The days, the minutes
move forward and backward;
I swallow, sometimes thirsty,
sometimes gagging,
always curious.

I could fill a bucket with woe
but I choose to open wide
in the face of the big empty.

The trees do not worry
(because they are trees
but also) because there is
an inherent understanding in nature
that twisted limbs, messy patterns,
and simple urges are all part
of the array of time in the woods.
We are not meant to stay tamed
and orderly when we love;
we are not born to a manicured garden,
rather we are born to wild laughter
and astounding possibility
of growth and light and song
that we somehow forget as we learn
the bitterness that life can rain down.
We are lucky if we can still be open
to a wild mess of loving as the trees do,
tangled, reaching, blooming.

I had only grabbed the book
to hold, to think about.
I walked around the house with it
and sat with it awhile.
I knew a little of what might be inside
but my imagination was running rampant –
and why not?
Possibility is often better than reality,
at least in sustained moments.
I often hold onto things too long;
sometimes, I do like to watch them fly away.

At the edge of the stream
with my toes clutching moss
and fingertips in the rushing water
trying to capture a thought
but they’re all as fleeting
as shadows that ride the waves
over rocks and fish below.

There’s a truth in all the movement
around me in the forest
but the stories I tell myself are so loud
as to even make birds seemingly fly mute.
I’m learning to sing with them though.

The mountain seemed to breathe-
growing larger yet fading away
as I walked closer, an incongruity
as my steps made the ground shake
deep inside me.

I remember walking 3,000 miles away
as a young girl, surprised that the hills
looked the same but with older churches,
and the beef was not that different but
there were naked women on the beach.

I was drawn to an artists’ corner
but not the art so much as the hands
creating it amid the traffic and gawkers
and it may have been how they ignored
everyone around them that inspired me.

I had no concept as I flew over an ocean
how my life would bend to and fro
along a dirt road but I remember watching
people’s reactions just as I do now,
from fear to curiosity and back again.