January is an Adjective

Don’t you think? A feeling, an experience, every year it is more than a word. Dark winter days are made more beautiful by the sound of rain, soft snow, and lessons learned. Yet, it’s a long month to get through nonetheless. With so much bad news it can feel like moving backwards rather than forwards. I am grateful for many things -and also - acknowledging where we are. Here are a couple of my recent poems that give a little voice to this.

Open Hands

I hear the clock ticking when I stir the risotto
staring down at each white grain of rice
like these dreary January days
we absorb the broth as it's poured over us
having no choice but to accept our fate

I try to teach this to the kids
that so much is out of our control
that open hands is the best way to live
but honestly I flail and fight the same as them
wanting to scream why and how and
what in the actual hell is going on here

instead I hold them and we nestle in to
old routines like dinner prayers 
and bed time tuck-ins 
finding comfort in dependable rhythms
even when the sun sets at 4:30pm I am reminded
that every day is reaching toward spring
adding two minutes more 
of daylight*

-ARD

Underneath My Maybes

This was the year of smile-less faces
emotions hidden under mosaics of masks
I have learned how to read the wings of eyes 
to detect joy in a stranger 

I have taught my arms to stay at their sides 
rather than reach out to shake a hand
and quieted the instinct to lean in for a closer sniff of the fuzz
on a newborn babies head 

this was also the year I found my perfect candle scent 
and began a collection to burn while I wrote
so next to pen strokes and clicking keys is
a wooden wick whistling, crackling, alive

this year I grew to love my yoga class online 
and heard the words of my instructor:
"I don't think your core is flab like you said 
I think you have disconnected it from the rest of your body"

I looked down at my middle and saw
a pool of murmuring passions tamed beneath
words like tired and sad
and torn by words like maybe

she's right, I realized 
so I tried out the sockets between
my eyes, for example, and underneath my toes
and pressed a finger into my belly button
and wouldn't you know, I was warm with life
humming and ready like the electricity behind 
the bedroom walls where I sleep so I said thank you, yes 
I'd like to plug in now
to the energy here 
underneath my mask

-ARD

*Fun tidbit of information: Technically in Portland, OR we gain 1 minute and 35 seconds of daylight today. Tomorrow we will gain 1 minute 39 seconds and by the end of the month it will be over 2 minutes per day.

Pictured: sunset over Rockaway Beach, Oregon in November

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