Writer’s Block
It became an undoable, laughable task
like lifting an ocean or dining on the moon.
Each day, I thought, would be The One.
But there was often somewhere to go
something to be done
OR
nothing to be done
nowhere to go. Just an inability.
Then this morning, before my piece of toast: I wrote.
Autumn Ceremony
The peaks stand evergreen behind a quiver of yellow aspens.
Infinite shades of brown decorate the lakebed, now beaded with puddles.
My son and husband chat behind me.
My daughter, solo, proceeds ahead.
Each step of mine is taken with gratitude.
The sky, a snowy veil touched with azure, presides over this ceremony of autumn.
Desert Sky
It is the bluest blue.
Impossibly, soft and sharp at once.
It rests on iron-rich stones
and extends to endless horizons.
It covers the soul of this sweeping land,
where it has overseen
movie sets and theropods,
outlaws and civilizations.
As I stand on the shores of an ancient ocean,
I feel our spirits intertwine.
Grandparents
Mémère
I see you in the blossoms that brighten the spring trees.
Grandma
I try to open my heart to others, as you did.
Pépère
I salute whenever I watch an eagle take flight.
Grandpa
I hear your laugh as though we joked only yesterday.
The time without you lengthens,
but you are always near.
Equinox
Springtime brings long-forgotten warmth
while emerging from winter’s shadow,
and with it, the promise of change.
There is a certain comfort
from the equal sharing of sun in all the world’s corners,
a sense of steadiness in the predictability of orbit.
If only balancing our lives came as easy as a 12-hour day in March.
Mount Timpanogos
When I was a child, I sat on the sidewalk
and observed
your many colors, your stoic personality,
the way your peaks sliced the sky.
You are naturally-carved art:
a whale
a princess
a sergeant-at-arms.
Much has changed, but you remain a constant.
When I’m away, you wait for me, as would an old friend.
Shared Memories
It’s a simple house. The New England kind.
Blue shutters and a green door.
The yard is lit with bright trees. Snow has settled on the tips of grass.
My grandmothers worked here, my mother played here.
I only see it from the sidewalk,
but it’s touched with magic, as though their memories are mine.
Winter
Winter
“I’m lucky without winter,” some say.
But I cannot imagine a January morning with no shiver of cold,
no rivers of ice dangling from gutters.
I wonder what a passing year would be like
without a biting wind against my cheeks
without Sunday mornings wrapped in blankets,
without the twinkle of snowflakes falling outside windows.
Photograph
Photograph
A picture cannot capture
the warm sandstone under my fingertips.
the slight smell of mint and sage.
the sound of my muted footsteps upon the earth.
the walls of the canyon twisting toward the desert sky.
the big horn sheep gracefully walking on a cliff’s edge.
the beat of my heart, living inside that moment.
Week-End
Air cool, coffee cold, walking up hill.
Thinking of sick babies and tearful parents
I pick apart my decisions, one by one.
Saturday afternoon awaits: carpools, laundry, school projects.
In-between: a mountainside covered with yellow grass that flows like ocean water.
I should stop, breathe, watch.
Instead, I hurry from one task, to the next.
