Weeding the Seedlings

 Weeding the Seedlings

 

A frustrating day.
Ended by the final cry
from our 20-year-old
rusty push lawn mower
who decided to give up the ghost
halfway through mowing
the overgrown lawn.

My son is now assembling
our new one, which shall
mulch away the tips of blades
and tops of broadleaf friends
who volunteer their growth
above the soil.

I am bending over twin oak
seedlings captured in
chicken wire for their protection,
viewing the vines choking
their sunlight.

Pulling these unwanted plants,
I pile them to the side,
being careful to avoid hurting
the small trees. I talk to them
as I perform this overdue task,
and as I am coaxing the woven
tendrils from the wire,
I notice the slightest movement
at the tip of one oak leaf.

A baby praying mantis perches,
startled from my activity.
As I call my son over,
we look closer. Two tiny spiderlings.
A pill bug. And my favorite,
a lady beetle larva. Who else
have I disturbed from this
miniature world in which
we humans become the
vicious wild creatures to fear?

Wisps of who they will become,
my son and I are viscous, floating
out of time, imploring our new friends
to find themselves lost
in the nearby garden and grow.
The mantis crawls under
the shelter of the shaded leaf,
and we leave the pile where it lays,
holding what we hope are more
living dust motes, more tiny worlds
around which we hover.

Earth, today, for just this moment,
is generous.

--After Celia Drill

 

by Julie S. Paschold

7.3.25

Unraveling on a Thursday

 These two poems seem to go together.  I wrote them during April 2025, which is National Poetry Month, based on Writer's Digest poetry prompts.

10:09 AM on a Thursday

in April and it starts
plut plut plut
on the hood of my raincoat
as I’m walking and it
makes me smile.
Early this morning the birds
frantically told me this rain
was coming, the clouds headed
our way, the sunrise not to be
taken advantage of because
that sun would soon be covered
by a blanket of white and silver,
dropping its treasure below.
I do not shorten my stroll
which startles four mallards
on the small pond, who move
to the other side to shake their
heads and wings at me—or
the raindrops falling—and paddle
noisily along the far edge, bodies
gliding. I finish my walk and
head back inside. Later that
afternoon the rain stops and
the silence in the office is so loud
I can hear my tinnitus singing
in my ears. At 3:29 PM I open
the door, peek my head out,
and it starts.
The bunching of tear ducts.
The tears rolling down my face.
I don’t know where they come from.
Relief. Overwhelmed. Exhausted.
Overextended. Happiness. Gratitude.
Whatever their source, their purpose,
I let them fall—my own rain shower,
my own silver lining. The treasure
I drop to the ground below,
joining the rivulets from the sky,
traveling away to join the soil.

Unraveling

(with prompts from @imandq)

 

All morning my mind has been
in a state of disquiet like the
sleepless wind so I begin the
percussion of feet against blacktop
before the thoughts within me
melt my brain. I’d like to see the sun
after so much grey. The weekend spent
alone brought about a vintage
loneliness, a familiar tingle like
rereading a long-forgotten memoir
once upon a time I was…
listening to cavernous whispers
and tracing the lines of my hands
wanting to read the future of it all
but my reflection has changed
and though letting go left a mark
I see through the seeping blindness
that this stepping has taken me
down a road I’ve been before,
and looking up I see her, a bald eagle.
She swoops down to me, hovering above
so close I can see her feathers and
the curve of her yellow beak.
I stop and stare. Just take it all in.
The eagle, silently soaring in the sky.
The frogs’ prolific symphony.
The partial sun igniting
every busy word in my mind.
All this, unraveling the knots in me.

***

I did not get a picture of the eagle.
Some moments aren’t meant
to be photographed.

 

by Julie S. Paschold
aka Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle

April 2025

***

Julie S. Paschold: Poet, Artist, Agronomist from Nebraska. Author of Horizons (won 2024 Nebraska Book Award) & Human Nature. Semi-finalist in Kate Sommers Memorial Prize, honorable mention in two Writer's Digest contests. Resident Poetry Instructor at Omaha’s Lauritzen Gardens. Volunteer for the Human Library Organization. https://medium.com/@jpaschold or https://jpaschold.blogspot.com/ .

The Beginning: A Poem

 The Beginning

a poem

Do you ever wonder how the world began?

The Beginning

Scientists probe into the journey
toward the beginning of the world;
ask such questions.

Who came first: the fish or the frog?
Is the Neanderthal our cousin or our brother?
Who initially reached for soil: roots or legs?

The earth left clues written in code
formed from another language, one
partially erased from a time
long forgotten, long passed; 

                                                a time
before the moon threw back the tides
and stars gazed at the barren sands.

We are made of cells; cells made of
organelles; organelles made of molecules;
molecules of atoms;

                               our endless world
so vast and sturdy, yet so infinitely
tiny and delicate. We are substance
and air, liquid and solid, mass and energy
combined. 

                    For all we have discovered
and defined, we are left baffled—
how intricate and extravagant,
how complex and perplexing,
how wondrous this all is!

Whether root or fin or leg or membrane,
cousin or brother,
sea or land or air or magma,

we are all part of one story, one world,
one amazing timeline, we sparkles
in God’s eye, we miracles of life,

we unexplainable wonders that keep
the experts guessing, questioning,
seeking explanations

                            for the beginning
of a world that stretches, perhaps,
to eternity.

 

 

by Julie S. Paschold
aka Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle

4.10.25

 

Sacred Interruptions

--to the Rise Collective

 

-1-

Sacred spaces lit by the jewel
of a dragonfly wing,
supplied by Mother Nature herself,
interrupted only by the babbling
of the stones under current of water.

Sacred spaces of our creation,
whirring of fan blowing spirits of the past,
these winged blades of air
bearing their weightless support
yearning to yield pain to peace,
scream to smile, anxiety and anger
to aimless meanderings.

Can anywhere become sacred upon
our blessing and amiable ambiance,
upon the releasing of expectations
and stressful resentments and anger
that create separation?

-2-

Sacred moments when weary
becomes rest, when serenity inter-
rupts our strained stress and
allows us breath, when we read
and touch the divine, souls near
intertwine.

 

-3-

If to be sacred is to be dedicated,
to be protected, to be devoted
to a purpose, if we are helping another
to become secure, if we are reaching out
to aid in a being’s wellness,
are we not doing something sacred?

 

-4-

If to be sacred is to be secured
against violation, as by sense of right;
if to be sacred is to be properly immune
from violence and inviolable…
should not all beings be treated as sacred?
Should not all neighbors be souls to aid?
Who are we to bring animosity to another?

 

-5-

If we look at every person,
every animal, every plant,
every thing on this earth,
every stone, particle of soil,
hypha of fungi, molecule of air
as having the potential to change
and therefore living in spirit
and soulful, then sparking
in a godly way, how can we not
see ourselves in a web of endless
spirituality and having the potential
of simmering in sacredness?

 

-6-

Twice I have floated above the earth
and lost time. I was in the center
of a labyrinth, seated cross-legged
on stepping stones placed in the soil.
One of these times, my twin was seated
next to me. We floated together,
as close as we once were in the womb.
I felt the universe and the emptiness
was full of enough love for all.
For everything and everyone.

 

-7-

How, then, do we make these moments,
these places sacred in our lives?

How do we interrupt
the chaos
with the divine?

 ***

by Julie S. Paschold
aka Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle

2.8.25

How to Order You Have Always Been Here

Introducing....

You Have Always Been Here

Poetry by Julie S. Paschold

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK!!

SEE BELOW TO ORDER!!!!

Julie Paschold’s poetry collection, You Have Always Been Here, is a diaphanous touch of a bird feather across your cheek. A whisp of a weaved wing, like an electrical current, a flutter of energy that, like devotion, brings both satisfaction and sadness. She writes of love and the struggle to understand it when mixed with long-held and deep-set beliefs. Julie’s book is a rewarding prayer of and for connection: “because I have been here before,/this reaching for each other,” that once read, “. . .you are never the same/again.”   --Bonnie Johnson-Bartee, author of Cord Blood (2022 Sandhills Press), 2023 Nebraska Book Awards (Poetry Honor award)

Julie S. Paschold’s You Have Always Been Here is at once an intimate queer prayer—to a beloved, to a reader, to a god knit of desire and muscle—and a grief psalm. These poems invite us home to wheelbarrow and highway, to find release in the circles of a body running on a track, a pair of eagles flying, a spring returning with rain that taps “the melody of longing.” In this collection, queer yearning for another—“this reaching for each other”—is a form of faith, knowing that “no matter what does happen / we will be okay with each other / even after it does.” These poems carry us, cradle us through even the after, “free to leave,” reminding us of how to love ourselves and others wide as willow and wind. Let these poems hold you. Let these poems bring you home to your warm body.   -- Kelly Weber (they/she), author of We Are Changed to Deer at the Broken Place and You Bury the Birds in My Pelvis

 In You Have Always Been Here, Julie S. Paschold takes the reader on a journey full of yearning and unrequited desire that is touchingly and honestly portrayed. The poems in this unconventional love story are a heartfelt reflection on the helical nature of connection, love and loss.      --Amy Haddad, author of An Otherwise Healthy Woman

 

 Order Here:

Amazon

LULU 

Bass Clef Books

**Of course, the best way to order a paperback (and get a signed copy) is through the author at jpaschold@gmail.com or come to a reading ($15 + postage)**

See separate blog for reading schedule

Advice to a Young Person: a poem

 Here is a poem about my self--giving advice to potentially a younger version of me. Or to anyone who needs to hear it. 

Please, in this world of anger, hurt, tumult, and uncertainty, be kind to each other. Learn to find our commonalities, our qualities of goodness, the wonder that surrounds us.  There is a universe full of love out there, if we choose to share it. 

Advice to a Young Person

Who am I to give you advice?

Having fallen down the stairs
a dozen times,
not from some inept dance step
gone wrong

but a mismanagement
of medication,

a build-up of toxicity
from becoming sober

so my brain
and doctor didn’t know how to
handle me:

I am now
one mis-wired soul
held together by hope and
the few memories that remain.

What do I recommend for life?

 Find a doctor with whom you are
comfortable,

that listens to you,
to whom you can sing all your problems
so your anxiety doesn’t play

like a fiddle
and you are in harmony with

your body.

 Go to the dentist so your teeth
don’t jiggle like an un-played piano,
keys loose,

wires out of tune,
melody irretrievably lost.

Find someone or something to love
full-bodied

and do it proudly,
whose care and respect for you
is enduring and endearing.

Cuddle and hug daily.

Listen to the natural world;
let it surround you with serenity.

Repair yourself;

allow others to aid

in that mending;
allow them time to mold themselves

anew

as well.

 You are not who you were,
            but who you have become.

 Be the story-teller of your own song.

Be original and assertively authentic,
your voice sonorific enough to be heard,

whether it twangy or soothing,
sonorous or off-beat,

country or city,
bizarre or sad or modern or antique.

Be you, for we are all broken,

and yes,
you are enough.

 

 Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold
11.6.24

The Stance on Holding Love: a poem

 The Stance on Holding Love:

I Know if You Were Here

 --to Lyle

 

Two days ago on my walk at work,
alongside the county road lay a raccoon,
body so fresh I wanted to reach out
and touch its nose and I know
if you were here you would have been
as intrigued as I in the small leathery
snout and tiny hands, still outstretched,
and we would create some story to go along
with its upturned belly and shortened life.

 

When I got home, the air so dry
it smelled of newly shed pencil shavings,
my roommate had gotten rid of a snake
she trapped in our basement—
her fear of this harmless garter
so severe she screamed beforehand—
and I know if you were here, you would
have examined each stripe and the
forked tongue and scales before
taking it back outside.

 

Tonight I started watching Life On Our Planet
on Netflix as you suggested, and I know
if you were here we would be enamored
with each fact and creature, and have to stop
the program to have conversations about
what we were learning.

 

Later on my way out of town I had to
slow down on the highway to let a coyote
finish crossing the road. He planted
his paws and straightened his legs
in such a stance, head bowed, that it
seemed he was thanking me for waiting,
for saving him. I know if you were here,
you would appreciate that.

 

Nora Rose Tomas says that to love something
means that you can’t quite hold it, and I know
now that you are an adult
I can no longer hold you here, keep you
from moving out on your own. Though my home
is now your permanent residence,
your room usually remains empty as you are
out exploring the world. But I also know
the heart has many rooms,
and there is a space in mine where I
still hold you, forever in my love.

 

Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold

10.4.24

A True Story in August Air

 

A True Story in Cool August Air:

not the aubade I wanted to write

 --for E.L.

 

It is not yet dawn.
I wake up crying
and wander outside
in the near darkness.
I want this to be your aubade,
a morning song leaving
cool lips in the sunrise.
But under a porch light
where no moths gather,
a deep seated saudade falls
like a curtain over the scene,
this longing in your absence
a melancholy I fear will not end.
I can’t escape the possibility
it was meant to end this way,
that I was meant to stay alone,
that I did something
to make you disappear
this time never to return.
Or that I should have showed up
at your house and
taken you in my arms,
kissed each rugged worn finger
that night you were sick
from heat exhaustion
or that night you said you
were fine but your thoughts
really weren’t.
I’m supposed to write a happy
ending where I walk out of here
resolved to move on but when I
Trust God and Wait
what am I waiting for? Dunno, but how
is certain: slowly. I’ve always
run head-on and fully towards
what I loved too far and too fast,
and I fear that’s what happened
here. Your hands never got enough
attention. I just wanted to hold them.
Now they’re on the list of what I’ve
lost. Over-loved and lost, but how
do you measure love? I love you
more abundantly than the tomatoes
in my garden this year; I love you
more serendipitously than the
volunteer trees I’ve gathered
in pots and around the yard for you
that you may never come retrieve;
my love for you is taller than the
sunflowers bending over my shed
in the backyard, their brown and yellow
faces watching me now with a
certain sorrow. They must be
thinking, poor human.
I only wanted to be your friend.
When will there be a time I
cease thinking of you? Perhaps when
I look out at the porch light,
see the moths again, and think,
so this is the famous happiness
I’ve heard so much about.

by Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold

8.13.24

after Bob Hicok’s “True Story”

You Live On: A poem for Brandy Thuernagle

 

On Wednesday, July 17, I celebrated the life of Brandy Thuernagle, a sister in recovery.  This is the poem I read for her service.  As I was writing this, I didn't realize how close we really were, how well I knew her, how much our lives mirrored each other.  This poem was a way of working through my own grief. It is said people are in our lives for a reason.  Perhaps Brandy was in my life to show me how to cherish and capture the blessings we have before it is too late.  To hold on to sobriety and grab on to the opportunities it offers as they come along. To all of those in my life that make it better, thank you. And to all of those who came along that gave me lessons and left, thank you. I am grateful for all the love I have to give. 

Brandy, I loved you. Loved you like a sister.  May your memory live on. 

You Live On

 --For Brandy, with love

 

It is a Wednesday as I write this.
You died only a few days ago.
Now whenever someone speaks your name,
there is silence.
That isn’t like you,
to leave something unsaid,
something unexplained,
to let me get a word spoken in response,
more than a sentence said in reply
during the hour we’d spend together.

 Now I’ll be walking
the blue raised 3-lane track at the Y
in silence for good,
with only my tinnitus
and the plodding of my steps for company.
No one to push me, tell me I’m walking too slow,
talk in my ear rushed emphatic words
of seemingly mundane everyday things—
parts of life in small detail.

Now the two sobriety chips you gave me
to hold until you get better
will go unearned, will clink together
and sit on my shelf, ownerless.

You struggled so hard
to smooth your rough edges
and work away your pain;
there is a solace in knowing
your struggle is finally over,
that now you no longer
fight your demons.

Today tears fall at work
so I have to walk to the pond
beyond our building
to hear the bullfrogs talk to each other,
and there’s this small black birdup on the wire following me.
She won’t keep quiet,
keeps chirping in what sounds like
But but but see
and flies above me the entire time,
hopping from wire to wire above me,
calling out “But but but see”,
never letting go of her call,
never keeping silent.
Seems you’ve sent a message,
kept me company out here afterwards
after all.

Tonight I will sit on my steps
in the backyard beside potted plants,
and notice that, where a squirrel
had unearthed and broken a
hackberry seedling, leaving a mere twig
in soil, there now grows a new
small green leaf: new life.
Where death seemed certain,
life appeared.

And I know when I look at your daughter—
though you are gone, your love shines
through her eyes.
Where death seems certain,
you live on.

You live on,
in the chips we give each other for sobriety,
in the birds that sing,
in the plants that send out new leaves,
in the eyes of your daughter.

You live on because we do,
because we remember you.

May God call your spirit home.
May you finally rest.
You were loved, my friend.
You were loved, and you live on.

 

*****

by Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold
aka Julie S. Paschold
author of Horizons & You Have Always Been Here

 

July 10, 2024

Even Better: a poem

 

Even Better

 

Even better than a plodding 3-toed land-locked

emu is to imagine yourself the white feathered

egret, soaring above rivers into skies & clouds

eternal holding their droplets of dew; no boundaries.

 

Even better than the rangeland’s wool-covered cluster of

ewes is to step heavy into wrinkled footprints of an

elephant, these giants lumbering gracefully,

elegant despite their size, with large clear knowing

eyes.

 

Even better than racing the clock, saving the world from some

existential crisis is to prevent the chaos from

enveloping our world, cloaking the innocents,

eating all inhabitants in its wake. With

each beating of our civilized hearts, we

erect barriers to our Mother Nature, the

earth who birthed us all. In the name of

energy we are zapping the sun’s rays hotter,

excrement filling our oceans, ice caps melting,

ending mighty glaciers that collapse and crash.

 

Even better than waiting for that magical day, an

event that

erases our

errors of the past, some heavenly formation of the

exoskeleton we have destroyed, instability

eroding our ozone no longer, wanting more than an

ethereal gauze hazing our future, we

eventually need to face ourselves, to stand

either together or never again, to rid the

ether of lies we inhale to hide our truths,

exit the past of our destruction, join as

equals with our Mother. Respect our resources,

eyes no longer

eclipsed to the glorious

eternity we may offer,

ere this planet and all on it

ends.

 ***

Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold

4.10.24

 

WD April 2024 Challenge # 10 ____________Better & Write Now #41: begin each line w/ “E”

Change is Hard: a poem

 

Change is Hard

 

When I have to repaint the boards
of my picnic table,
I need to scrape the old
peeling paint off first.
 
If you are going through
a painful or confusing
period of your life,
maybe you are like the
picnic table,
getting rid of the old flaking paint.
Scraping can hurt.
 
But think of it this way:
you are getting ready
for a new, beautiful
you.

 

Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold

2.11.24

The Pace of Christmas Morning: a poem

 

The Pace of Christmas Morning

 

The only sounds I hear
are the creak of my boots
on the layer of snow atop the sidewalk
this Christmas morning

and the squeak of my hood
against my winter hat,
a child’s multi-colored knit beanie with
double pom-poms sewn on top like ears. 

A small crabapple leans in towards me
as I walk south to the end of the street,
its branches reaching barely above my head,
berries clinging in the slight wind. 

As I reach the end of the street and
turn around, I face my own boot prints.
I walk where my own feet have trod. 

My toes touch heel prints,
my heels press where my toes
once met the snow over the concrete. 

My pace is less than my usual two-foot length
toe-to-toe, the small patches
of snow and ice keeping me cautious.   

This specific length is one I know because
my boss the soil professor had me measure

the distance of my regular pace
during my freshman year of college
in order to mark out his research plots, 

two feet being the same length
my son nearly stretched
from head to toe the day he was born. 

But today he stretches far above me,
far above every member of the family
nestled back at my parents’ house 

where I am headed. He is almost as tall
as this crabapple tree I greet a second
time as I walk beneath berry-laden
branches now covered in snow. 

The flakes, bright fat clusters falling happily,
cling to everything they touch, whitening the
landscape, tapping me on my shoulders, my glasses, 

saying oh happy day, happy morning, today
is a day to gather as I reach the door behind which
my family sits, our own cluster of happy celebration,
feet tucked in socks, hands wrapped around coffee cups, 

Christmas the easy pace of the day.

 ***

 by Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold

written 12.25.23

*****

If you liked this, check out my book Horizons!  Found on Atmosphere Press website or email me at jpaschold @ gmail.com for a signed copy 

 Come to a poetry reading if you are in the area!  Schedule found on my post here. 

Introducing My First Poetry Book, "Horizons"

 My first poetry book, Horizons (Atmosphere Press) 

Winner of the 2024 Nebraska Book Award
(Design Honor Category)

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND AUDIOBOOK as of December 1, 2023!!

SEE BELOW TO ORDER!!!!

Embark on a captivating journey through the vibrant world of living soil, where new horizons await under the very ground we tread and the tapestry of human experience unfolds.

This is an invitation to delve deep into the bonds of family, to explore identity and the spectacular essence of beauty, and to discover the marvels of Mother Nature's cyclical dance. Horizons pays homage to the richness of soil, a precious nonrenewable resource, blending the art of poetry with the wonders of science and everyday life.

So come join us on this expedition, those of you from all walks of life, starting from the bedrock of soil and venturing forth until we reach the breaking of the earth, to bask in the sun.

Order Here:

Barnes & Noble (paperback & audiobook)

Amazon (paperback, ebook, audiobook)

Target (paperback)

**Of course, the best way to order a paperback (and get a signed copy) is through the author at jpaschold@gmail.com or come to a reading ($18 + postage)**

See below for schedule

Other Places to Purchase the paperback Horizons and support local owners:

Francie & Finch Bookstore, 130 S 13th Street, Lincoln, NE 68508

Norfolk Arts Center, 305 N. 5th Street, Norfolk, NE 68701

Your Forte, 415 Chestnut St, Atlantic, IA 50022

***AUDIOBOOK INFORMATION ****
If you need or prefer this version...HERE ARE ALL THE WAYS TO ORDER!

This is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Spotify, Libby, and pretty much everywhere audiobooks are sold.  Here are some links to help you out:

Google Play

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Libro

Storytel

 

Author Events:

• Tuesday, December 3, 2024; 6:30 PM @ FREE online through Nebraska Poetry Society