,

my feet are solid on earth

as I sit in my friend’s garden

breathing it all in

each atom  

vibrating its own story

connects me

to my place

within the infinite

and the microscopic

as they swirl and twirl

into one.

By Kim Woodland

At the Edge of Spring

All fall and then all winter

I meant to prune

the spent asparagus ferns.

Now, hidden beneath the dry stalks

and lush encroaching oxalis,

Tom and I discover fat spears

pushing up from the earth.

A white tulip peeps from under the hopseed,

and jasmine shares the first fruits

of its fragrance with the bees and me.

Workdays that began and ended

in the dark two months ago

are now bookended by light,

and the slate blues of my winter doldrums

are yielding to pastel hues.

Within me optimism stirs

like a chick inside an egg

who hears her mother’s chirps and coos.

This school year,

my last as a college librarian,

is exactly half over,

and I feel change coming

like the light

slowly swelling the days.

What used to weigh heavy

is starting to slip away.

Already I delete incoming emails

that no longer apply to me.

Soon I will shred papers,

give away office curios,

and on the last day

surrender the keys

that have been for twenty-one years

in my safekeeping.

For now, though, I am waiting

as I started to wait

when I planted bulbs last fall.

What colors will bloom?

Which flowers will flourish?

With gratitude to Lea Haratani for the title

Each Dawn a Surprise

oxalis blooming in a garden

From the dark place despair dropped me

may I rise up like oxalis

after the first autumn rain,

push through

wildfire ashes and

soaked cedar bark mulch

into this enticing

day-following-night world.

Let me sip sunlight

and feast on my own green,

unfold cloverleaves as if

the sun would return

tomorrow

and tomorrow

and tomorrow.

All winter long

buried,

I dream of rising up,

of becoming flowers

so yellow I am

joined to that light.