ENOUGH! she declared
Upon realizing why
She hadn’t felt well.
Well! It was no wonder.
She’d let moldy old habits
Move back in
With predictable results:
Sick of her own festering discontent,
Drained from exaggerating her own lack,
Bullied by self-criticisms
That had spiraled into tornadoes,
Bruised from stretching herself
Into past and future
To slap every mistake
And spank every too-slow advance,
Whipped by the brutal taskmaster
Of her own perfectionism.
How had she let the abuse
Go on so long?

She crawled into the tiny
Shelter of NOW
That she’d created
Just by being who she was
And smiled big at the relief.
This was enough;
SHE was enough.

How do you tell
An image is a poem?
Watch for how the light falls
And how the stillness
Magnifies a hint of meaning,
Or how the colors sing harmonies
As the textures soften reality.
Watch for the way
Your eyes tell your heart
You’re in love with life.
That is the poem
Waiting in every moment
For you to see and feel it.

I surrender.
Again.
Daily.
Ignore the limits
I spewed out
On autopilot
About the grass
Being wet/cold/muddy
And not right.
Ignore the limits
I impose on you
Or on myself
About how and when
And where and why/why not
And who and what.
Ignore the limits
Of what anyone tells you
Is or isn’t possible.
Even the things I say
When I forget
How silly limits are.
I surrender.
Again.
Here.
Now.

There are actual
Recipes
For disaster:
A cupful of expectations
A pound of worry
A heap of ego
And a pinch of failure
Stirred together
Make a bitter brew.
The vapors,
Like an onion,
Prick tears,
And when swallowed,
It sits heavy like
A self-esteem–crushing
Brick in one’s gut.
The only solution
Is to throw it all out,
Ego especially,
Mourning the wasted time
But ready to start over,
Mind emptied
And free to welcome
Better thoughts,
Starting with gratitude
For the reminder
Of what it doesn’t want.

Me,
When I don’t get my way,
When I just want to put on
My ANGRY eyes
So everyone will know
I AM UPSET.
I used to scold myself,
Ring shame bells,
Say anger was wrong,
But now I let it be
So I can look in the mirror of it,
See the absurdity
Of what I’ve projected,
And a laugh works its way
From my gut to my throat
Until I surrender.
Re-center.
Breathe.
Remember.
The anger isn’t
Me.

I didn’t see it
Until after—
When I went back
To that moment
Via a photograph
And thought,
How funny to miss
What’s right in front of us
Just because we’re focusing
On the big things
And not the small;
I thought,
How easy to lose small
And simple things
In an ocean so big;
I thought,
How lonely to feel
Unnoticed and small
In a big world
Until we learn
To be at peace
Wherever we are.

I am grateful for loss,
For falling apart,
For the death of each moment
As it makes way for a new one,
For the swell of a symphony’s
Highest, brightest, climactic note
That ends and moves on,
No matter how long it’s held.
God, keep me swept in the music,
Teach me to release what’s past
And embrace what’s now
With gratitude.

Impossibly yellow
Is a color you learn
On that certain day
When it covers everything.
The next day the branches
Will be bare and the carpet
Of leaves will have browned.
It’s a yellow that begs
For your presence:
Be here now,
Aware of all at once—
Color and sound,
Diverging trunks,
Excited children,
Three gray deer—
Because each moment
Vanishes so soon.

The secret weapon
Was happiness—
Genuine happiness
Like a superpower
No matter how many
Demons attacked
Or how long.
Her angels were cheering,
“Hold on!”