Posts for June 17, 2025

and I recall
my teen self, 
ironed-straight long blonde hair,
swirling around, as
I dance the swim, the pony,
to those surf tunes,
visions of woodies, surfer dudes, beach sunsets
in my head
(the one time I surf I get a fat lip from the board)

‘70’s Beach Boys concert
in my college cafeteria
(hard times, those)
I take Helen, my youngest (now dead) sister,
we sit on the floor,
Helen, young, shy, straight arrow,
is flummoxed by the passing of a joint
I am too busy admiring Dennis Wilson,
and singing along
to be compassionate, so I just grab the joint,
puff mightily, and pass it on.

funny the memories
music conjures up.

Father’s Day present
was not my choice but I love
my husband. Go Twins. 

here I am again
the song on repeat
why am I not able to move past
there’s a vagueness
a desire to move forward
yet no true plan
ideas, dreams scattered like seeds
yet nothing comes to fruition
I’ve planted, watered
waited
perhaps the soil is subpar
dare I replant
toil and trouble for yet another year
I hope that is not what’s required of me
yet, so be it if it is

Too still outside at 5:00 a.m.— 
few chirps, and those— far away.
No bee buzzes, no frog croaks
from the pond. The willow
and flowers barely sway.
Nor the thistle standing tall
and all alone in the yard.
The air, smelling like
old books, musty.

For what have they all paused?
Me too? Or do they simply rest—
anticipating what lies above
in the heavy altostratus cloud cover?

A shadow of a cat moves
among the stalks of liatris
and bee balm, above
the creeping thyme.
From a cloud overhead?
Or is this the ghost of old Butch
who passed early this morning,
on a journey to rest with
his brother, Sundance?

It might all be
from my imagination—
or is this Mother Earth
assuaging our souls yet again?

for Kathy, in memory of Butch, 2003-2025

        I dream of you

        and your sister was in it,too.
         A voice on the phone
        asked me if I know your sister,
        after giving me her name.
___
        Of course I know her,
        and her sister.
        The next thing I know,
        your sister is at my house,
___
        drunk,
        naked in my bed,
        and you come
        to take her home.
____
        I can’t tell whether you
        are mad.
        You ask me if we had sex.
        Even in the dream, I know

        we never had sex,
        your sister and I
        and you believe me, 
        neither you nor your sister

        had sex,
        but I loved you once,
        and because she was
        your sister

        I respected you
        more than that
        and I woke up
        without

        knowing why 
        she was naked
        and in my
        bed.

We were born from refugees, those who came before

First from lands across the Atlantic, then from regions

All across the continent

For generations we grew food, raised livestock

Managed the earth’s bounty to trade for goods we

Needed through the barter economy

Then for money as the cash economy grew

We became disconnected from the earth

Wresting commodities from the soil while

Forgetting that the sustenance offered freely

Came from the ground, water and air

We owned people whose labor provided the crops

Supplanted those who lived before us on the land

Plowing over the remains of their lives and stories

We grew rich on the abundance

Then poor when the crops failed

Some of us lost our minds, took our own

Lives as the disconnect with the earth

Became more intense, more severe

But my grandmother knew

The earth speaks to us still

Calling us to marvel at what she gives

To feel the bitter cold of drifting snow

And behold the glory of yellow daffodils

To savor the intensity of wild onions

Longing for spongy soil beneath our feet

To always listen for the kingfisher’s call

I’m thinking about how words accrue meaning,
when Chloe, elegant in her mottled habit
 
of white, orange and black fur, vaults onto my lap
and begins to purr — and I reflect on the senses of calico,

a captivating word I first encountered in What About Willie,
treasured book of childhood about a stray kitten.

Then I remember a dress of calico, trimmed
with red ruffles and piping, I wore in third grade,

and the cowboy tune met a gal in calico, down in Santa Fe
that sometimes haunts me like an earworm. I’ve explored

calico rock formations in deserts, dined on calico scallops,
read about calico bushes and fish — a surprising array

of uses descended from a term describing fabric,
cheap and white, that entered English during the Raj.

But as I contemplate the feline occupying my lap, I conclude —
with absolute certainty — that Chloe is the cream of all calico. 

“No pain, no gain.”
Countless times
I’ve heard this—
as I’ve said it too.
Is this something we 
should continue to advocate
for future generations?
I pause,
lost in another thought.

Pain gets glorified—
as if hurting is what makes us grow. 
Or yet,
it’s required to grow.
Is that really what pain is?

One lesson life has offered
is that pain is more of a signal—
a warning.
It whispers, or sometimes screams,
that something isn’t right.
That I need to stop, look closer,
maybe even change something.

Strain, though…
that’s different.
Strain is resistance.
It’s uncomfortable;
though not destructive.
It’s the kind of weight that teaches.
It’s tension that builds me,
doesn’t break me.

I think about lifting weights.
Strain means I’m working.
It burns, but it doesn’t injure.
Pain, though—
pain means I’ve pushed too far.
That something’s off.
So I have to question myself:
Why do I often ignore that distinction
in the rest of my life?

Mentally, I’ve felt both.
Pain that leaves me depleted,
spinning in circles,
wondering if I’m broken.
Then there’s strain—
those tough moments
where everything in me wants to quit—
I keep moving, though.
Those are the moments
that seem to change me the most.

Perhaps not every struggle is pain.
Perhaps it’s strain—
and that’s a strength, not a wound.

Strain feels worth facing.
Pain deserves care.
I think both can teach me something—
though each requires
its own response.

Instead of clinging to
“No pain, no gain,”
I need to start living by 
something more honest.
Like…
“No strain, no gain.”

If I’m hurting—
truly hurting—
maybe that’s not failure.
Maybe that’s a moment
to choose a different path—
a rare opportunity to offer myself
the same grace I’d give anyone else.

Little sleeper, little root—
breathe slow now.
Outside, the world is teaching itself
to you already:

Watch how the ragweed lifts its fleeces
in the cracked & empty lot
beside the trailer—how its stubborn bloom ignores
the burn pit
half-swallowed by the grasses.

Notice the creek’s low amble—
thin thread of a brown-painted blue–
let it be your eyes,
patient as breath in a sleeping chest.
It knows nothing.
It remembers.

See the light? Not the hard white
of the gas station lot at midnight,
but the orange floodlight: a slow star.
Let a moth-hung dark accompany
you there—watch its frail halo
slick on the damp grass
when the angle’s right.

You’ll inherit this:
the bent fence by the old root cellar,
the lying mockingbird
in the dry and rustling corn,
brown–sudden orange–
sulfur-yellow in the afternoon.

Inherit the rust, the runoff,
the stubborn ditch still carving
its name through the very mud.

And when the world feels thin—
like old paint over old wood—
remember the thrum of water
in the heat, the far train’s moan
which stitches all this together,
your own blood’s soft drum in your ears
against the quiet.

Rest here, small watcher.
Dream deep.

Tomorrow, we’ll learn the names
of flowers and weeds that thrive in gravel.
We’ll listen close to what the broken
things have to tell us,
over and over.