Lessons from a Tree

Bloom fully and with intention
Know each season, and live it with a healthy dose of abandon
know when to hold on and when to let go
Squirrels will take from you with or without your approval. Let them. They will help share your seed.
Give shade – there are those who need you
Bend with the wind
Cherish and honor your roots, no matter how tangled. Without them, you would not be here today.
Grow deep roots, but reach high and wide. It is possible.

Lately, I have been noticing living things around me. Even those silent, still things – the ones I had not realized were around. There is a tree, just outside our apartment, that defies natural law. As the winter chill came in, even the most stubborn of leaves finally detached, and returned from where they came. But this tree decided to hold on to its leaves. Dead and unresponsive, what a struggle it must be to keep holding on to something so ripe to depart. So, as its top branch tips congeal, its bottom branches prefer to believe summer, or at least spring is around the bend. How difficult it must be to outsmart seasons; to wish for something impossible; to hold on to something dear and gone. How this tree sticks out, in a very odd way. Every morning, I check on this tree like an old friend. Observing, wondering when the time will feel right, and the leaves will drop, and imagine the tree’s joy in discovering there is beauty in being bare, and alone; there is still love where the leaves lived last.

Growing Up

I thought growing up
Would be an unwanted chore
Like picking up socks, or washing dishes
I thought it would be hard work
That you do
Only
When everyone is looking

I thought growing up would be
too expensive
and costly
Full of things I did not want to give up
Like wedgies
And cuddles
And silly giggles

I thought I would just do it
When the time came
And when the time came
I would know

I would be ready
I would be grown up
And contained
I would smile at appropriate things
And not be afraid of big dogs

The time never came
And growing up creeped up on me
And greeted me from the inside

She arrived like an old friend
With no luggage at the door
Just a smile
And an urge to let her in.

After the Vet

How do you make the cat
Stop licking her wound?
The one with the pus
And icky stuff oozing from the side

The one you want to look at
Because it is so repulsive
And you can’t imagine
Having anything so imperfect
Living right under your skin

Or maybe you can

Maybe you can remember that
Scab
You kept picking on

The bike ride
Gone terribly wrong

The miscalculated brave jumps
Of our youth
That left reminders
Of how fragile
And resistant
We can be

And so we unravel the gauze
And rub her belly and back

She takes it all in
Until she lets go of the need to
Lick the wound that
Screams for attention

In our living room
She notices
Here, too, we are calling
And the choice she must make:

which voices to tend to
And which urges to tame

Daily Poem

Outside My Window


I watch the birds outside my window

How they all chose to
Take off
at once

Like dust
Ready to be swept away
By some invisible broom

Only two last birds
Stayed behind
And then
Together,
They too
Took flight

How strange
I thought, they should all
Make up their minds like that

together
In silence

How quickly our lives
Pick up and
Go

With or without all the chatter
Like birds on a bare tree
On an autumn day
Leaving the branch
As if they just knew

Daily Poem

A Poem for David


Sometimes when you’re sleeping
You look like a little boy
And I can imagine
You at 6 or 12

Coming back from your school day
Bringing back a half empty lunch box
Maybe you didn’t eat the crust
Maybe you left the veggies
Maybe you traded your bologna sandwich
For something prepackaged
And delicious
But I know better
and won’t project on all the things
I had dared to do
as a child

sometimes I see your family
in the outlines of your face
then
I see something that is distinctly yours
The long gait
The mind that came from
Your own hard work
And persistence

There is something so boyish
Even when you type away
And I
Spying from behind
Stealing glances of the man
I see every day

I wonder if a day will come
When I will stop discovering you.
When you will become familiar
And unsurprising
Like a soft, known
Worn in chair

Like the one
I sank in

The one
Too small for you
But still
Your favorite

Like the boy
Who I saw last night
And this morning

Or maybe
I will keep discovering you
Even when
I am not looking.

Daily Poem

Pause:


I wrote a letter to myself
With almost no punctuation.

I ran the sentences back and forth
Around the bend and over the lines
I crossed some t’s but not all
And forgot to dot the i’s

I wrote breathlessly
But not carelessly.
The intent was not grammar
But thought

Thoughts:
Where does this come from, and how do I sort it? Can I feel it out, or should I sweep it under the rug of my life? What about the job/greencard/nausea/lack of sleep/child inside. What about the chores/laundry/dishes, and will someone ever call? Why is my hair is changing texture and so hard to comb? But what about people with real problems, and how these hardly seem to justify the tears I woke up with, or the swollen eyes. And what about feeling so alone?

The pen takes a rest.
The breath slows down - and deepens

the answers will come when they will
and no
you may not always have it your way

my thoughts run away
breathless, as I chase behind

and then,
I stop.

Daily Poem

Mornings

I welcome my mornings

Even though lately

They have become a chore

I want you so painfully

I don’t mind the pain

The swelling

The stillness

I grow all over again

With you

I stretch

and gather

and let loose

Just lately,

I realize I too can be beautiful

With a healthy dose of self acceptance

I imagine strollers and summers

How I will become those women

who looked foreign

whose bodies had been

inhabited

and useful

I spend mornings tucked away

In my own thoughts

I wait for you

knowing

You will come