Poetry

I Am Somewhere Else (A Poem)

/ Katie / 9 Comments

You’re talking to me,
I know,
and I sort of, mostly hear you.
See, I’m not quite here
(though not quite not) –
I’m somewhere else,
far away
right in front of you.
It’s not one place,
so I can’t tell you where,
or when,
or exactly how I came to be there.
Or even, truthfully,
when I might be back.
You’re frustrated,
I can tell,
but just consider this:
How wonderful to travel
without tickets
or borders
or worries about time and money
and a place to stay.
I’m lucky, I think.
Now…
…what did you say?

The Clock (A Poem)

/ Katie / 12 Comments

How funny,
to race against
a stationary object,
as if time cares
about our projects
and our deadlines.
The clock ticks and tocks –
it does not see
or know
or participate
in the too-fast days
of our lives.
And really,
we build them that way,
don’t we?
We fight with the
never-ending turning of the globe,
like boxers in a celestial ring,
but the ring is empty,
save for us
and all of our to-do lists.
Wouldn’t it be nice,
then, to just stop –
not the clock,
but ourselves –
and insist on a slower pace?
And why don’t we?
I mean, seriously,
who ever made the rule
that busy is better?
I’d rather not be,
thank you.
I’m not mad, exactly,
but I do think this is bad.
See, the work will
truly
always
be here.
But I won’t.

Ready (A Poem)

/ Katie / 13 Comments

All around, I hear it:
The hum of new life –
of growing things,
buzzing and flying,
a gentle flap of beating wings,
the stir of wind through the blossoms –
this song that each year nature sings.
It seems that here,
in a season and a blur,
no more than a blink,
we are suddenly,
all of us,
ready for spring.

Trivia Night (A Poem)

/ Katie / 5 Comments

I mean, sure, of course
I want to win.
But, it’s just as fun to lose
when losing is still learning
and learning is knowing
and knowledge is power.
And when I think of
how much I know now
that I didn’t know before,
I’m happy that my hobby
is a trivial kind of pursuit.

International Women’s Day 2023 (Thoughts, and Two Poems)

/ Katie / 17 Comments

It’s International Women’s Day! Unfortunately, I’ve been feeling under the weather, so I haven’t done much to celebrate, and my brain feels too foggy to write something really good. So, I’ll just say this:

I’m thankful for the amazing women in my life, and the strong, brave women who came before us. I’m proud of the women who dream, and who love, and who go on when it feels impossible. We are heroes, rock stars, the glue that keeps this broken world together. If I had to choose a million times, I would still choose to be a woman, even when it’s hard and unfair. I carry the universe in me. All women do.

And I’ll share a couple of my favorite poems I’ve written in the past. I hope you enjoy them! And I hope that you tell the women in your life today – and yourself, if you’re a woman (yes, ALL women) – just how wonderful and unbreakable and valuable and worthy and loved they are.

************

To the Women Who Came Before

To you,
the women,
the warriors and weavers and
witches and wanderers,
the brave and bold
who came before,
I promise this:

My light will magnify your light.
I will shine because
you reached for the sky
and grabbed the sun and moon and stars
to fight the darkness.

Your words,
your courage,
your heart,
your home –
the one you made with your own hands –
will live on in me.

I will stand and speak.
My voice will carry as yours,
over the mountains you climbed,
across the sands of time
and the pillars and platforms you built.
I won’t make myself small
just to fit into the corners
of a world made and sustained
by mothers.

I cradle your wisdom in my soul
because you carved a place for it.
I will keep that place
sacred and whole.
I will nurture the fire you lit
and pass the eternal torch.

************

Eve

A story we’ve heard:
The first of us all
(to fall) –
help-meet and wife,
made and prized,
then punished,
removed and reviled.
The woman who
became a warning.

And history became
both judge and jury,
gave us no choice,
no voice.
The story became ours,
but it never belonged to us.
And before, and now,
down in our bones
we know it.

We know:
It is human to fall
and rise again,
to seek,
to learn,
to live in curiosity.
And so,
can we reclaim her,
weave her story anew
and see her,
this mother of mothers?

Blood of our blood –
can we finally love
(not blame)
her?

Virginia Spring (A Poem)

/ Katie / 15 Comments

I wanted a wintry winter.
Well, seems I might get it in spring.
It’s a funny, frustrating thing,
that we can’t rely on Virginia’s weather,
fickle and peculiar as it is.
But at least there’s this:
Foxes in the meadow,
deer under the willow,
velvet gray skies and
a fire’s crackling glow,
and warmer days ahead.
(I hope.)

Wild Things (A Poem)

/ Katie / 15 Comments

I’m thankful for the wild things.
The dew that slicks the blades of grass,
the bee at his work,
the birds who fill the air with song,
the kits in their den dreaming of play
and the deer in the meadow bathed in snow –
outside my door,
a whole world turns not in days and hours,
but in moments,
seasons and sensations.
In the changing of the leaves,
the rising and setting sun,
these little lives go on and on
until they don’t,
and then, like a breath between words,
they’re gone.
How much we could learn
from the brave, wild things,
if we’d only each take time
to wait and watch,
to sit patiently with
the silence before the storm,
the crickets’ evening concerto,
the breeze through the fields,
the morning’s cacophony.
They exist, not for us to see
as a space apart,
but with us, in us.
We, too, could be brave, wild things.
We know it in our hearts.

Snowdrop (A Poem)

/ Katie / 26 Comments

Well, it seems
this is it:
The closest I’ll get
this winter to seeing snow.
So, hello little lovely.
I truly am glad you’re here,
though I wish more for your namesake
at this point in the year.
Still, I suppose,
you’re no less dear to the season.
And I know,
at the end of the day,
a fall or a flower
is just no choice of mine to make.