Posts for June 3, 2026 (page 14)

        In remembrance of Sallie Bingham & The Writer’s Nose Workshop  

Layers of hope
mound like satin ribbon bows
twirled around the base of the lilac bush,
clutch the gaps in between boards
of an old wood fence,
brew in the delicious tangle
of honeysuckle vine and sassafras root,
keep seasonal tempo
a metronome that eclipses the sun
as the first buds swell in early spring
prepare to release the poignant sweetness
of magnolia and wisteria,
cupped in droplets of gentle rain
fragrant language rolling into the valley
embraces those that hunger for better times. 

I think sometimes we get too focused on the big moments that come our way
Instead of the those small magicals ones that appear every day

A lucky little ladybug landing on you while your dogs barking at a squirel in a tree
Finding a heart shaped rock in a creek bed then two and then three

Those big wow moments are great and we need them as much as we need air
but those little magical ones fill our normal days and I promise are always there

A tiny jumping spider greets me most days when I check my mail
Is there anyting more exciting than repotting a plant and finding a tiny snail

A dandelion just waiting for you to pick it and make a wish
looking up at the sky and seeing a cloud shaped like a fish

So enjoy those big wow moments that stick with you for a while
but also look for those little magical ones that are simply to make you smile

I yanked a chunk of the sage up by its roots
when I left.
Though I abandoned half my clothes, my parents’ china cabinet, my photo albums 
(so many things that wouldn’t fit in my tiny rental apartment)
the sage
was coming with me.
The sum of my life vision after finally escaping the city 
          (house, garden, happily-ever-after)
          now embodied by this scraggly plant.
Sloppily potted outside my back door, it alternated between droop and weary lean
through the fall
while inside I unpacked, stared, stumbled through the amorphous unknown.
By winter it was a fist of grey sticks
and I barely noticed its apparent demise
or when the maintenance guys tossed the pot aside amidst the snow piles.
In the transiting months of unfurling time
it must have simply laid in wait
while I did anything but lay still
          – my frenzied exploration was clumsy and drunken and shocking and euphoric
          but rarely quiet –
An entire adulthood
torn from its roots
steadily finding new ground.
Now June
barefoot dreaming in the dandelions
I spot a purple flower among newly spreading green leaves
and I know
there’s not one right way
to endure.
         
          6/3/26

Erudite Eros
Excites Enigmatic, Ecumenical Ecstasies
Encouraging Eager, Eccentric Exploration

Erotic Economies
Entice Explicit, Emotional Exposure
Exploiting Each Expensive Exchange

Exquisite Enchantments
Emend Elegant, Elliptical Essences
Excising Embarrassment, Embracing Embrace

Entering Elysium —
Exceptional Empire, Evergreen Estate —
Ephemeral Egos Ebb, Evaporate

Elation’s Effervescence Echoes Eternally

I watched you climb up a ladder

And saw a limb down 20 ft above your head.

I wanted to cry.

I’ve spent the past 3 days waking up next to you and sorting through boxes,

Inspecting all the seeds from my tree of life

Most of them just dead, some just a nuisance to the soil

The ones meant to sprout were already planted.

You can’t have a garden with seeds that don’t grow

And there’s never been a tree without a few dead branches

But sometimes you have to see and feel what it’s like to blossom, to flourish, to bloom

To realize some things you just have to let go of.

My tree of life has been growing for 26 years,

And after today,

My god, it’s more alive than ever.

The person who thinks
that writer’s block is just
procrastination 

is a person who’s
never had it before.
And may they never

have the feeling of
execut-ile dysfunction 
so profound so

blocky they can’t see
the other side or if
it does happen one day

may it humble them to
the point of waiting it out
just to see what it’s like.

She writes from the safety of her tower
Stone walls warmed by ever-shining sun
Only faint wisps of cloud diminish the blue sky.
The poet is an observer
Everything is visible from her vantage
No squabble is unheard
No creature unseen.
Every memory made outside wafts upward
As she records it with a strange patience:
Every note to write, yet infinite time for the task.
Not even by looking up can anyone spy her face
She is there, known to be present
But still invisible.
Her business is kept to herself and her tower,
She is not for others to witness or understand,
She is merely the documenter of all things,
The silence that watches but never intervenes.

The other day, I watched a video
talking about how special wood is—
how nowhere else in the universe
does such a thing exist;
how unlikely it is for these conditions
to grow trees and create this exact
substance on our planet to happen—
and I can’t get it out of my head.

I think about it sitting in
The Mercantile Library
as sun shines in through
these big arched windows
onto a crowd of folks
listening to my friend read
his beautiful book;
as sun touches these wood floors,
these wood tables,
and all these books printed on paper,
also made from wood, rare and amazing
and marked with words representing
thoughts of so many people who moved
through this world before me—
another extraordinary miracle.

I often recite the phrase
what a time to be alive
referencing the awful things
we’re all witnessing
in this complicated reality,
but what if I started thinking
about wood and paper
and words and all this beauty
shoved into places
between the horrors instead?

Indeed, what a time to be alive.

            “You, Lord, Keep my lamp
              burning”                          
                               — Psalm 18:28a  

Things are not always what they seem
and I question optics when they state
the science of light and color is what we see

when an object does not absorb
a specific band of the spectrum. 
Your skin seems as if powdered

when it catches passive illumination
whether from ultraviolet or mundane
source.  It is just as soft as it appears

in that light and there is something
to be said for it, even there, even when
it is not being bathed

by greater source.  But when it is,
you defy optics.  You rise above the natural

world.  Under the amber
of streetlamps, or the moon, it is
metallic, a sheen without need

of moisture, a liquid shine that is
caramel latte to my lips, my tongue,
capturing and holding my attention

in wonder:  The way you take
what little luminance whispers the dark
and create a candle’s glow no candle could

hope to hold.  But when you
stand beneath the heat of the sun,
you, truly, come alive;

caramel stretches taut across
a furnace, a crucible, volcanic
depths of burnished gold,

as if suffused with fire
and saffron-hot coals
pulsing with the bellows

of life.  Optics tell us what we see
is purely the spectrum not absorbed
but refracted, reflected, rejected

and therefore what is seen is not
what is latent or inherent or even
part of the truth of a thing.

But for you, I must disagree;
when you stand beneath the Light
shining in this dark world,

what is held, what is beheld, what is
alive beneath the surface of your form
is more than proof of what you are:

It is proof
there even is
a God.