One

On the first day
we count from one.

The singular force of nothing
simply stares us in the face.

Dare us to look in the mirror
and see who is looking back.

Open your mouth to speak
and listen to the sound released
like a wounded wild bird from her cage.

This time there is no one
knocking at the door asking to be let in.

The wind convinces the clattering branches
of the body to drop to the earth
and let the soul fly free.

The Last Hours

The sky clears

suddenly

as the year quietly closes her door

and we count our blessings--

everything we’ve lost.


We scramble,

shuffle,
sift

through the dust

of another year,

as if we’ll not get another,

and the honest truth

will be found

staring us in the face
eye to eye,

breath into precious breath,

as the sun awakens to new day.


For now,

it is enough

to place a hand
on the warm skin

of your breast;

chest rising and falling,

and feel
the loneliness
of a solitary heart.


For now,

it is enough

to notice the last hours

of silence and wine

and remember all

that will be left at the altar

of longing for endless

heavy days of all this humanity.

Near Midnight

The tea
in my cup
has gone cold
near these abandoned poems
and the pen that has written them.

I sip the sweetness
without heating
the dark comfort again;
letting the unwanted
losses empty into my mouth.

It is a long ritual
to read the words aloud,
scratch out a word or two,
and surrender to the call
of midnight
and the longing
for the false hope
of sleep.

I pick up the cup,
wander through the kitchen
like a dream,
and climb the stairs
to the singleness
of my bed.

Potage

The simple menu
is bread and hearty potage
made of the abundance of the land
nearest us.

We light the candles,
bow our heads,
and look one another in the eye
long enough to notice gratitude
for the loving kindness
present at the table.

Laugh with me.
Sip table wine.
Tell me a story
to sustain me
another day.

Into The Darkness

The night awakens slowly
to an Advent sky
awaiting some old sun
that is long gone
under the cawing
of darkness.

We are breathless
and cold on these days,
forgetting comfort
and the weightless light
that allows us to fly.

Crouch nearer to me, Love,
nearer the gravity of earth
and help me to launch,
push into the darkness,
past the waning moon
and into all the inspired stars.

What We Carry
-for Ruth

Open any woman’s abundant pocketbook
and you will see
what she carries
to make it through
her days.

The shopping list.
The list “to do” jotted
on the back of an old envelope,
A comb
and a few coins
for the ferryman, pens, cough drops,
lip stick, ticket stubs,
earrings, apple slices and a few almonds.

Tissues and tablets for pain,
a wallet for photos of so many children
and a license to drive—
keys to everything.

But you carried us all
in your womb,
in your heart,
in your arms.

You carried us
in your dreams,
in your prayers,
in your hands.

You carried us in the river
of your body’s blood
to lighten our load,
to help us to see

to the ends of the earth
where memory
of the great ocean
of laughter
and peaceful words
lives in each wave
that touches our feet
on that path
across the sandy shore.

Harvesting the Bodies

It was the November day
for harvesting the bodies
of the many flowering souls
who lifted arms
and smiling faces to God
all summer long.

I waited for the blue bachelor's buttons
and the brown husks of sunflowers,
cosmos pink,
and abundant purple moon flowers
as they gasped their last breath of the season--
as they fell to the earth to be gathered
and put to rest.

Such daisies danced near the black eyed Susans.
False indigo and bee balm,
mint and foxglove tumbled
after the blade and my small hands
said goodbye for the winter.

The sharp spade cut the skin of dirt and grasses open
just long enough to tuck the hearts of daffodils,
a few tulips, crocus, and snowdrops
into the cold chest of darkness
to wait for silence to unfold
one petal at a time.