Half of my heart is here with me,
the other half’s in the hills.
I’m not ashamed of where I’m from.
I carry them in me –
my mountains, my people,
those places and faces
and powerful memories.
See, you can take the girl out,
but she’ll come home
whenever that strong heart wills.
They arrive
and darken the skies.
With a boom
and a crack,
like sprinters on a track,
they test their mettle for
the measure of a moment.
And in the end, they are
like victory – so very short,
nearly fleeting.
But never, ever sweet.
Somewhere by the blue gray sea,
just after the pink sun
peeks over the horizon,
when the water sparkles like diamonds
and the sand turns golden,
that’s our place.
(Let’s go back.)
Breathe it in –
saltwater and sea air –
and feel the sunshine
on your skin,
almost too warm.
Be
(just be)
without a care
for a moment,
a day,
a tiny fraction of
your total time.
Give yourself this –
this memory,
this place.
For now, right now,
the rest of the world
can wait.
A secret thing,
three little words
I need to hear
from you.
Maybe I’m selfish
to want them,
to feel like I have
something to lose.
So small, and fleeting,
those three words.
Out of your mouth and
into the ether they’ll go,
as if they never existed
at all.
But I’ll know.
“It was a beautiful wedding, my friend,”
I say, as I work to remove bobby pins.
Her hair falls around my hands
in tendrils, finally flowing and free,
and I add, “I’m glad to be here.”
A weekend a year in the making,
give or take, and three different locations,
and that’s all I can think to say.
I’m good with words at the wrong moments,
it seems. But I know this one
I’ll remember, regardless,
as the end of the happy (happiest) day
when my friend married her best friend
by the water in Maryland.
The hush of the day.
The slow and
steady step of night,
dawdling along
like a happy child.
The sleepy, changing
slant of light
on a pastel painted sky.
Try as you might,
in this world high on
hurry and worry,
you just can’t rush
a summer sunset.
No more,
no more.
It is gone
and lost to us now –
the how and the where and the why.
All that’s left
there in the remains of
a million Saturdays
is a listless, wondering haze
of woulds and coulds and shoulds:
the regrets of age.
And the rage,
the rage,
in flashes and waves
that the end of days
makes equal ash and bone
of both the fool and the sage.
They say,
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,”
and knowing I can choose,
I’d certainly rather venture,
even if it means I lose.
See, it so happens that
I know a little something
about nothing,
that sad default,
that frustrating non-finish line.
Nothing:
What I say when I can’t find the words.
Nothing:
What I do when the world is too much.
Nothing:
What changes when I don’t.
Nothing,
safe though it may be,
just isn’t enough
for me.
The longest of days,
high sun, heavy heat,
and the creeping feeling
that a storm’s on the way.
Summer greets the world,
slow and hazy,
fierce and free,
all promise and no rules,
except these:
Be ready for anything,
and bring bug spray.
A Virginia Writer's Diary 