You Can Do Hard Things

You can do hard things

You, who hears every loving thing people say

and lets the words slide off before they seep in to stay,

agreeing with a nod that brushes them away.

You can do hard things

You can, because everything is hard

—it’s what you know by heart—

You’ve survived it all so far

and look, here you are.

You can do hard things

You can do them, just like you’ve done before

You wrote the thing

You spoke the thing

You broke the thing

You scoped it out

Poked it and woke it

Roped it in like it was meant to be

Hoped for it, then let it go free

You cloaked a shame and soaked a sorrow

Swallowed a slight, said no to a fight

Ran for cover, lived as the other

You clothed and soothed a child

You moved 10000 miles.

You can do hard things

You did them before

—keep track of the score,

for tomorrow there’ll be more.

What If I Say

What if I say it’ll all be okay?

Will that settle accounts with God and man for today?

Make your slumber deep,

keep mind and body free while you sleep?

Will mere sentiment make a dent

in the brittle, anxious thoughts,

sand them down and insist that they submit?

What do you need to hear right now—

that everything will be all right,

or that I see it’s not okay?

Maybe the moment doesn’t call for words.

What can punctuate it, then?

A look, a pause, a touch, a silence

a reassurance so barely there you might not care

—and I might not dare.

So words will be my offering:

though they often miss their mark,

they may yet reconcile what time and blood cannot

when time and blood is all we’ve got.

The Retelling

The retelling

is past action

in present memory alive

wrestled into storylines

where contradictions arise

and details fall by the wayside.

Who got to the empty tomb faster,

and does it matter?

A raconteur

with garbled grammar,

an unreliable narrator:

One actor’s agency

in passive voice hidden

Another’s role dismissed

a purposeful elision

Tricked out verbiage

for entertainment value

A protagonist crowned

for their winning point of view

Whispers down the lane

of the hearers’ prejudice

Formatted to receive

and interpret juicy bits.

Do enemies multiply,

does the bad guy win?

Is there redemption,

forgiveness of sin?

Who is the scapegoat,

who is the fool?

What would you give

for a thread to unspool?

This Is Better As A Song

This is better as a song

with melody to carry it along

1 4 5 chord progression

Now the band’s in session

Add the timbre of a tenor or alto

gilding with glissando

No one begrudges a rhyme

set in metered time

—not iambic feet,

a backbeat

or hit it on the one

change keys midway for fun

I’m weary of mere singsong lines,

I’d rather sing a song this time.

Pruning

Pruning is a tricky piece of work

I never should have perpetrated on

the peony planted by my late father-in-law.

Rash clipping under a pre-autumn sun

precipitated our present disappointment:

a petal-less spring.

April Is Not A Kind Month

April is not a kind month

It’s a nose to the grindstone kind of month

It’s a how are the kids getting by month

When good days fall down

like cherry petals plastered to the ground

after the rain.

When the sun beams

then remembers itself,

hiding under a cloudy screen,

the weighted blanket of sky.

If we feel it while the trees are green,

what will happen when they’re dry?

Your Daughter’s Daughter

That night in your basement

the boxes of books

and my hesitation when you said

I’m keeping these for my grandchildren.

A second’s silent panic,

trying to square the logic of

the timelines and bloodlines

in play.

But how would you—?

Then who will—?

is what I didn’t say.

Of course, I said.

But I was unsure, at best.

Turns out the dying have a foresight

not the rest of us possess.

Now your daughter’s daughter

looks back at her

with the same fair eyes and shy smile

you once held at your breast.

The Path of Totality

While the world slumbers,

already blanketed by a black sky,

the path of totality bisects a day-lit continent.

A bar of darkness rimmed with the faintest fire.

The temperature drops and street lights flicker.

Neither sunrise nor dusk,

but, briefly, the hivemind confers.

Beasts of the field cluster and hush.

Morning glories fold; the moonflower stirs.

The nocturnal awake to the unnatural night.

Then light returns,

south to north, west to east.

Meanwhile the other world’s black sky blankets on,

its slumberers not yet greeting their true dawn.

Even The Flowering Trees

Even the flowering trees

couldn’t keep the gray at bay

today, but tonight

the street lamps

illuminate the blooms.

Flashbulb white pops against the navy sky.

What is it about this manmade, Godmade

chiaroscuro that makes it all okay?

Even Air Takes Up Space

Even air takes up space

and has weight

I inflate a balloon to prove it

A child’s candy-colored sphere

So innocuous, so clear

You can see right through it,

but it’s still here.