Author: Maria

Cradled

Cradled

Posted on by Maria
Cradled Lying in bed tonight, waiting for sleep to come, I am reminded of all the years of nights I lay here worrying about one child or another. Asleep in her room, my spirit would go to her, cradle ... Read More
River

River

Posted on by Maria
River You could come to this place and discover nothing if you bring along your own noise, your own chaos. Because, like so much that is sacred, silence is the only entryway. So we leave it all behind... Read More
Learning Time

Learning Time

Posted on by Maria
Learning Time I remember childhood’s summer, hot days flowing into cooler cicada evenings, unmarked by names of days or even months. Just ‘wadda ya wanna do now?’ My brother and I ride our bikes... Read More
Nourished So

Nourished So

Posted on by Maria
Nourished So “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” -Albert Camus A gentle rain greets me this morning and from the greenness of my home, all the world seems... Read More
Math

Math

Posted on by Maria
Math All these years have passed and I still have the same repetitive dream. I am in college. It’s the end of semester and I realize there is a math class, calculus, trigonometry, a hard one, of cou... Read More
Swan

Swan

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Swan Morning coffee in hand, I walked to the lake from the campground to greet the new day. The sun was already beaming bright, a light fog hovered over the water, cool. When, as if straight from a st... Read More
What is a Poem?

What is a Poem?

Posted on by Maria
What is a Poem? You know that feeling when you’ve got too much to do and you can’t imagine how you are going to pack it all in so to calm yourself, you count ahead to the next quiet day, which doe... Read More
Breath

Breath

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Breath In and out, in and out, in and out. In and out, tree and me, we breathe one another. Lung to leaf, she inhales my breath to build her body. Bronchioles branch, delivering her gift to all my cel... Read More
Steady

Steady

Posted on by Maria
Steady The rain started gently, welcomed on that hot, dry day. When we heard thunder in the distance, our parents called us inside where I sat at the window, cozy, and watched the trees begin to shutt... Read More
Window

Window

Posted on by Maria
Window There is a pain that stands between me and the world. Like a wall, it keeps me separated, living in its shadow. It is the pain that followed me out of childhood, based on bad information imprin... Read More
Milestones

Milestones

Posted on by Maria
Happy Sunday morning! This one was written a while ago, but today, I dedicate it to our friends, Bryan and Petra, Josephine and Russ, who lost their dear, kind, beautiful mother, Diana, this past week... Read More
Source

Source

Posted on by Maria
Source Unlike these birds who wake up singing, I like to start my day slowly, quietly. I sit at this window and stare for a bit into the contrasting shades of green. The green tells me- reach up, grow... Read More
Birthday Girl

Birthday Girl

Posted on by Maria
It’s been 64 years now, but still the same feeling. Birthday Girl Fifty-eight years ago today, my mother gave birth for the tenth time. I do not know if it was day or night, a long labor or shor... Read More
Kindness

Kindness

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Kindness From the porch I see ferns and wildflowers and lush oak saplings emerge through last year’s leaf litter. A phoebe flitters back and forth to its nest above the door, full of desperate hatch... Read More
Months

Months

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Months The months fly past, each with its own essence, its own meanings and memories gathered from all the years on this journey around and around the sun. I say good-bye to a month and in no time at ... Read More
Entropy

Entropy

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Entropy You know that moment in movies when the main character, having spent day and night chasing a murderer, conquering demons, saving lives, comes home to their high rise apartment with its wall of... Read More
Resilience

Resilience

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Resilience We humans- we were made to adapt. Our very survival depends on it. Sure, we’d rather not. We resist, we deny, we shake our fist. We feel overwhelmed by the impossible magnitude. But slowl... Read More
Primal

Primal

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Happy Sunday morning and happy Easter! My mother was born on Easter day, 1920. She died during Holy Week, 2015. She was an Easter kind of person. Her almost always cheerful disposition belied the trau... Read More
Smoothing

Smoothing

Posted on by Maria
Smoothing I’m onto you, Mind. I know what you’re up to. How, as I go through a challenging experience, you kick in, deal with, adapt. But also pull back, detach, protect. Then, afterward, you begi... Read More
Toward Love

Toward Love

Posted on by Maria
Toward Love “The heart beneath is teaching to the broken heart above.” Leonard Cohen Here you are at this precise time, in this exact place, at this very age, the culmination of so much. Every mom... Read More