just like trees
my life is a mix—
seasonal change
and evergreen
—Terri Guillemets
just like trees
my life is a mix—
seasonal change
and evergreen
—Terri Guillemets
I searched the history of grass,
Beneath hawk-shadows blowing past.
I learned the timelessness of stone;
Saw forest-flesh and forest-bone
Reach briefly up, go swiftly down,
Crash in green, dissolve to brown.
Taught by decay and schooled by molder,
I can turn a stoic shoulder
To beauty spiking searching eyes
And breasts defenselessly unwise.
Against impermanence I lock
My soul, confiding it to rock.
—Frances M. Frost (1905–1959), “Stoic,” Hemlock Wall, 1929
our apocalypse
once in ultra slow motion
now on fast forward
—Terri Guillemets
paths of long-term security
dead-end without notice
in the mercurial maze of life
—Terri Guillemets
Hummingbird mama
abandons her nonviable eggs —
but keeps checking back
a few more times, just to be sure.
An arm falls from a sickly saguaro
and breaks open on the ground
like a prickly green eggshell —
after decades of desert still-life
a few seconds of death-motion.
But the night breeze is so beautiful
those breezes are — so beautiful
it’s hard not to get swept away.
—Terri Guillemets
dried crackling leaves
though dead
are never quite still
—Terri Guillemets
The best faith is not the stagnant,
—Terri Guillemets
“You peer into my life to find a lingering past, but I tell you it was sunk ten thousand fathoms deep and weighted down with my dead self. You look into my breast to find that old, old open wound, but I tell you I seared it with my hot tears and only the cicatrix is there.”
—Muriel Strode (1875–1964), My Little Book of Prayer, 1904
It’s peeking round the corner
Playing hide and seek
I see its icy fingers
A frost’d rosy cheek
Days fall ever shorter
Autumn’s air is chilling
Warmth no longer lingers
Wild things are stilling
—Terri Guillemets
You’ve got to keep moving to keep the beauty of life in perspective. If you hold still too long, things go blurry.
—Terri Guillemets
Age is like the latest version of a software — it has a bunch of great new features but you lost all the cool features the previous version had.
—Terri Guillemets
We may as well make
friends with Change —
the instant the Moon is full
it’s already starting to wane
—Terri Guillemets
Sometimes you just need to be open to the universe’s alternate plans for you.
—Terri Guillemets