So easily the world
makes itself new.
Like today, how all
the footprints and tracks
of yesterday are buried.
The cars are buried. The drive.
The pinecones. The birdseed.
Of course they’re not gone.
We all know the snow melts
and the world will be
the same as it was, only
it won’t be. We know
that, too. I have dreamed,
perhaps, of the snow that
could cover me, make
me new, erase all the
scars and pains. But I don’t want
to start over again. I bow
to all those thoughts, all
those pains, all those scars,
that brought me here
to this snowy windowsill
on this last day of the year
when the world looks new
and I am so grateful to be
this woman growing old.
Archive for December, 2012
Contrary
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, allowing, new year, poem, snow on December 31, 2012| 6 Comments »
Eating the Soup without Salt
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, emptiness, longing, love, poem, salt on December 30, 2012| 5 Comments »
Something is missing.
At least that is what
the palate says. Though
so much is here. Nudge
of onion. Wink of cumin.
The lentil’s warm shrug.
It is like, perhaps,
a person who, feeling
a certain emptiness
longs to fill it with
a voice. Though all
around him, voices,
not hers.
The soup is warm,
but not there the spark,
the sharp song, the crystalline chime.
It is easy to taste
mostly absence. We are
hard wired to want it,
to crave it, adore it.
We’ve evolved
alongside of our need.
No one wants to hear
they can’t have what
they want. We cannot
untaste what we’ve tasted.
They say we are mostly
made of emptiness.
Sometimes I understand.
Chant for the New Good Neighbor
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fence, good fences make good neighbors, neighbor, poem, response, unity on December 29, 2012| 3 Comments »
Picket and vinyl,
wattle, wire,
hedgerow, concrete,
electric, iron,
post and rail,
chain link, stockade
zig zag, spear top,
palisade,
barbed wire, round pole,
dry-stone wall,
see them fall,
see them fall,
see them fall.
And I Said, No Thank You, But
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, loss, mom, moving, parents, poached eggs, poem, poetry on December 29, 2012| 4 Comments »
All these years
I have coveted
her egg poacher,
yolks perfect every time,
the one we first used
in the small kitchen
with the black and white
tiles and then in the bigger
kitchen with oak floors
and over thirty years later
in a kitchen
only an hour away
from my kitchen,
but today when
she offered me
that Oster egg poacher
as we packed
her other things
into boxes going with her
a thousand miles away,
I knew all
I really wanted
was for her to be the woman
poaching the eggs
those yolks
spilling gold
in a kitchen close enough
we might eat
our breakfast
together.
Chance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mountain sheep, moving, poem, poetry, stillness on December 27, 2012| 2 Comments »
First I thought
it a piece of cliff
tumbled
onto the highway,
but then became
visible four short legs,
then the horns,
the dark wool. But
it did not move,
not one inch,
as I passed it
going west,
passed it wishing
I were not so quick
in my travels,
wishing I could
stand on the road
and forget it was
a road.
The End
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged answer, dead, knowing, living, poem, question, unknowing on December 27, 2012| 2 Comments »
Dusting the heads
of dead animals,
I think of how much
my father cherishes
this antelope, this duck,
this winged thing I cannot name,
and I understand that it is not
the thing itself that still
thrills him and makes
him want to keep it on the wall,
but the memory of the thing,
how alive it was, how alive
he was in the killing of it.
*
Over tempura, Pam tells me
of the time that she went
to a man’s home, and there
on the couch was his rich wife,
stuffed, her hand stretched out
in eternal greeting. It had been
in her will, the taxidermic clause
stating that he would lose everything
if he buried her. I sip my sake
and laugh, perhaps because
it is funny, perhaps because
I do not know what to say.
*
Though it is snowing
the room is filled with slant sunshine
and the light does what light does,
it seeks out the darkness.
I feel how what I think I know
has become something dead,
though once it greeted me
with open hands. Though once
I was ripe with it.
*
If we’re made of dust
what is doing the breathing?
*
Not that I want
an answer to that.
Only to be a vehicle
for asking.
*
In the parking lot,
the sound of geese.
No one could say
it is beautiful,
the strangled song
slicing the cold, clear air.
But they’re singing,
my god, they are singing.
Five Reframes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, beginning, haiku, losing the self, name on December 25, 2012| 2 Comments »
on the wall
those shadows so much larger
than our problems
*
in the frost
on the window she writes
her name
*
recalling all those
prayers
I never learned
*
like a worm in kale,
something nibbling
all night on her dreams
*
air, snow, shadow, wind
she loses any names
she has been given
Two for Christmas Eve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blackbird, Christmas Eve, love, poem, Santa on December 24, 2012| 2 Comments »
so open sometimes
this heart’s windows, a blackbird
flies through
*
not believing
and writing anyway this
letter to Santa
Helping My Parents Move Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, haiku, loss, mother, move, poem on December 24, 2012| 2 Comments »
pretending not
to cry, I throw out the herbs
she dried, she grew
Down by the Riverside Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cold, haiku, hands, love, poem on December 22, 2012| 3 Comments »
so cold I could al-
most forget about your hands—
not quite.
How It Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, allowing, fear, opening, poem, poetry on December 21, 2012| 5 Comments »
All day fear knocks
or bangs at the door,
sometimes whimpers,
each time an invitation
not just to open the door
but to tear it down,
the walls, too,
to unclench both hands,
though you think, I can’t do this,
but you do, and while
fear hangs on you like a leaden
scarf, like wet gray wool,
you notice how dazzling,
how warm the sun.
Nod to the Mayans Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, end of the world, haiku, mayan calendar on December 20, 2012| 3 Comments »
so pink-ly the dawn
blooms out of night as it would
if I were not here
Time to Change Our Tune
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged greed, nursery rhyme, parody, poem, stuck on December 19, 2012| 4 Comments »
Ring around the rosie
pocket full of posies
ashes ashes
we all fall down
Sing around the secret
pockets full of deep debt
credit, credit
we all fall down.
Spring around the danger
prayers full of anger
rifle, rifle
we all fall down.
Dance around each other
foes instead of lovers
righteous, righteous
we all fall down.
Swimming through the darkness
choosing to be heartless
tight fist, tight fist,
we all fall down.
Pointing with our fingers
blame and guilt and whimper
ashes, ashes
we all fall down.
After Several Very Hard Days
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged comfort, dark, hard times, love, mother, parenting, poem, poetry, son on December 18, 2012| 5 Comments »
In the boat of night
my boy and I float.
There are no oars.
We use our voices
to move through
the waves. But
the currents take
us wherever the currents
take us. It is dark.
We hold each other
as if there is no one
else in the world.
For this moment,
there is no one else
in the world. There is
his voice. My voice.
His ears. My ears.
Our warmth. And
the cold all around.
Meeting the World Completely
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, light, love, paradox, poem, poetry, surrender on December 17, 2012| 3 Comments »
Perhaps because the wound
is so deep, or perhaps because
there is not one petal left
to murmur over, or perhaps
because it really is a miracle,
today the heart breaks open
even wider and unthinking we exclaim
yes, yes to the wind as it stirs
the whole field into shimmer,
whirling all the loosened snow up, up
into the air until the invisible currents
are visible, white-frocked and shining,
swift swirl and rising, stiff scour then
drop. The uplift, ferocious,
and then the hushed sifting of light
through the dark evergreens,
the frisky cold kiss crystalline
on our cheeks—the wild gasp of oh in our breath
is spontaneous and real, every bit as real
as the world we would rather not know,
that terrible world, how it follows us
everywhere we go, how even now
its shadow makes this light
even more impossibly light.
A Gift for You My Heart Would Bring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gift, love, nothing, poem, release on December 17, 2012| 5 Comments »
Not the song but
the silence under the song,
not the stars
but the darkness between,
not the kiss
but the longing before the kiss
and the trembling long after, and
not the snow
but the spaces connecting the snow,
not the heart
but the pulse that persuades it to move,
no not the web
but the light in the strands,
not the certainty
but the wonder that birthed it,
and the branches, bare
and the cup, empty
waiting to be filled.
Let’s Walk Through It Together Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, door, haiku, hope, poem on December 15, 2012| 2 Comments »
between the night
and the fear, a door appears
a dark bird sings, sings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged carpe diem, gratitude, haiku, impermanence, loss, love on December 14, 2012| 5 Comments »
every day the right day
to smell the lily as if
never again
Things Change Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, haiku, poem, poetry, sand on December 13, 2012| 5 Comments »
Though Her Drawer is Full of Others
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged jealousy, musta sukainen, poem, tanka on December 12, 2012| 3 Comments »
now threadbare
those black socks
of jealousy
and still every morning
she pulls them on