Category Archives: aging

Her own

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in adventure, aging, beauty, becoming, Body, break out, change, discomfort, freedom, honoring, learning, movement, pain, poems, poetry, welcoming

≈ 1 Comment

At forty

she felt seventy.

Experience’s weight

had sunk posts deep into the landscape of her being.

Ache and limitation, an undertow of fatigue,

confusion at the seeming permanence

of the uninvited, the resisted,

lead this human to take possession, fully-

and for the first time-

of a life unwritten, free of guarantees,

and her own.

Entirely her own.

Her landscape now is a garden,

loved and wanted, with posts that may disappear.

Or not.

With their origins recognized, appreciated,

and their presence finally respected,

perhaps a hammock will be slung between them

in honor of spring’s arrival.

Gnarls & knots

09 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by in aging, beauty, becoming, Creating, Immortal, nature, poems, poetry

≈ Comments Off on Gnarls & knots

Gnarls and knots-

twistings of difficulty and experience

train the tree toward ancient mastery.

R i n g s

spread in stilled ripples-

water’s character in wood.

Toes wrap in dark, salted earth below,

fingers stretch through blue air above.

In storm, drought and calm

echo countless ancestral voices

from forests long ago gone.

Halfway through

10 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in aging, becoming, change, devotion, Expanse, poems, poetry, story, the road, wonder

≈ Comments Off on Halfway through

And what if it turns out,

or turns in or turns about,

that you find yourself starting over

-o-v-e-r-

at roughly (obscurely) halfway through

-as best you can tell-

the life you’ve been given?

Did you miss something along the way?

A flowering path, a waterfall dive, a hollow

to watch stars fall?

A tricky switchback, a higher climb, a conversation

with a person you ignored

(or whose shoes you noticed but whose words you never met)?

The questions fill every available basket.

Meanwhile.

An unobscured landscape has poured itself out

before you.

Maybe there,

there is the place to begin.

Feather etchings

17 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by in aging, beauty, becoming, change, death, devotion, freedom, honoring, mystery, nature, poems, poetry, the road

≈ Comments Off on Feather etchings

Feather etchings of wrinkles,

our tributaries of experience, deepen

towards more

not less.

Must we forget what the soul always knows,

that appearance is not worth

and youth is not to be strived for

but grown beyond?

Instead of living seventy years

as wobbly egos forever hungry and

needing to be bolstered,

we can throw our arms, like thick-barked tree limbs,

around death,

our constant friend teaching us

the riches of storied contours and

what it is to truly live.

Facing sunrise

18 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by in abundance, adventure, aging, beauty, becoming, break out, change, Creating, gratitude, honoring, learning, light, movement, poems, poetry, release, the road

≈ Comments Off on Facing sunrise

Memories are being given away,

space no longer for rent to the unwelcome.

A wooden chair with woven seat sits now

facing sunrise.

Closets have been emptied, drawers cleared out

and sold.

Neither vacancy nor void, but place has opened,

safe, dynamic, light and warm.

To the fierce woman

11 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in abundance, aging, beauty, becoming, Body, break out, change, courage, fearlessness, freedom, joy, Love, loving, mystery, poems, poetry, presence, welcoming

≈ Comments Off on To the fierce woman

To the fierce woman–
not the girl, whatever the age, trying to look pretty,
to be nice,
not the girl in the woman’s body aiming
to be desired, seductive, adored, heroic, cool, mysterious,
No, no-
To the fierce woman who knows the song of her own heart’s beat,
who cares not about how she appears, but about who she is,
who isn’t reaching for the next best outfit, witty comeback, title or
right answer–
To the fierce woman who walks how she walks,
talks how she talks,
ages as she brilliantly ages,
sees how she sees and
loves how she loves,
my God, Welcome.
Welcome to this world.
You
are
needed.

A fence-crashing

27 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by in abundance, aging, becoming, break out, change, learning, Loss, movement, poems, poetry, transition

≈ Comments Off on A fence-crashing

Having never felt this old,

nor so young and inept

– and simultaneously –

well, 

there’s a fence-crashing, a home-burning, 

a finding-one’s-own-nose-on-someone-else kind of mess.

What is to be done with a tension like that?

Bear it.

Stretch with it.

Let be torn loose the decayed, the ineffectual, 

follow the twisting into the twist,

watch new movements be born.

I guess.

Still, if I’m a living version of a mr. potato head,

could I waddle in those shoes a ways?

It might do me some good.

Not exactly

17 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by in abundance, adventure, aging, beauty, becoming, change, Deliverance, discomfort, freedom, gratitude, honoring, joy, learning, listen, Loss, mystery, pain, poems, poetry, receiving, release, wonder, work

≈ Comments Off on Not exactly

It wasn’t through torn paper

blackened shoelace

or scuffed wall 

that I found You.

It wasn’t the constant push

circulating fear

or I-must-do-betters..

not even the inch between 

the sidewalk and me

plus a bruised knee.

Not exactly.

Add the non-starts,

regimented dreams,

what’s-wrong-with-me’s,

attempts to fit when fitting fed starvation,

and the broken heart- birthday after birthday-

with one shattering

nearly beyond recovery

that, finally,

I found You.

The joke being

that I’ve carried You in me

since before the first sunrise.

Except now,

when I say hello

I can hear You answer.

Don’t hold on

28 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by in abundance, adventure, aging, beauty, becoming, change, crafting, devotion, discomfort, Fire, freedom, Loss, Love, movement, mystery, poems, poetry, receiving, release, strength

≈ Comments Off on Don’t hold on

Being sculpted

means

being thrown,

as clay,

first kneaded- no bubbles – then

spun

well beyond dizzy,

cut,

and fired to degrees

scorching

even by shuddering imagination

if 

your aim is to be a

cup,

vase,

bowl,

holy space ripe

for filling, 

able to offer solace, pleasure,

delight,

beauty, compassion,

ease,

and round reflections of sky.

Don’t hold on.

Be here.

Nowhere but onward

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by in abundance, adventure, aging, beauty, devotion, discomfort, Expanse, freedom, honoring, movement, mystery, nature, poems, poetry, the road, wonder

≈ Comments Off on Nowhere but onward

I have searched, reached,

spoken, cried, and delivered.

My arms have ached in fullness, emptiness

and longing,

my legs have quaked miles into the journey

with nowhere but onward

left to go.

Muscle blood bone

register waking 

like petals opening toward light.

What I now carry will remain behind

in this daily offering 

of God

back to God.