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Archive for August, 2012

A Long Farewell

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on August 31, 2012| 5 Comments »

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
—Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Dear World,

Thank you for breaking me.

The rabbit brush are in full bloom.
Yellow in the field. Yesterday
I mowed the edges of the drive
and as a matter of course
I mowed whatever rabbit brush
was in my path. The air
smelled so good then,
a clean, sharp scent,
almost like sage,
only softer.

I have not been very good.
I have not been very gentle.
I have not been very brave.
But I have been sincere.
And I have loved.

There was a time when
I wanted to weed all the rabbit brush
from the field. I wanted only field grass.
I would wait for it to rain for days,
then pull up as much rabbit brush as I could.

World, I have not been very good.
And you have broken me so perfectly—
always leading me to just the right place
for falling apart. World, how do you do that?

The rabbit brush always come back
and eventually I learned to leave them
wherever they leap up. And eventually I learned
to find them beautiful.

I have not been very gentle, world.
I have taken what I wanted, sometimes mercilessly.
And you take every opportunity to kill me,
sometimes with fear, sometimes
with great or small beauty.

Yellow. Yellow. Yellow.
Thousands of yellow hands
all waving each time I arrive.

World, I have not been very brave.
I am not like Hemingway. When the war comes
I try to hide. And still you come to kill me
like a warrior, like a soldier,
only much, much slower.

The rabbit brush does not mind drought.
It thrives in cracked, parched soil.
The rabbit brush does not mind the rain.
It thrives. It thrives.

I can’t say I like being broken, world.
I can’t say I like being killed.
But you do it so well and I do admire
your insuperable skill. Keep killing me,
world, keep breaking me. Keep finding
my flaws. Press until I crack.
I am broken, dying, thriving. I am waving
at you waving back.

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Hide and Seek in the Breezeway

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 30, 2012| 2 Comments »

I know she is there hiding
inside the sandwich board,
and she knows I know she is there.

And I know she is the one
tickling my foot while I stand.
And she knows I know it is her.

But for an hour and some,
I hunt for her behind columns,
in windows, inside my sleeves.

I call her name and pout
when she doesn’t appear.
And for an hour and some,

she crouches inside
her small sandwich board tent,
and giggles at not being found.

All around us the people rush past
to work, to lunch, to coffee shops,
to all the places we see each other hide.

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Nomenclature

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 30, 2012| 2 Comments »

So long I’ve lived
beneath the same brown birds
and still I do not know
which song belongs to which.
So long I’ve walked
through this meadow
and still I refer to all
the tall green stems as grass.
So long I’ve sat across from you
and still I wonder
who you are.
Oh, do you hear it?
One of those birds,
how it sings
so beautifully,
even in the dark.

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That Was the Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 29, 2012| 2 Comments »

I ran for it, her leg,
and clung to the green plaid
of her pants while she flipped

through boy’s shirts on a circular rack.
I’d been hiding beneath them.
Why did she not right away tell me

but let me, how much later,
look up to see the glasses,
the perfect blonde hair,

the whole Kmart kaleidoscoping
around the woman not at all
my mom. The shirts,

their sleeves hung so empty by.
I was found in the toothpaste aisle.
Perhaps I looked unchanged,

but that was the day I knew
I could lose her, my mother.
I followed her past the blue lights

to the checkout, still crying, no longer
the same girl who walked into the store,
not letting go of her hand.

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Epistemology

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 28, 2012| 3 Comments »

I knew myself a swirl of ash
swept grayly by the wind
like wings, only without the bird,
like kites without their strings.

And I, who have been dead, tonight
I know myself the moon
with rings around it in the dark.
And I the darkness, too.

But I am also not the dark,
not moon, not ash, not kite,
not anything that can be held,
something beyond the lines.

I know myself a spilling thing,
a raveling, a leak.
Call it blessing, call it luck
the vessel as it breaks.

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As In All Things

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 26, 2012| 3 Comments »

Rain in our hair and rain
in our hands, rain on our
cheeks and rain in our lashes,
our pockets, our plans.
The rain, how it rains, how
we forget how we longed
to be dry. How we tiptoed
around the puddle. How
we huddled beneath the tree.
How we tried so hard not
to be what now feels so wetly fine.
Rain harder, rain, there is still
too much of me that tries to hide.

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Weatherman

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 25, 2012| 4 Comments »

It touches everything,
the fog, each tree, each
home, each shoulder,
each street, and drapes
us with uncertainty. It
blurs our lines and softens
the boundary where one thing
ends and another begins—
the boat and the water, the peach
and the branch, the farmer and
the farmer’s wife. Why prefer
a clarity, an empty blue bell-ringing
sky when the fog, it holds
us all so unconditionally.
It will be clear
soon enough.

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Going In

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 25, 2012| 3 Comments »

The way the river meets our bodies,
meet me that way. Though I resist,

surround me. Rush to me. Lick me.
Drench me. Insist. Touch me

everywhere at once. Float me.
Don’t care about my name. Always

leaving me, always arriving.
Bring me news of the sky.

Shine me. Glisten me. Shiver me. Hush.
Bring me the moon. Bring hum.

Wet me. Wake me. The years go by.
We are more ourselves and less.

Meet me the way the river meets
our bodies, with infinite tongues,

none of them thirsty, all of them
curious. Surprise me with your

strength, your pull. Say nothing.
Meet me. My hands are stone.

Erode me. Soften me. Release me
in you. And when we are done,

kiss me anew.

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Where Does This Stuff Come From?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 24, 2012| 3 Comments »

Walk in the dark
and slowly the eyes
adjust. There a tree.
There a roof. There
the hill across the street.
But tonight, too lost
in my own thoughts,
I looked a long time
into the dark and saw
what was not there—
the hulking back of bear,
the gimp of a stalker,
a badger nose.
A squirrel chirped
and I ran for the house.
Everything we fear,
it will find us, will fill
the night with its
empty suggestions.
I make fun of myself
once I reach the lit room,
but the fear doesn’t laugh,
it just walks to the bed
and sits behind the lamp
waiting for a dream.

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All Around Us Darkness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on August 23, 2012| 7 Comments »

In the middle of the night
mom finds me still awake
and makes us tea. We stand

in her bright kitchen and cradle
our steaming cups. How
the hands like something to do,

even at this quiet hour.
We talk through the scent
of licorice root and chamomile,

we talk with no phones or children,
chores or appointments to interrupt.
She is older than I think she is.

When I’m not with her, I see her
as the mother of my childhood,
her hair not yet gray, her spine

not yet bent. She is lovelier
than I think she is. I don’t
think of my mother as beautiful,

only as my mom. But here,
in this wrinkle of early hours,
she radiates, even as her chin

begins to quiver, even as she bites
her lower lip to stay the tears,
even as her tears miss the steeping tea,

she is radiant. Even as she collapses
her shoulders and laments little things
she can no longer do, she glows,

and I see her not only as my mother,
more fragile than I like to think,
but as someone so full of light, someone

I so very much want to know.

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