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Archive for February, 2013

Clear Day Haiku

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 27, 2013| 2 Comments »

blue so wide
no need to wonder
if we’re connected

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Gift

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 27, 2013| 2 Comments »

A woman watches the snow
as it falls out the window.
She reads another book
to her daughter, this one
about the sea.
The phone does not ring.
The door does not open.
An hour falls away. Outside,
the sun is fierce and the sky pellucid.
The woman and her daughter
paint beans. They turn them
into a game and count
how many sides are green.
Outside, another squall.
The woman listens
as the girl makes up a song.
They eat soup. Read another book.
The sun moves an hour across the floor.
The day goes on and on this way.
The woman doesn’t once think,
I am happy. Happiness is her.
The snow falls. The sun comes.
Today, she greets them both the same.
The woman is lost, perhaps. Only not.
She is finding herself in the current,
unconcerned for the moment
if the tide is going out
or coming in.

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If They Scripted Us, Would It Read Like This?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 25, 2013| 3 Comments »

I say later,
she says now.
I say, do it,
she says how.
I say hurry,
she plays slow.
I say stop,
she says no.
I say wait,
she says why.
I say share,
she says mine.
I say sleep,
she says play.
Another night
Another day.

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Ten Things I Won’t Think about Right Before I Die

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 24, 2013| 3 Comments »

It happened once. I was drowning,
held under by a keeper hole
in a rapid on the Salmon.
The light streamed through
the river’s surface and I watched
as it bent and streamed
through the roil and churn.
I thought, so this
is what it is like
to be in a washing machine.
And then I thought,
so this is what it is like
to die. And I was not at all scared,
not until the hydraulics spit me out
and I was pummeled and lashed
and battered by waves.
So how could I now say
that I will not think of pomegranates
or how scorpions mate?
How can I say I will not recall
who did the dishes tonight or
the name of the boy who
in sixth grade pinned me to the floor
so his friend could kiss me and how I cried?
I’m loathe to think about what
I might not think about for fear
of creating that frame—the one the brain
retains. Like the time when Janine
told my son not to drop her earring
into the cauliflower soup. In an instant,
he dropped it right into his bowl,
his neural circuitry wired by her words.
Tonight it is enough to know
that the dishes are done. That scorpions do
whatever scorpions do to procreate,
regardless of my ignorance.
And the orange beside me is ripe, so ripe
it weaves itself into the poem in the place
where the pomegranate would be.
The washing machine is quiet now.
And if I were to die right now, my last thought
would be of not wanting to think
about how much I have hurt you.

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Just for a Moment

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 23, 2013| 3 Comments »

after reading up into the silence the green by e.e. cummings

Cold is the
(hold me)
wind and
sharp is
the barb
exposed
and
(hold me)
sour are
the words
that flew,
and slow
(hold me)
is the ache
to leave.

It’s cold
love
and though
it won’t
change anything
it would
feel good
(the dark
is near)
if you’d
just
for a
moment
(hear
the train?)
hold me.

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Standing on the Edge of the Canyon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 23, 2013| 6 Comments »

Of course I imagine jumping.
I wouldn’t. But there is that
fleeting flash where I am already
over the guard rail and falling
past the hard Kayenta caprock,
cold wind through my jacket,
falling past the dark varnish, the sheer
red walls, my hair streams above me,
I pass bulbous spires, gulp air,
pass vermillion pedestals, I didn’t
think it would end this fast—at the edge
looking over I take a step back.

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Finn Learns Cursive

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 21, 2013| 2 Comments »

It begins as a dark wing arcing up,
then cart wheeling high, swooping
down, then back up to a point before
diving as falcons do toward the earth
with great straightness, curving up
at the very last moment, in this case
before meeting the blue solid line, climbing
to intersect the first long arc,
then doubling back on its path.

The pencil wheels across the blank
page, it flies into another loop,
and another, pushes into a bow
and then bends, sweeps and circles again,
and the boy moves his hand, entranced
by the leaden record of its dance
as his thoughts appear on uneven horizons
until the whole page
is a flock of slender black wings
all of them rising at once,
that beating, that beating, his heart.

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Five Accidents

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 20, 2013| 6 Comments »

my whole life
preparing me for this moment—
10:19 p.m.

*

rolling down my window
to ask directions, hearing
a chorus of birds

*

new snow on the grass
this, too, the scent
of exploded stars

*

please, I said
to the sun, don’t go
some part of me
reveling in asking
the impossible

*

my whole life
preparing me for this moment—
10:20 p.m.

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Three Nightlings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 19, 2013| 5 Comments »

mama! she shrieks
I throw back the sheets, leap
run naked through night
but can’t make it into her dream
the place she needs me most

*

whatever the moon
says, that is what I
say, too

*

rushing out
to smell the morning
before its gone
there will be other mornings
but only one like this

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Under the Big Shade Tree

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 19, 2013| 5 Comments »

They are all around me,
the ones with white hair and no hair,
the ones who can hardly stand
or walk or feed themselves.
I am like them that way,
only much, much younger,
sitting in the sharp cut grass
wearing only my diaper,
my bloomers, and my curiosity.
I am eating a popsicle,
orange. And I can tell
they are watching me.
It is easy for them.
They smile at me and point
and chat. But I also know
it is not about me,
their broken laughter.
Nor is it about the popsicle
trickling sticky and orange
in my hands, down my neck.
It’s about, well, I don’t know
that part yet.

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