Only the parsley
still grows. Beside it,
the tall, brittle stems
of blackened basil.
Behind it, limp leaves
of green and red
chard splayed on the dirt
like empty hands.
Along the fence,
brown stalks
of sunflowers,
taller than my head.
Dead. This is what
the cold does.
It takes it all away.
I crouch beside
the green parsley
and remind myself
to be warm with you,
tell myself
it is not too late,
that sometimes,
against the odds,
despite these cold,
cold nights, something
green and fresh survives.
Archive for November, 2013
The Real Work
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, love, poem, poetry, self realization, winter on November 9, 2013| 1 Comment »
something changing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, poem, shadow, transition on November 9, 2013| 1 Comment »
shadows inside
shadows inside (shh, tiptoe)
shadows that was
how many thousand
shadows ago
What Would Your Poem Say if You Got Out of the Way?
Posted in Uncategorized on November 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Come join me for a day of play in Ridgway, Colorado, on November 16, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The workshop, “Finding a Framework for our Words,” is for people ready to be pushed around by their work.
Sponsored by Weehawken Arts. To register or for more information, call 970-318-0150 or visit http://www.weekhawkenarts.org.
While Listening to the Physical Therapist, I Think of my Friend
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, hamstring pull, heartache, physical therapy, poem, poetry on November 8, 2013| 3 Comments »
It is not so much
what you do to heal, she said,
but that you stop doing
the things that hurt.
The PT speaks of
my hamstring, but I
think about my aching friend,
and wonder if the heart
responds like any other muscle.
Perhaps if we could
stop from doing what
we know makes the pain
increase, like reaching
toward impossible things,
it would be easier to heal.
We are, perhaps,
slow learners. We
are, perhaps, like the children
who say of a scrape, It only hurts
when I touch it, and then
touch it all day to be sure
it still hurts.
The PT goes on to say
she does not mean
I should do nothing.
You can find other things
that don’t hurt to do.
She calls it active rest.
There are many things
a woman can do without
using her left hamstring.
Read. Laugh. Knit. Sing.
Stand on her right leg.
Kiss. Still the longing
to do what hurts—to run—
as if it’s the only thing.
Just as my friend with the pull in her heart
wants to reach and reach again, as if
it might hurt less, not more,
if she keeps practicing.
Interior Weather Report
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fog, great blue whale, parenting, poem, poetry, sadness, tetrameter, weather on November 6, 2013| 1 Comment »
Yesterday, a low gray haze.
A fog. A blur. A sullen shroud.
At dinnertime my young boy says,
Mom, can you guess how much a cloud
would weigh? I guess a thousand pounds.
No, more, Mom, guess again, he says.
Two million pounds? He says, Go down.
I give, I say. He looks away,
then tells me, Half a great blue whale.
And guess how much a storm cloud weighs?
I say, I give again, and smile.
A whole blue whale, he says, then splays
his hands in thrill, and says, Guess how
much hurricanes would weigh?
This time I guesstimate too low—
Perhaps two hundred whales, I say.
By now I’m curious about
how many pods of great blue whales
could swim in squalls of heartsick doubt
and grief, the pea soup kind that swelled
up yesterday. Three hundred whales,
he tells me and I wonder if
the same great number found their way
into my brooding thoughts. He shifts
the conversation to how heat
is what makes clouds suspend up high.
Meanwhile, a foggy thought repeats.
A dozen great blue whales swim by.
In the Middle of the Storm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, possibility, pure potential, snow on November 5, 2013| 3 Comments »
Walking through the field
the snow fills in the trail ahead.
It’s a vanishing path,
it’s vertigo,
and now, love, imagine,
without a set route
there is nowhere
we can’t go.
Ready to Sleep
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bat, darkness, poem, poetry, sierra leone on November 4, 2013| 1 Comment »
Darkness comes so early now,
though it is only a trick
of the hands. The darkness
has not changed. It is the same,
the same as it ever was,
vast and ever expanding they say,
only this time of year
it appears from here that there
is more of it. And that it comes earlier
than it did.
Sometimes it cannot get dark enough.
Sometimes I fall in love
with the way that it
holds me entirely, not like the light.
With the light, there is always
a shadow somewhere.
But with dark, it touches me
everywhere and at once,
rubbing me sweetly till
my every line is erased.
In Sierra Leone, they speak of the days
when there was no darkness, no night.
Then God gave a basket to the bat
and told him to give it to the moon.
Tell Moon, said God, I will be by soon
to explain how it is to be used.
The basket was full of darkness.
And the bat lashed it to his back
and he flew and he flew and he flew
until he needed to search for food.
He set the basket for a moment down,
and while he was gone it was found
by another hungry animal who pried
the basket open. Bat returned only seconds
too late, but the darkness had escaped.
Sometimes I feel like the bat in this story,
who tries for the rest of his days
to gather the darkness back into wings
and contain it in the basket again.
As if I could hold the darkness instead
of it holding me. As if I could control
something as vast as immortality.
So the darkness does what it does,
it escapes. It escapes. It escapes again.
I stand with my empty basket at the edge
of the only world I know where
I swear the night seems longer,
and I wonder if perhaps
at last I am getting somewhere.
Perhaps: A Love Poem
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, opening, poem, poetry, quiet on November 3, 2013| 3 Comments »
You are unlike
the bright taste of lemon
and you are unlike
the wild geese.
Quiet, you are,
and coiled in tight.
Not like the scent
of the lilies exploding
into the living room. Not
like the milkweed pods
that burst in milky froth.
But sometimes, when
I, too, am very quiet, not
like the perfume of wild
rose, not like the autumn
wind, more like
a hang moon calendula seed,
sometimes then
you let me in and I notice
how there is perhaps
another way to open
when we curl in,
shut out, say no.
On the Day of Mictecacihuatl
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged all souls, birthday, cemetery, day of the dead, death, life, poem, poetry on November 3, 2013| 6 Comments »
On a hill
in the sun
at the edge
of the grave
in the grass
let us meet
on the day
when the veils
are thin
between
the worlds—
and perhaps
the Aztec
goddess
will open
her fleshless jaw
so that all
the stars
fall out
as they did
today
so that we
might find them
inside
each other’s words
and speak
of darkness
with syllables
made
of light.