How do you talk about a sunset, without sounding like every conversation about sunsets? At the market, the checker she says, The sunset is beautiful—I love that I can watch it from this window. I say, Oh yes, the colors are stunning. Those pinks, those yellows. Then, when I get home, my mother-in-law, she says, …
“For a moment, I expected the impossible. And then it happened.” Where are you? Wild winds whipping up against a desolate landscape. Cold skies and a raging heart. You have been uprooted. Torn from the comfort of the ordinary, you have been exposed. But do not go blind, little dove. Look around you. The …
There are still things inside the world to bring astonishment. The first sip from a cup of coffee in the morning, while you watch the dayglow filter through the window. The way that someone asks how are you and they really mean it. The eggs that I collect, each morning, from my chickens. The weight …
Even though I won’t ever see them again, I still carry them. Inside and outside On the lining of my heart And the edges of my brain Beneath my fingernails Or hanging from an eyelash. They saturate my writing and my words Sloping from an s, or cradled in a y. Sometimes, they are even …
Continue reading About the body
I spend nights alone, in a hotel room. Sometimes in a cabin in the mountains. The cabin in the mountains, they’ve done up so that it’s covered in deer prints and wolf prints and bear prints and plaid. Enamel crockery. Indoor hanging vines. Big picture window, so I can stand naked and cry before the …
Continue reading The right amount of sadness
The way the calls come late at night, and the way that you don’t sleep. Lie staring at the ceiling; know that you must leave town in the morning. The way you need to buy an apple pie for the drive. Let it sit upon your lap the whole way home. You don’t even like …
Some people, you can hear the way their heart hurts when they speak. I’ve hit a wall in this exploration of family. I think it comes from the fact of my youth. So many of their memories I can’t remember, which makes me feel like I am not deserving of their story. I am …
It feels strange, to wake up in a world without them. A sudden stark realization that they are, simply put, no longer there. And yet, we transition. This is the work of the mourners—to ease themselves back into life. The men continue on, their emotions dragging them so deeply that they touch the bottom. The …
Continue reading Water Weavers
The Wild Heart of Life 