Here, darling, there is no x
to mark it, and the path has been
erased so many times the paper
has worn thin, but perhaps you
will recognize here in the crease
the stand of trees where once we sat
beneath the vacant aspen and said
the truest words we knew.
You were on track then, my heart
emptying into your palm as you
pressed it into my skin. To the north,
a window with blue neon blinking Yes, Yes,
Yes, Yes, and to the south a book with
unfilled pages and to the east, of course,
the sun as it rises and rises again and the west
is apparently off the map, but I am here,
darling, cursing the map myself, noticing
the scale is inconsistent and the markers
so cryptic. Who made this map, anyway?
But here I am, here I am, closer to you
than your own hand. It is a marvel
we manage to miss each other, but
here I am, love, here I am.
Archive for October, 2013
Drawing You a Map to My Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cartography, love, poem, poetry on October 22, 2013| 1 Comment »
And When October Goes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, change, leaves, letting go, poem, poetry on October 21, 2013| 1 Comment »
Not only all around us
are the leaves letting go,
but inside us, too, so much
is falling. All those fluttersome
dreams we thought would last
forever. Imagine that. There
was a time we believed
that summer would never end.
We truly believed it. No one
could have convinced us then
of a thing called autumn.
And here it is. For hours
today I could have grieved
the leaves as they released—
gold and more gold and innumerable
shades of brown. But I did not.
Funny how the world goes on
despite all this falling. Funny
how beautiful it is to me now,
the empty branches, the adamant wind, the dank
scent of the world as it changes.
Migration
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, birds, fall, poem, poetry on October 20, 2013| 1 Comment »
the bird inside me
migrated
I miss its song—
this morning was so quiet
watching frost melt
on the fallen leaves
*
did I, too, forget
how to sing?
did I also
fly away
from myself?
*
my hands
do not need to be asked—
they move unbidden
to touch the places
on my body
where the pain
unfolds
*
and here
and here
and here—
touch me here
and here
and here
*
what use is a tongue?
what use is song?
what use these hands?
what use silence?
*
who is the one
who thinks of the world
in terms of usefulness?
*
it was a long time
before I heard
the leaves had a song
of their own
but only
when
I moved
*
the nest
is still here
inside—when
you’re not looking
I fold up my
silence, my
hands, my
wants
and hide
*
is it
so wrong
sometimes
I pretend
I am
gone
Taking Photographs in a Dying Town
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art, detachment, entropy, photography, poem, poetry, tetrameter on October 19, 2013| 1 Comment »
A thin blue line. One paler blue.
A gray rectangle. Six brown squares.
Four cylinders of cream. Thin smears
of white. And many, many clear
isosceles. It’s easier
to take the story this way: parts.
Forget that it’s a shattered window,
broken door outlined in blue,
a fallen roof, the beams collapsed.
The house belonged to no one you
knew. Find the angle, click the shutter.
Tell yourself you’re interested
in how things fall apart. It’s not
catastrophe this way. It’s art.
Long Night in Abiquiu
Posted in Uncategorized on October 18, 2013| 5 Comments »
All night, they wrestled
inside me, the angel
who pulls you in closer
and the angel who shoves
you away. They tussled
and grappled and pushed back
my stomach, my spleen, my gallbladder
to make enough space
for the brawl. What could
I do but lie there, moaning,
not even recalling which one
I was rooting for, just longing
for them to stop. In the morning,
they were both exhausted,
having rearranged each others
ribs. Each conceded the other
had a compelling case and
went out for coffee, leaning
on each other’s shoulders
as they left, leaving me
with an emptiness so great
a whole flock of ravens
flew through.
While Listening to Gregory Botts Discuss Art
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art, connection, love, opposites, poem, poetry on October 18, 2013| 1 Comment »
bringing the far
in close,
a reconciliation
of opposites,
that is what he said
he was doing
the white cloud,
the dark branch
connected on canvas,
a meeting of what tumbles
and what rises, though
everything eventually falls
and then rises,
how could I not
think of you and me
a far and a close
still searching
for the frame that
can hold us both
Trying to Put Humpty Together Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brokenness, humpty dumpty, poem, poetry, wholeness on October 16, 2013| 3 Comments »
He cracks himself up. –Julie Cummings
Glue, of course.
Super and Elmer’s
and rubber cement.
Rubber bands.
Scotch tape.
Chicken wire.
String.
A full body cast.
A balancing act.
Affirmations
and hypnotizing.
They told him stories
of how whole he was.
Then offered
St. John’s Wort.
Sublingual B-12.
Calcium citrate
with Vitamin D.
Weeks of physical
therapy. Until
in the end,
Humpty laughed
at them all
and said,
“What a gift
it is to fall.
I love being broken,
it lets in
the light.
See this gold?”
He said,
and then gave it
away.
F Equals
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceleration, laws, physics, poem, poetry, unknowing on October 15, 2013| 2 Comments »
At the campfire, Sam’s father
tells me that Newton’s Second Law
is not always true. I add it to
my growing list of rules to not
depend on. Let’s say in this equation,
the woman is the mass. This is,
of course, a private joke, and
she can laugh about how inconsistent
the mass might be. Fix her to a moment, then,
say that Sunday morning when her kitchen
smelled of apples simmering whitely on the stove,
the steam of the giant canning pot filled
the room with warmth. Let’s say the force
is the voice of the man as he says
the words he knows she hates to hear.
The force is soft spoken and low. Then a equals
the increasing rate at which the woman’s heart races
then runs from the room, though her body still stands
behind the green counter, stirring the simmering fruit.
And a is the increasing rate at which her tears fall.
And a is the rate of the wind as it moves the storm closer
to the walls of the house where the kitchen is warming.
And a is the rate at which the mass learns yet again
that she must be her own bliss.
And what has happened to value m? There is less
of her now than the equation might suggest.
I believe you, I say to Sam’s dad. The fire
snaps between us. The leaves rustle
in the wind. In a perfect world, I could
measure them. In a perfect world, I wonder
what happens to the force.
One Beat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged intimacy, love, mask, poem, poetry on October 14, 2013| 4 Comments »
Take
it off.
The hat.
The jeans.
The shoes.
The shirt.
The missing
rings.
Take off
the watch.
Let down
the hair.
Remove
the public
sparkle
from
the eyes.
Let slip
the beaded
shawl
of shoulds,
the tired
scarves
of worry.
Lonesome
glove
of shame
that still
remains,
thin gloss
of why,
let’s
lose them.
Almost
naked
now my
love, please
touch me
slow
before
we put
it all
back
on.
Least Likely
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apocalypse, poem, poetry on October 13, 2013| 1 Comment »
Her finger had already
pushed the red button
beneath the raised letters
on the gray steel panel: APOCALYPSE.
The button had been glowing, warm
to her touch, and her finger
traced slow circles on it
before she said out loud
to herself, “Let’s play.”
She had always been
such a good little girl.
The button gave no resistance.
She felt no regret.
The destruction wasn’t real yet.
In fact, right here
in this sweet remove, before
the crumbling, before
the mess, before the weeping,
the loss, the ash, my god
she had never felt so very alive.