Birds, Buds, Blossoms, Beauty!

May is probably my favorite month of the year, (competing only with September) with its perfect weather and a feeling of hopes lifting. It also happens to be my birthday month, so every year it feels like a month to begin again.

In this time between my sober anniversary (April 22nd) and my birthday (May 19th), I fully wake from winter’s dormancy and begin to feel into who I’ve become over the past year or so.

This year, at nearly 45, what I want, more than anything, is simply to be present to my family and to my life. I want to write new and better poems. I want to keep making art and books, and being there for other creatives. I want to show up to my community (online and local) and be part of making the world a more just place, and I want to take care of the Earth, and her creatures to the best of my ability.

If you could make a simple list of what you want, what would be on it? What would it look like if you took off anything you’ve been taught to want, and put only things you actually feel pulled toward?

Leave a comment

Marking Time
Tell me about May
the pink buds and the wet grass
the colors so bright it’s hard to remember
the gray of February.
Time passes differently at 40,
I can taste every hour like honey
not quite dissolved in hot water,
but the months go by as airports do,
unnoticed and liminal.
Soon I will be 41 and then 47 and 52,
it’s gathering speed as a wagon does
on the long slope home.
And I mark time in the month of May.
What a gorgeous time to be alive
and slowly dying.
A month when even mortality
smells of pink blossoms.
(from Hermit Season)

What has been eclipsed
is shifting at last.

The earth sings a song of blossoms
and generosity, and I reach
for one more handful
of bread, one more ripe
orange, one more kiss.
My hand on your chest
pulling you closer
than the full moon
standing watch
outside our window.
I become the insatiable
birdsong, the outrageous
white blossoms against
that blue sky. I open
again and the world rushes
in like seawater through
the beating heart.
(From Quietly Wild)

May. — The very word makes the heart leap. Birds, Buds, Blossoms, Beauty! Break away from every bondage of circumstance or low spirits and go out into the sunshine. Answer back the bird-note in your heart, kiss your finger tips to every new blossom, and be a part of the spring. ~Eva D. Kellogg, "May," 1902

• Tell me about May…

• Soon I will be…

• Birds, buds, blossoms

• I open again

Happy Mother’s day to all those who tend and care for others.

Share

PS: Next week I will be in Paris leading a small writer’s retreat, so I will be taking a short break until I return. Our next live workshop is on May 27th at Noon Eastern!

Thank you for being here. It means the world to me.

with gratitude and pink flowers,

Alix