Pockets of Hope

Colorado hikes:

definition of summer

plush with Columbines

Cilantro (Culantro)

he corrected me

even though it’s in Spanish

white buds. so pretty.

‘no’ is a new word

yet so familiar to me.

so adolescent.

we’ll see where this goes.

a flat road to nowhere fast?

or the sky, endless?

We Can Pretend

a lazy lake day

calmer than a quarantine

peace (so far from peace).

Corona Caution

a bike ride downtown

to this perfect patio

almost like old times

There’s My Baby

a bike ride downtown

on a trail no longer closed

(to me, at least): joy

Road Trip 2020, Day Seven

there is no escape here.

only evasion.

it’s up this curvy road packed with hill after horse-country hill,

packed with perfect fences and horses whipping their tails,

with cars zooming past, some honking at my hugging-the-shoulder presence as i pedal

pedal

pedal

past these race-won mansions,

these stacked-limestone walls that can’t trap me in or out,

into the sunny, humid heat of midday Kentucky,

so far from home, so far from home,

so near to everything that is hard and easy, up and down these endless hills

in a circle that isn’t a circle.

Road Trip 2020, Day Five

if only these pics were perfect

as perfectly peaceful as they appear

and no one lost a phone (and all the love attached) to a lake

and no one said they hated each other

and no one lied to their mother

and no one cried.

but life isn’t this lake

this quiet Kentucky fishing lake that we ruined with six screaming kids and one barking dog

this peaceful lake for paddling or praying or both

this swimmable, all-ours, wake-free lake.

Life is this lake, isn’t it?

Perfect and not so perfect.

Road Trip 2020, Day Three

nothing like my park

and isn’t that so perfect?

vines, dogs, shade, creeks, peace.

nothing like my path

and isn’t that so perfect?

sun, hills, curves, town, bike.

Road Trip 2020, Day Two

not what i dreamed of

for our family vacation;

pretty all the same

you wouldn’t believe

how fire Kentucky is

sunsets, family, all

Coronatine, Day Eighty-eight

this is our family

working through each glittered pic

and this quarantine