Practice
Practice, practice, practice
Practice makes perfect
But how much
Must one practice
To be perfect
This year, I had to put up a better fence,
remembering loud and clear the time
and effort spent trying to get berries,
but the birds got them before we could.
The second year, my granddaughters and I
gathered handfuls of smooth pebbles,
painted them all bright red
with little green stems,
scattering them like Easter eggs,
throughout the berry bed.
The stones might have fooled some of the birds
but it didn’t fool any of the rabbits.
That was the year baby bunnies appeared
and before we knew it, they had eaten
every last strawberry, so juicy and dear,
then nibbled each plant down to the nub.
We hoped the third time would be charmed
and we put in twice as many plants.
We also bought a trusty, rabbit-proof fence
and installed it all around the perimeter.
The painted stones had faded by then;
still, we harvested quite a few berries.
But next year, we’ll repaint the stones,
and hope for even more juicy-sweet goodness.
I smiled today
I worked today
I lived today
I also grieved today
I don’t know how many days
The future holds
None of us do, but I am pretty sure
That I will grieve for my son
The rest of the days I have on earth
But I will also LIVE the days I have left
I will make music, write poetry, help people
And most of all, I will love BIG
I will treat each day as a gift
Summer seems swollen this year—
grass evergreen after torrents of rain,
the lake behind my parents’ cabin
filled to the brim and spilling
across the dock onto the stone path.
Guessing the first tomatoes we harvest
this summer will bulge beyond belief.
Only fitting that the blackberry bush
blooms in abundance so far, too.
Wish I could bottle the beauty
of it all and drizzle drops of nature
across the foreheads of the sick
at heart, baptizing them with it
so they might blossom
and bless others with empathy.
Such a swollen summer—
wonder if it might give birth
to a harvest of kind humanity
that feeds generations to come.
That, indeed, would be swell.
I shake. Teethe on cantaloupe. Guzzle expired milk.
I wait. My tailbone shoves through bruised skin.
I play dead on the dog bed. It’s not a difficult act.
Cocoon in warm blankets, grow fur, be monstrous.
Massage my scalp. I’ll be so sweet and harmless.
Ignore the paling limbs. Ignore the bloodless grin.
A pink microwaveable neck warmer spins
on the heat tray, ballerina in the radiation.
The smell of food, the smell of rice bags, cotton.
The smell of my wrists. The wolf mouth, the sick.
The pavement beneath us
Mile by mile, moving along
All the bills are paid
All the kids are alright
Is this what “normal” folks
Feel like with no worries?
Another song on the radio
Another snack shared
A few days away with you
Peace in the sun with waves
A prize more than deserved
“I thought I was the arrow, / but I was the wound.”
—Rosamund Lupton
I thought I was the arrow—
swift and certain,
destined for the curve of your palm
or the bullseye of your heart.
Drawn back not in hesitation,
but in the promise of arrival.
I mistook ache for momentum,
thought the pull was purpose—
not pain.
I thought I moved forward—
but I only held still.
Instead,
I was the wound—
the soft place you pressed
your history into,
your leaving,
your longing,
your grief.
A silence blooming red
beneath someone else’s aim.
You mistook me for a weapon
because I bled with elegance.
But I am not your aftermath.
Not your battlefield.
Not your lesson learned too late.
Still—
some nights,
I feel the ghost of your hands
tracing the edge of my ache,
like maybe
you miss the place
you once hurt.
And yet—
I am no longer the still point.
No longer the echo
of what didn’t go as planned.
You did not break me.
I broke open.
And the opening—
however unwanted—
became a kind of knowing.
I no longer confuse motion with meaning,
pain with proof,
longing with love.
Now, when I ache,
it is not for return,
but for the parts of me
I abandoned
believing I was the arrow—
and for the quiet hope
that they are still waiting
to be reclaimed.
