Category: Poetry

Nickie’s Reverie

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment 
“His hair is mmpl.”

“His hair is what?”

“His hair is mmpl.”

I will never know
what word describes his
hair, and so I change 
my tack. “Whose hair?” 

“Edwin.”

“Edwin? Who’s Edwin?”

“My teacher.”

You take no classes. You
have no teachers.  I know
you are talking in your
sleep about someone you
won’t remember when I
ask you later. 

I love that I know,
whoever Edwin is, he is
not a lover or a secret
or a problem. 

I love knowing where
you lay your head each
night and where I 
lay mine. 

I love knowing that you
trust me so deeply even
your subconscious
tells me all.

Love’s Labors

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment 
I love the spring visit to the 
garden center. 
Marigolds, knock-out roses, and
ten bags of mulch in the 
bed of the truck.
Plus birdseed, potting soil, a
Japanese pencil holly. 

Labors of love feed, create, cultivate.
Like a friend listening without judgment,
a teacher explaining one more time,
a meal cooked for others,
a song written to remind us again
of love. 

Did I? 

I dig a hole and let the thought
leaf out.
Did I love enough? 

How many times I missed a chance
to forgive or ignore
a slight or let go. 
But in my heart’s drought,
did I sometimes water pain with
compassion? 
Did I seed the world with life?

Do I? 

I set the holly into the hole,
straighten it, fill in
around the sides of the
root ball with soil I
soften to crumbles in my
fingers. 

“I hope you’re happy here,” 
I say. “I hope I’ve picked a 
good spot and dug a 
good hole. I hope you get
everything you need to 
thrive."

Then I rise from my knees, 
slower than in years past, but
so much more certain of 
love and what it can grow.

A Time I Knew

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment 

Digging a hole to plant some 
purslane, I found a penny,
old, worn, thin, dirty. I rinsed 
it in the kitchen sink and
squinted, then took a picture 
I could enlarge.
1982. 
I was 18. Graduated from
high school that May, then
off to college in August.  Feeling
grown, feeling alone, feeling
hopeful. The world ahead bloated 
with possibility.

If I hadn’t planted the purslane,
the penny might have remained 
buried for years or longer,
much longer, until it aged into
a relic from a time no one
would remember.  

Like this time will one day be – the
demons and the dangers and the demagogues
of this era rubbed thin and rusted
and hard to even read.  Buried. 
Spent. Their bloated possibilities
nothing but history, nothing but
the dirt-caked bones of a time 
no one will know.

Beginner’s Mind

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment 
Spring cleaning has me 
in the darkest corner 
of the sunroom with a
stick in hand, wrapping 
old webs around the far end
like drab cotton candy.

The spiders staked
their claim last fall,
orb-weavers, I think. I 
didn’t get too close,
and nights were longer and
cooler and spent indoors,
so I let them have the corner. 

When I reclaim it on a warm May
day, the abandoned webs cling 
listlessly to wall and screen
and bench and reach as if alive for
the oar I offer from a far shore. 

The weaver of the orb
mustn’t mind rebuilding her home. 
It seems to be the point, to start
again from the beginning.  

The cardinal builds a new 
nest every year, sometimes 
even twice.  
Moles burrow constantly and
don’t use the same tunnel again.

The hostas in my front yard disappear
completely each winter and always 
come back, from a tiny green peek 
through the dirt to a maturity even
grander than before, fueled by
energy both fresh and remembered. 

Everything starts over.  Life
is not always added to. 
It is sometimes
begun anew.