How to find your place in a sea of busy-ness. . . in a world of "schedule"?

Island Transit #7 sighs as it drops us
at the bottom of the hill; everyone
still on the bus watches
two deer climb the steep trail
then vanish at the switchback.

Have the books I've stacked around me provided solace
or have I  built a mighty fortress, book by book, brick by brick,
in which to hide?

I am the empress
of worm castings and duck shit
which I wash off my boots
as though they were
merely gold.

A strong gust and a shudder of snow
speak to the sycamore and to the oak;
they bear the gravity of the answer
with quiet dignity and endless artistry
and so we lean in closer.

The coffee at dawn, the cocktail at dusk, and the night of sleepless
dreaming--well-practiced pilots on the same river barge.

This was once the picture of a man; now it is a puzzle in which none of the pieces fit. . .
she didn't know if it had been poorly cut or if it was a case of mistaken identity.

I understand the subtle dialects of birds
enough to know the eagles, the owls, and the ravens
all taunt me with the same, ecstatic claim:
Your ducks are mine.
Your ducks are mine.
Your ducks are mine.

Every night I'm in a different house, packing, unpacking;
I am always moving.

Talking birding on the phone with my son
in Worcester, three time zones away,
I looked out my kitchen window
hoping for a nuthatch, hoping we could say
we were seeing the same bird.

There was merely a loose thread in the fabric of her life;
she began to tug at it, gently at first, then
with increasing effort, until what held the cloth together
lay in pieces on the ground.

These towering trees, my husband, me--
you’d have to have been here
from the very beginning
to know that we’re all second growth.

How to begin again?

We went out of our way to find
three gulls on the beach low tide
dancing their circle slowly
turning a grebe inside out.

I stare up into the sunlit branches until I sense your breathing;
I am lying in morning-snarled remnants of dream,
until a cardinal trills a startling song that glides around the room
defining the walls, the ceiling, the truth.

All those years trying
to catch a river
with a sieve
made of water.

The color of the day is gray, the leafless arms of winter
tremble and sigh, reach for an obscure sun.

I laugh each time I reach into my pocket and pull out an extra hour,
because I’m the one who drafted the sewing pattern.

I ask God for answers and he gives me more questions;
I ask God for answers and he whispers "figure it out for yourself"
I ask God for answers and now I see owls everywhere--
Listen carefully:  I've been dreaming of owls.

I emptied the room
of every perfectly placed
bookshelf, table, and chair,
then laid my cheek on the cool, bare floor
and finally fell asleep.

She knew she had been happy at least three times in her life, though she could not remember the formula--
so she climbed through the attic of one day into the basement of the next absentmindedly.

My fractured tooth,
my talisman,
my arrowhead,
painstakingly chiseled from a body of flint.

Tonight's wind is unforgiving--tomorrow there will be branches to clear,
casualties of Kansas wind--the old house shifts and moans.

Evenings, the threshold dims,
and we’re not sure if we’re passing
over the story of a memory
or the memory of a story.

As a young girl, I slept with the light on, frightened of the night--I did not know
the gift of darkness:  the beauty of its silence, its comfort, nor its grace.

These woods are mine, I know, and lovely as they are,
half my heart remains in the Flint Hills, forever treeless,
spring fires deepening their dark, loamy blanket.

In Kansas, the wind tells the story,
and though it does not explain the world, it speaks of here and now--
today, I am listening to the wind
and trying to understand.

The longing for a night’s sleep as solid as a block of ice drawn from a northern lake in winter.

If there is one poem left when the guests have gone,
I will take it in my hands and watch it flicker like so many fireflies--
I will hold it in my palm against the night sky like a yellow moon
and gaze at it in wonder--
then I will take it on my tongue
to taste the sweetness and the bitterness
of all that poetry can and cannot be.
 
The whale bone’s a transitional object, like this line, mitigating the space between my new island and the inland sea I left behind.

A gust of wind through the eaves, and last winter's leaves clatter and dance through the streets, as the full moon gives us her unbroken attention. 

Drowsy spike bucks browsing under tender limbs of slouching elders:  more sure signs.

A forgotten appointment, an incidental acquaintance, an unforeseen obligation, and the book I planned to read fades into its brothers as afternoon ripples, then fades to dusk.

Infant slug on last year’s parsley and a new, blue slip in the sky: the counting-out for final frost begins.

One by one they go, leaving an empty chair, a patch of guilt, an absent voice, a sting where once there was none.

A simple gathering of ducks is reinvented, depending on the group’s agenda--a badling on land becomes a paddling on water becomes a flight midair--and so am I transformed as I navigate each day, the promise of renewed possibility in every hour.

You've always known, even when you didn't want to, so when the teacher says, "It's almost as though your daughter knows what I'm thinking," you look down, because you realize that, like you, she'll be frightened her whole life.

In the deep midwinter, ferns stand strong as swords, green on green, green on green.

You want to stay here, in the iridescence of this moment, in the pages of this book, but there is an entire world to navigate, as rich and turbulent as the ocean, as vibrant as the morning streaming through your window.

Here, where the ground bellies up through the fog, the perfect spot for the new garden reveals itself.

She had become the consummate actress; in fact, getting out of character had proved not only difficult, but perhaps impossible.

Snow geese, hundreds of them, fanning out in drifts between the highway and the sea, all right here in this small tick on our birders' checklist.

The day bends and stretches with her--she holds morning up with her left hand, pushes night down with her right, as her back holds yesterday at bay:  Trikonasana, Triangle Pose.

Here it comes, the necessary flutter and flap before the exhibition opening, because two rare birds--the making and the talking about the making--refuse to sit on the same perch.

April is not the cruelest month:  January, with its broken branches, its ghostly face, its patches of muddy snow beneath gloomy gray skies, is more merciless, by far, than desire and spring rain and the fragrant bloom of the lilac.
 
At home today with my familiar--inertia warming its feet in my lap.

Yesterday tugged at the edges of her days like a petulant child demanding the center of attention, but she would not allow herself more than an intermittent sidelong glance.

I tried wearing the yoga challenge like a costume, but had trouble zipping Wild Thing up my back.

The days still progressed at a leisurely pace, not yet stumbling into each other as they invariably would, tumbling forward as people grumbled their discontent at the lack of hours, at the unfairness of it all, as though time, itself, was meddlesome and mercurial in nature. . .
 
Imagine our shame, after twice destroying a squirrel’s nest in the pump house, upon learning that someone--so long ago that the word’s origin is unknown--thought enough of one to call it a drey.

Once her sorrow seared a hole in the night and though she was frightened by the orange glow, she was sustained by its immutable warmth.

We toured the Kingdoms of the Sun and the Moon on their penultimate day, and when we left those windowless rooms we felt for one bright moment that we had acquired the universe.

The trees forgave her, as did the creek.

When I remember to breathe, the dizzying space between moments begins to make sense.

Books had saved her so many times; though now, it seemed, no matter how many books she studied, she was unable to find an acceptable answer.

I awake from a dream about a rising mountain of mattresses and feather beds pressing me hard against the sky.

The sun shone early and bright on Day 3 as she struggled to remember whether she had fallen or dove purposefully into the gulf between now and then.

Fog remains tethered to the cedars; holiday pears are finally ripe.

Thursday, January 2

On the second day, a fine sheen of snow brightened the world’s reflection.

You might expect, as I did when I moved to this Northwest island, that my days would be governed by tides, ferry schedules, and threats of tsunami, but right now it’s the reassuring tick and spin of the washing machine marking out my morning.

Though it was cloudy and cold, one could not deny the crisp freshness on the first day of the new year.

Today’s wishbone is still too tender to break.