A Hundred Falling Veils
there's a poem in every day
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A Hundred Falling Veils
I didn’t know how trapped I was

in my own busyness until,

walking past a quiet lake

and up through a lush spruce forest

I felt how with each step toward tree line

more calendar squares disappeared

and all my lists dissolved until

I was nowhere but wading

through waist-high bluebells

with corn lilies rising above my head.

How still my mind was then, still,

as I traversed creeks and clambered

over fallen trees. Still as I climbed

to the place where the clear water

streams down gray cliffs and yellow

monkey flower flourishes on the banks.

I was bathed with gratefulness.

Is it true that to know this freedom

once is to be able to carry it

like a touchstone in my body?

Will the larkspur have any dominion

tomorrow while I’m trapped in a deadline?

Will the scent of summer’s last wild roses

return when I’m scrambling

for just ten more minutes?

Oh freedom, I long to contain you.

That thought makes me laugh.

Yet it’s true. I long to find myself

mid-hustle still linked to the gurgling stream,

its waters so cold I can’t help but gasp.

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For two hours this morning

I practiced being a tree.

Sat in one place in the sun

and did not move. Offered

shade to ground below.

Did not speak. Did not plan.

And though no bird chose

to nest in my lap, was not

averse to such nesting.

Imagined eating light.

To anyone else, it looked

like a woman sitting on

a wooden chair. Need

to keep practicing before

even coming close to

the proficiency of that

spindly crooked spruce

over there.

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for P

All day I imagine my love

is a great ocean that lifts you

on a warm and gentle tide

so all you need to do today

is float. Float and let yourself

be carried. Float and know

that in this hour nothing

need be done. Perhaps

if you are still today, even

for a moment, you can feel

the way these distant waves

are near as your own sweet breath.

The weight of all that scares you

doesn’t change. I know. I imagine

I lift that, too. Lift it all until

you are certain no matter

how much things change,

you are not alone.

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He walks along the river’s edge,

boots up to his knees, pitchfork

balanced on his shoulder,

his handwoven bucket hat

balanced on his head. And

I fall in love again. Not with

the man I married, but with

the man he’s become—

the man who has pruned

the coyote willows for days,

for years, so we can see

the river as it changes from clear

to bright red from the storms.

Watch as it runs clear again.

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When I forget that the whole world

is holy, even the tiny dark bugs

that slip through window screens

and 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-stained

and my body tightens with fear,

that is when a kind letter from a stranger

arrives in the mail, or the rabbit will stand

on his back legs to nibble on mint,

or the meadow will blaze with the day’s

last slant of sunlight and my heart opens

so wide that inside the fear rises praise.

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Though I love this high desert,

I am a lake walking amidst

the cactus and the pinyon pine.

I am sunsets on flat water

and waves in the spring.

I bring my white trillium soul

to the arroyo and let dry sand

run through my fingers.

They never leave me,

these Wisconsin summers,

even though I left them when

I was a barefoot girl,

even though I’ve made a home

amongst red rock cliffs and empty

river beds where the gray trunks

of juniper twist in deep curves

and red-tailed hawks spiral

making visible the wind.

How surprising it is to discover now

in my silvering years some new

insight into what it means to belong:

how sometimes we choose,

how sometimes we are chosen.

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We float side by side on the pond for an hour—

you in a tube, me on a paddleboard,

both of us deep in our books.

But even immersed in another world,

I slip more deeply in love with this one

in which I’m your mother and you

my girl and our stories are woven

so closely together that even before

I flip the page of tomorrow, I know

for certain I will love you even more.

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People think it’s a moment of Eureka!

But it’s more like a wave,

said the mathematician,

and though he was speaking

of inventing new math,

I thought of discovering new love,

a wave of startling amplitude,

the thrill of energy passing through,

a trough of fear and a crest

of yes. A whole lotta blue.

I don’t remember much

of physics, but I recall

the surge, the crash,

the holding my breath.

I remember the certainty

I would drown, the equal terror

of finding myself on dry land.

It’s not just a flash of insight, he said.

I thought of how long I’ve been

solving for love.

Yeah, I said. I understand.

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How many times did I stand

on the shore with you and throw rocks

in this same river simply for the joy

of hearing them splash?

But today, my friend’s daughter

suggested we use sticks

to write invisible wishes on the rocks,

then kiss the stones before we tossed

them in. Perhaps you could guess

what I wished for. Aren’t I always

longing for peace in this world?

But there is so much of me

now you do not know.

Like how today, when I got

behind the car going twenty-seven

miles under the speed limit,

I didn’t call him an idiot.

I just went slower. See?

Things change. Even this woman

who is still throwing rocks

in the same river.

Only now the splash

makes me both laugh and cry.

And now, when I drive

behind a slow, slow person,

I can’t not think

of what wishes

they might write.

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