Unrequited Resolutions
If only motivation’s power was always the same
as it is during that midnight countdown.
Instead, January’s days slide away,
those broken promises tumbling in their descent.
February dawns with resolutions yet unfulfilled.
But even on winter’s chilliest days,
if you stretch toward your vows,
you can touch them with the edge of your fingertips.
From Time to Time
From time to time, she glances at the distant exit door
as her weary fingers make the repetitive stitches that dominate
her seventy-two factory hours.
From time to time, he glances at the distant trees
as his weathered hands reach toward the squash that is hidden in the earth
and his heart aches for home.
Writer’s Block
It became an undoable, laughable task
like lifting an ocean or dining on the moon.
Each day, I thought, would be The One.
But there was often somewhere to go
something to be done
OR
nothing to be done
nowhere to go. Just an inability.
Then this morning, before my piece of toast: I wrote.
Autumn Ceremony
The peaks stand evergreen behind a quiver of yellow aspens.
Infinite shades of brown decorate the lakebed, now beaded with puddles.
My son and husband chat behind me.
My daughter, solo, proceeds ahead.
Each step of mine is taken with gratitude.
The sky, a snowy veil touched with azure, presides over this ceremony of autumn.
21 Years
Two decades + one year ago
on a brilliant Massachusetts evening
the clouds and humidity took a night off
and we said our vows.
Tonight, like so many others since,
we sit together.
Side by side.
I touch his arm.
He makes me laugh.
Simple moments in a complex life
are those most worth celebrating.
Highland Park Elementary
14 school years.
Thousands of footsteps, back and forth.
Later walks were quieter…
As kids moved up
moved away
moved on.
Today we made our last trip home.
No more Arts Nights or Jog-a-Thons.
No more WWII Programs or “Wax” Museums.
Even as we say farewell,
I believe the ghosts of those footsteps will remain.
Dog Mom
We met on my last day of chemotherapy.
Both mamas.
Both with recent surgeries
(we could never be new mamas again)
Her head lay upon her paws.
Her eyes looked straight into mine.
Six years later. Still, she sees me.
My dog, my companion, my friend.
I like to think that we rescued each other.
Together
We move around each other, mostly.
But sometimes we hit head-on with
flashing eyes and clashing words, because of
secret tattoos
old-fashioned ideas
covert experimentation
embarrassing anecdotes
maddening indifference.
I remember when I was like her.
She imagines she will never be like me.
I treasure those times when we look toward the world,
together.
Middle Childhood
What wouldn’t I give for another afternoon
of “making” ice cream with
an upside-down bike
or an evening filled with American Girl doll sprawl,
or a recess tale that highlights the intricacies of
third-grade society?
As time turned, those latent years,
rich with delight and heartbreak,
passed like days.
And I struggle to say goodbye.
Maternity Leave
When exhaustion settled into my limbs like concrete,
I would think about how every human
was once a newborn taken care of by another.
Yet I cherished those weeks
when it was only the two of us…
we'd listen to the stillness of the night,
and watch the moon through the window,
cheek to cheek.
Time Borrowed
You awaken, after fourteen hours of restless sleep, lids heavy as stones.
Stomach queasy. Muscles frail. Brain fogged.
What sorrow there is in never seeing the shadowed face of your disease.
Your joy is always fleeting,
for time spent today is borrowed from tomorrow,
in an endless circle of debt.
Yet your beauty remains, unscathed.
The End
What did you last see, as the ending arrived:
with one eye, the asphalt? with the other, a sliver of sky?
Did you remember having your child’s hand on your cheek?
Or your mother’s warm arms around your shoulders?
You did not get to hear the word that was such a long time coming.
Guilty.
The Little Things
When your life is in the balance,
it’s strange which pills are often the hardest to swallow.
Not the daily reminders of mortality.
Not the toxic medication dumped into your veins.
Not the surgeries that empty cavities and rearrange vessels.
It’s the hangnail.
The split lip.
The itching of nerveless skin.
The little things matter.
The Little Things
When your life is in the balance,
it’s strange which pills are often the hardest to swallow.
Not the daily reminders of mortality.
Not the toxic medication dumped into your veins.
Not the surgeries that empty cavities and rearrange vessels.
It’s the hangnail.
The split lip.
The itching of nerveless skin.
The little things matter.
Desert Sky
It is the bluest blue.
Impossibly, soft and sharp at once.
It rests on iron-rich stones
and extends to endless horizons.
It covers the soul of this sweeping land,
where it has overseen
movie sets and theropods,
outlaws and civilizations.
As I stand on the shores of an ancient ocean,
I feel our spirits intertwine.
Grandparents
Mémère
I see you in the blossoms that brighten the spring trees.
Grandma
I try to open my heart to others, as you did.
Pépère
I salute whenever I watch an eagle take flight.
Grandpa
I hear your laugh as though we joked only yesterday.
The time without you lengthens,
but you are always near.
Equinox
Springtime brings long-forgotten warmth
while emerging from winter’s shadow,
and with it, the promise of change.
There is a certain comfort
from the equal sharing of sun in all the world’s corners,
a sense of steadiness in the predictability of orbit.
If only balancing our lives came as easy as a 12-hour day in March.
On the Verge
A small blade of time
is all that separates
life from afterlife,
a kind heart from a jaded one.
A bit of genetics
is all that separates
a clover with three leaves or four,
a cell which functions
and one that doesn’t.
A slight twist of circumstance
can be all that separates
joy from sorrow.
Mount Timpanogos
When I was a child, I sat on the sidewalk
and observed
your many colors, your stoic personality,
the way your peaks sliced the sky.
You are naturally-carved art:
a whale
a princess
a sergeant-at-arms.
Much has changed, but you remain a constant.
When I’m away, you wait for me, as would an old friend.
