When summer comes around again

it's always more beautiful than I remembered.

We go to the coast for the light

and a sense of scale that leaves me feeling small, yet essential.

Summer reading:

how else can we know another's life from the inside?

We return to the same places year after year

A force of nature

Seeing her and the horse under the same hot sky, 

I suddenly understood so much more about this time.

Stretch out wherever you find yourself at the end of the day.

When we go to the beach, the waves carry me into another state of mind--and once again, 

I’m in my kid-body--just noticing how the water feels, combing the sand for shells 

and shark teeth, oblivious to wild hair and the layer of salt and grit 

that coats my legs and everything I own.

The game of Life

Evidence

I've always enjoyed reading the signs of life when I go to a friend's house, or even 

wandering through my own digs. A kind of sideways portrait emerges.

A dance that is always new

One thing leads to another

Once you fall in love with Dutch still-lifes

you begin to see them everywhere, and to hear the cry of time fleeing 

as you gaze at fruit so ripe, flowers that open for one bright day. 

I'm beginning to cherish

all that I don't know.

I had a dream like this, except

we were flying instead of climbing, and the bamboo went on for miles.

Enveloped

The heart inclines towards hope

In fourth grade, they're studying women explorers

and it's easy to imagine her setting off into uncharted waters.

In between the rains

Persephone's postcard:

We curve around our sleep like bulbs in the ground
with their invisible, incipient, leaves--not ready to push into the world above.

A certain gesture

will sometimes throw me back to another time with another love.

Her collector's eye is like my sister's, and the delicate seed pods 

with their ghostly sheen, remind me how quickly it all speeds by.

A halo of light around all things.

When it snows all plans are off

and it's astonishing how happy this makes me. All my neighbors were out in the park

with their kids and their dogs and suddenly we were an impromptu tribe, and I was

almost drunk with a sense of possibility that is rare in my jam-packed grown-up life. 

Standing at the edge of something big

I hold onto these brilliant afternoons when I'm feeling shrouded and directionless. 

Somewhere this pulse continues and we're all standing close to the edge, 

ready to step out in joy.

After a week of change,

a chance to settle in again.

Fur and sunlight

The first day of the year

Sometimes, a sense of scale

is all I need.

Almost Christmas, again:

and we take out the birds with party hats from Nancy, the silver bells from my Mom,

 and the little wooden deer from Zihuatanejo, and I recall 

all of those days and all of my people.

Grasses the color of her hair, and the creek is

shaped by tidal waters and moves with our changing thoughts.

My dear ones remain mysterious

 despite all my assumptions and my constant stream of questions.

A November birthday

Figure/ground, and thinking about the gardens conjured by Bonnard:

Late night fruit:

the perfect weight in the palm of my hand.

Sometimes the present goes on and on

so that, months later, you realize that this sight is still humming along the wires 

of your body, and this singular hour has not yet come to an end, as if

the rules of time were suspended just for you.

Who will you be today?

Halloween reminds me

that we are all in disguise.

A world smeared with color

Out of the corner of my eye:

this one image could launch a novel.

Like a white horse

coming through the landscape.

One moment among many

Is the remembered world

always fictional ?