What if

What if everyone woke up to this sunrise

And for a moment, their anger dropped away and they stood

Moonstruck in awe

And what if everyone walked, Moonstruck, downstairs 

In their plaid pajamas with a smile on their face, a kiss

On their lips, looking for the cheek of their loved ones,

And what if someone was awoken by the gentle touch of a kiss

On their cheek and in their surprise, they had a moment of grace,

Of freedom from anger and care, a moment that stretched

Into the day.

What if you were the person who woke to that sunrise, who delivered

That kiss, what if you were the one who recognized 

That we are all made of star dust, how amazing would

That be. 

I am amazed. 

(Ocean Vuong - thank you for that quote.)

 

A picture looking for a poem

We're looking for a poem tonight, one that rhymes with happiness.

He's looking in the same direction as me, on this cold Boulder night,

But we did not find it right away.

Poems are slippery things, unwilling to settle into black and white type,

They don't always want to be written, and we had been reading a story in French,

The wrong language was bouncing in our minds that chilly evening,

And the plot of the story was silly, we agreed on that.

I'm looking for a poem tonight and it's getting late, the baby is sleeping 

And the stars are gazing down at me, waiting for illumination.

I turned to them, reminding them that starlight is their job,

The dog is no help either, her grizzled snout quietly rocking as she snores.

There is no poem tonight for celebration, not even one that rhymes with 

Happiness.

It appears from nowhere.  

 

A model of Peace, gratitude and (not) humility, my words for 2026

Even when snow is on the ground, and the cold stings, she's smiling

I'm thinking it's gratitude for the freedom to do what she wants, regardless of

Parents who may think it's way too cold to be outside this morning in a princess dress

A Short sweater, unbuttoned, walking the old dog, slowly, along icy sidewalks.

There's no anguish in her eyes, no worries for tomorrow, just the peace of being in 

This moment, this cold morning, in the dress she has worn continuously since her 

Opa bought it for her...how many days ago?

Yet I do not find humility in this bundle of energy and confidence, not in this one who claims

To know it all already, from skiing to sewing,

Perhaps it's best to step into the world with confidence, stumble and fall, only to find yourself

Up again on stronger ground, ready to learn what is right in front of you.

 

Learning to wash the car

She is a specialist in cleaning and all I know all about space junk 

so she is my savior at the car wash, this place I have never been,

a place where you can swipe your credit card and magic bubbles stream

from wands and brushes, where she flitters about the car while I watch

in total amazement.

I have to pause when I place that period at the end of that declaration,

to impress you on the significance of the event. 

She knows how to turn a knob which progresses from pre-clean to 

scrub, from scrub to rinse, to spot touch rinse, while I wonder what spot

rinse even means. She knows all the tools.  

I study the instructions to learn and have yet a deeper appreciation of 

this cleaning magician who knows how to do such things, who is ensuring

peace in my household when the guests arrive.  

No one will ask me about orbital debris.  

 

Burning at the Holidays

 I wrote this poem years ago, and found it hastily scribbled on a paper.  It seemed worth saving....

The Christmas Tree was burning! 

the hot wax of the candles fueling the flames,

minutes later covered in snowy white powder, 

our gifts glittering in white.

we scrambled to recover them,

like starving animals devouring a carcass.

Something burned every year,

the meatloaf on Thursdays because unattended

children do not understand time.

we burned through money, the last nickel

flung onto the highway somewhere between

Kentucky and Chicago.

I burned my hands every time Dad made me 

flip pancakes over leaping flames,

and our foreheads burned with fever

left to ourselves to heal

somehow.  

From the fires, we emerged 

somehow, the glitter of scarred-over

burns visible only to ourselves. 

Walking towards French literacy...and English?

I admit to having thrown it away, this same book at my feet that 

Arrived with the mail today.  

I had to buy it again because I plan to walk towards French literacy

One wobbly step at a time, one poorly constructed phrase with "de"

Instead of "du", a lazy sentence that my sharp-witted, and demanding professor

Frowns upon, I can see her disdain even without seeing her face.

I know her.

Il va de soi is a phrase worth knowing, as is the beautiful word époustouflante 

A single page of reading aloud alerted me to my knowing a single word, but

Not the meaning, and aren't we so often in that place, thinking we know,

Or should know, then belatedly, and rather sheepishly, realizing that we had 

No idea of the real meaning.

So I started reading aloud in English, and in French so that my spoken 

Words exit my moving lips, enter my ears and are heard again in a different way,

Processed twice by seeing and hearing, and hoping that 

I'll understand this spinning world better in both languages.

I needed this book.

I got it in the mail

Today.

 

Love of Language

We have gotten lazy with language, our lexicon lazily 

Lingers on the same list of some few tens of thousand words,

Soit en anglais, et meme pire en français, mon prof m'encourage

A écrire d'une maniere plus nuance, avec mes milles de mots. 

How can one call themselves cultured with so many words

Having faded from the lexicon of the quotidien 

Late at night, once the lamps have been dimmed, their eyes are closed,

I linger over grammar, I lovingly seek to refine sentences, phrases, ideas,

Soit en anglais, soit en francais, the exercise entries are filled with 

Poorly formed scrawl, also filled her nights with this pursuit.

I can sense her in the room, wherever she may be.