The moment a rose is cut,
It begins to die.
Even if left on the bush,
It inevitably withers.
For this reason, its splendor
Is so stunning.
Its briefness is its glory.
We are flowers,
Faces lifted toward the sun,
And in our twilight,
Our beauty is not diminished
By its brevity.
Two cardinals hopped
Through the budding branches
Of my Japanese maple today
A mated pair
And I was transfixed
By the color of the female
Normally, the males are revered
For their vivid red hue
So bright and unusual
But her tones were subdued
And sublime
The colors of the dawn
Soft cream, pale yellow
And the flush of purest rose
She was the morning sky
The promise of a new day
Unmarred, unsullied
And to me, her subtle beauty
Far outshone her flashy consort
There is fresh glory in the overlooked–
In nature
And in us
In knowing him
My heart is satisfied
My soul is justified
There is nothing more I need
And still I’m searching for something
If I really knew him
I would know peace
Would know content
But all I see of him
is a blurry silhouette
Every glimpse I’ve had of him
stirs my heart
But glimpses aren’t enough
to sustain deep, abiding love
I need to stare, to watch,
to study long and hard
this one whose beauty
captivates and mesmerizes
if only looked at truly
My eyes have grown dark of late.
The world I once saw was bright and hopeful and lovely,
but it has become washed over with shades of grey.
I know the world has not changed,
but rather my eyes and the mind that perceives it:
a heart that is muted, dull, heavy,
and nearly blind to beauty.
And just as the last luster seems lost from my vision,
Autumn arrives, torch in hand,
and sets the trees ablaze.
They flame, they burn… for me.
They blaze so brightly, so vividly
that I am forced to remember the world I once knew,
forced to see it, still here, still stunning.
A sky so vibrantly blue,
a sun that paints the horizon with its dying light.
In this last profusion of color before the coming of the night,
the grey is washed from my eyes with tears of gratitude.
I filled my home with flowers
Bouquets upon bouquets
In every vase I could find
and some make-shift vases as well
Gorgeous gladiolas
in crimson, yellow, white
Hydrangeas overflowing their vases
like clouds, like rising bread
A dozen white roses
holding their secrets close
beckoning you to lean in
and breathe in their mysteries
Bright gerber daisies, joyous
and forthright
I never have fresh flowers
I don’t buy them for myself
But they were going to be thrown out
so I took them by the armful
More than I could ever need
and arranged them, not so skillfully
And for one afternoon,
I was swathed in scent
of lilies and roses and snap-dragons
But like a cut-flower
it didn’t last.
I’m going out of town in the morning
and so I laid out a large plastic sheet
on the floor of my living room
and collected every carefully-cut flower
every arranged blossom
and laid them reverently in a pile.
It felt like laying them on the pyre.
I wrapped them all together in
the smothering plastic
Bundled them tightly
crushing their fragrant, unsullied petals
and threw them in the dumpster.
Is it strange to grieve their
untimely passing? The waste
of their pristine beauty?
The selfishness of one
brief afternoon filled with
fresh-cut flowers?
The architect’s daughter
sees potential in everything,
envisions a future
of possibilities and promises.
She tears down walls
and reshapes space
and ushers in light through new windows.
She pulls together the unexpected,
the unprecedented,
and a plan takes shape beneath her hands.
She sees results before they’re realized.
She holds the vision in her mind
until everyone else is able to see it too.
The architect’s daughter
overflows with potential,
but she keeps no promises for herself.
Possibilities too painful to imagine
are locked away and laid to rest.
There are some walls she can’t tear down,
some windowless spaces
that cannot be bathed with light.
I am no architect, no visionary,
but even I can see
that she is the dream being realized,
the potential actualized,
the renovation,
the renaissance,
the rebirth,
and I hold the vision in my mind
until she is able to see it too.
Life starts anew as the summer dies,
And the moon hangs full over ripened fields.
Rain-damp leaves carpet the ground;
the air is heavy with their passing.
You and I walk this far-flung road,
And truths fall from us like leaves.
We tell our secrets before we realize what we’ve said,
And suddenly we stand in the blazing light of honesty.
If I could bend my words, pound them flat and solid,
burnish them until they shone mirror-bright,
You could gaze into them and see yourself as I see you:
Stronger than you think,
Wiser than you believe,
Lovelier than you hope.
You yourself are mirror-bright.
But like the first leaf falling–
summer’s small death–
I feel the sudden shift of atmosphere,
uncomfortably self-aware in the light of our candor.
Our easy, flowing honesty hitches.
I’ve already said too much.
So my words lose their glow,
grow dull and flat and safe,
restrained by the fear of looking foolish,
and you see yourself with your own eyes,
Not mine.
I catch my breath, hold my tongue,
and we walk into the autumn night.
You grip the steering wheel just a little tighter,
and we plunge into the semi-darkness of the tunnel.
The weight of a mountain presses close around us
as we fling our way through the heart of the earth
at sixty miles an hour
and the lights, beacons spaced evenly in the dark,
flash past.
I close my eyes and imagine
that days and nights are passing by
each time the light washes against my eyelids.
I slip into the stream of time,
a quick succession.
When we emerge from the tunnel,
how much time has passed?
How many days and nights?
I’m older now by far.
I am a siren still
And I sing the only song I know
Tenuously suspended
in a liminal space
Part woman, part bird
Flighty, I abhor a cage
And my sharp eye
and flitting bird-heart
Fear its confinement
But perhaps I have shed
A few of these feathers
and become more wholly
a person, not a fable
I sing and hope
for one who knows the perils
and dares anyway
to approach my jagged coastline
To take my hand, taloned as it is
and bear my flaws
Lead me not to a cage,
but to a horizon
And hear me, truly
hear me
Because I sing the only song I know:
My own.
I cannot stop loving the stars
Though I have never
in all my life
seen them fill the sky
They have always been
partially hidden
by smog or clouds
or city lights
But I dream of how they look
if I only had the eyes to see them
and they are glorious
swirling through the black emptiness
a sonata of energy
galaxies spinning, expanding
colors so vivid
they can’t be real
And perhaps it is the fact
that I have not seen them–
not gotten the chance to
get accustomed to the wonder–
perhaps that is why
my love for them endures
Woman With a Pen 