moving on

For five years
to the very day
these walls and floors
the halls and doors
have held our
lives,
our laughter
tears and sighs
and let us be
together.
We picked what
we didn't plant and felt
the prayers of the faithful
(sweet Mary Louise)
under our feet.
We dreamed.
Now we'll pack
and sweat and strip it
back to the bones,
shift and scuttle,
hermit crabs to our
next shell:
thankful.

embrace

Embrace your son when he screams in your face because you gave him the wrong toothpaste.

Embrace the piles of laundry, cleaned, dried, folded, and carried to the proper drawers and closets.

Embrace the sting of wise discipline given to a bumbling but beloved boy.

Embrace a sweaty little imp glowing with pride over his first goal of the soccer season.

Embrace your husband, home after hard work but still ready to jump in and help.

Embrace the unwelcome events of tomorrow and look for the hidden blessings.

Embrace your own weary body, knowing the strength it is slowly building.

Embrace your weaknesses, because grace rises to meet them.

for jana, on rhododendrons and grief

That they will curl,
brown at the edges,
loosen from their moorings,
and then drop
silent
(crushed) --
they are no less
beautiful
perfect, precious
for this.
It is a story the
flowers
live a thousand times
like tiny test cases,
showing us death --
yes. But
then:
resurrection
again and again.

the discipline of mediocrity

There are a thousand things that make me want to stop writing, a litany of lacks I recite to myself by the light of a touch screen. In the end my fingers move as a discipline -- "So friends, every day do something that will not compute." For someone like me, Berry's words are a charge to push publish on something cliche, unpolished, or - worst of all - cheesy, and to let something I do live outside the realm of judgment and critique, even and especially something I want so badly to be great at. (I really tried to just let this end right there with a preposition. I guess I still have a long way to go.)