A Daily Dose of Poetry

A Hundred Falling Veils

• How Things Change July 26, 2024
    Between when the hummingbirds comeand when too soon they leave,we sit in the warm dusk and watchas broadtails and black chins dartand dive, defend and chase—the feeder a loud, competitive zonewhere small feathered bodies blockand jostle, crowd and race—almost impossible to imaginefive months back when this deckwas a still, chilly silent place.That’s how it is […]
  Rosemerry
• Let Us Gather in the Garden July 25, 2024
  Let us gather in the garden in late Julywhen the snap peas are fat and sweet on the vinesand the tiny white cilantro flowers charge the air with fragrant green. When the sunflowershave not yet opened, but the cosmos are alreadya riot of pinks and white and the nasturtiums have erupted into spicy orange petalsand the heads […]
  Rosemerry
• Amidst the Cold of Winter July 24, 2024
   There was that winter day when the ice floehad cracked the river ice into giant slabsthick as my open hand, tall as a child.Our family gathered on the river bankand played with the fractured chunks to makesculptures—ice huts and ice caves anda long ice wall that curved and snakedthrough the snow along the river’s edgelike […]
  Rosemerry
• When I Was Feeling Alone After My Father’s Death July 23, 2024
    In a vision, I knew the universe as seamless—a place with no horizon, no anchor,no tether, no foundation. And thoughit was beautiful—a water-color washof pinks and blues and grays and greens— I was terrified, feeling myself formlessin the vast sea of space, too free, too free.I wanted an object, a person, a shape,a something to belong […]
  Rosemerry
• Why I Should Hike Every Day No Matter What July 22, 2024
    I didn’t know how trapped I wasin my own busyness until,walking past a quiet lakeand up through a lush spruce forestI felt how with each step toward tree linemore calendar squares disappearedand all my lists dissolved untilI was nowhere but wadingthrough waist-high bluebellswith corn lilies rising above my head.How still my mind was then, still,as […]
  Rosemerry
• Impossible Task July 21, 2024
   For two hours this morningI practiced being a tree.Sat in one place in the sunand did not move. Offeredshade to ground below.Did not speak. Did not plan.And though no bird choseto nest in my lap, was notaverse to such nesting.Imagined eating light.To anyone else, it lookedlike a woman sitting ona wooden chair. Needto keep practicing […]
  Rosemerry
• Because It’s Hard to Not Know July 20, 2024
                    for P  All day I imagine my loveis a great ocean that lifts youon a warm and gentle tideso all you need to do todayis float. Float and let yourselfbe carried. Float and knowthat in this hour nothingneed be done. Perhapsif you are still today, evenfor a moment, you can feelthe way these distant wavesare […]
  Rosemerry
• The Changing View July 19, 2024
    He walks along the river’s edge,boots up to his knees, pitchforkbalanced on his shoulder,his handwoven bucket hatbalanced on his head. AndI fall in love again. Not withthe man I married, but withthe man he’s become—the man who has prunedthe coyote willows for days,for years, so we can seethe river as it changes from clearto bright […]
  Rosemerry
• Amen July 18, 2024
  When I forget that the whole worldis holy, even the tiny dark bugsthat slip through window screensand flock and stick to kitchen lights,even the charred black remains of forest,even the river as it floods bright red,even when my cheeks are tear-stainedand my body tightens with fear,that is when a kind letter from a strangerarrives in […]
  Rosemerry
• Where We’re From July 17, 2024
    Though I love this high desert,I am a lake walking amidstthe cactus and the pinyon pine.I am sunsets on flat waterand waves in the spring.I bring my white trillium soulto the arroyo and let dry sandrun through my fingers.They never leave me,these Wisconsin summers,even though I left them whenI was a barefoot girl,even though I’ve […]
  Rosemerry