sat on the playground slide for an hour

I am always listening to the wind am always listening to the wind

It tells me about trees mostly
How long it takes to breeze through branches

Tells me about family mostly 

kids playing, frisbee hitting fence, dog chasing

I listen and I hear my thoughts 
Honey, she says, taste the honey and cheese and jam she whispers — peach jam—

and the olives and the fresh baked and

the picnic blanket 

hear this, 

she tells me it was there once.

I am always listening to the wind
she rambles
Breathes long low loud longingly
melodies

each tree a different note and when she reaches my face it is the most gentle and low of all

so fiercely gentle

she closes my eyes and drips them salty

God must have sent this wind
In a roundabout sort of way

I am listening to the wind and it drips honey into my heart 
And hugs me
--tired me--

I am listening to the butterfly’s flight 

busy patterns i

Listening to the birds
crickets
to the tremor of a tall shoots of grass getting shook whenever I hear those leaves blow against each other
An together we listen to the 

wind

Listening to god

The days slip by 
Abundantly as rain
He breaks my heart. But without him I wouldn’t have a heart to break. 

and so I am always listening to the wind, him too

he in his plane, i on mine

nomad this

Sept-Oct 2022

There is poetry in these days but I don’t write it. In the wake sleep wake pattern of long nights with our crying son. In the sniffles of a sick baby and the raspy breathing and my mama heart clenching. There is poetry in this move, in the uhaul passing through hill country and purple flowers and 20-second rain showers, taking us to the beginning of the rest of our lives but far away from family and home. 

There is color in the newness. In this town’s railroad tracks and our mouths numb from eating too-spicy food again and the green humidity and the red mosquito bites and our cream floor tiles and Williams shrieks and laughs when kaleb tickles and kisses him on the couch. 

We are waiting in the in between, we are new to this town, we are asking for help unloading our truck, we are learning the right temperature for our thermostat in humidity, we are buying tennis rackets and eating more lasagna than we want.

We 

Are

Time is passing in a funny way and it’s been two years of marriage 

And five years since home from the mission and 

seven years 

since done with high school and I will be 26 and I forget to write in my journal now.

I grew up.

Got too big for the playground now I play with my baby boy on the ground and stroll on long walks around the neighborhood.

I listen to the school kids on their recess break and I puzzle that was not just yesterday anymore and my soccer team is all married and some are already the parent on the sidelines with the orange slices. 

I look around this Texas air and the light falling in through the window onto tall green plants and I am looking for the poetry in my life, I'm cultivating it and the Texas growing season is funky so I don't know when it'll come, but I will harvest. I will harvest powerful words and feelings and lessons learned through moves and separations and growing up and I will be richer than I ever thought 

with my baskets and arms full of 

(mosquito bites & burp cloths & moving boxes & my husband &)

this.