More on: Margaret Gibson

I’ve forgotten how it broke, the great cause or the petty cause that cracked the handle into three pieces and left me without a cup for morning coffee. In the cabinet, there were others of white porcelain, with steeply elegant lines, cups that matched their saucers. But my cup was Mexican, squat, and as round…

I know a woman who, when she hears wise words uttered, turns her palms upward. She’s as likely to place her hands on my shoulders, to comfort. None of it for show. Palms upward, she’s a basin. Palms downward, a wellspring, rain. May we be basin and well to each other. May we be rainlight…

May you die as did that good man William Blake who, shortly before, broke into singing; before that, called his wife an angel and drew her, not just her face, but her whole and spiritual body. Closer to it, he said he would forever be near to care for her. After that, and after the…

Awake in the middle of the night, the river cracked with language, the ice of it a heave of squares and oblongs. Only the waterfall, its cold spray frosting nearby juts of stone with lace, continued to tumble as if it would never cease to move and be. Once it was, we lay down together,…

One by one leaves spindle in the wind, the clock runs down, the cricket’s chirr continues. Each year I try to catch the moment the chirring ceases and silence takes on its winter timbre. Each year I miss. Doing nothing, poised for a flash from the Absolute, awaiting rest from unrest, I’m blessed by uncertainty,…

This tall fern has a midrib so sturdy I can pluck its broad width of green and wave it before my face as I walk the lane, the gnats and the deerflies shooed pell-mell as the air ripples away from my body. I’m no longer a target. Do this enough, in three million years I’ll…