I sometimes
forget we are
animated clay.
I forget
how everything
breaks.
I like to think
we have time.
Archive for August, 2016
Forgive Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, time on August 31, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Pre-teen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged isolation, parenting, poem, poetry on August 30, 2016| 1 Comment »
Every muscle in his body
is made of no. He is lock.
He is bolt. He is chain.
He has swallowed the key
so no one can reach it.
I try to fashion a skeleton key
out of love, but can’t find
a place where it will fit.
I hand it to him. He throws it.
Late night the girl with the nightmare
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged nightmare, parenting, poem, poetry on August 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »
arrives in my bed
and curls her body
into my body
and rests her head
in my arms and says
she is scared
and always I tell her
you’re safe,
I’m here,
and though
I hate for her
to suffer,
there is this
small warmth
delivered
to me
by fear.
Things to Take on the First Day of School
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, school on August 28, 2016| 1 Comment »
New erasers.
Ten pencils, lead number two.
Scent of ripe peaches.
Pent up quiet afternoons.
Callouses on the bottoms
of your feet.
A note from your mother
you’ll pretend
not to read.
The salt lick
of curiosity.
Left over sun.
Blank notebooks, three.
The drop kick
of love.
Looking at my Parents’ Wedding Album on their Fiftieth Anniversary
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged parents, poem, poetry, wedding anniversary on August 27, 2016| 2 Comments »
They look so happy in black and white—
my mother with her short and fitted skirt
and my father, trim and handsome,
escaped from his tux.
They are running to my grandfather’s car,
the one they will crash that evening,
but at this moment, they are still
in innocent bliss, dodging the handfuls of rice
hurled at them by friends.
They are out of focus, a blur of joy,
running hand in hand right off
the ragged-edged pages toward
that aqua blue Ford convertible
and all the other colors life has to throw them.
in a blue boat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lake, poem, poetry on August 27, 2016| 1 Comment »
The Opportunity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communication, parenting, poem, poetry, water lily on August 27, 2016| 1 Comment »
Moonless, the night,
and aimless, our paddling,
my son and I glide on the lake
and stare into the sky,
drawing invisible lines
for constellations—
the diamond, the maggot.
the spilt milk.
Our laughter ricochets
across the water.
Though I can’t see them,
I know we are surrounded
by lily pads. The flowers
will be closed by now—
something about the reversible
expansion and contraction of cells
by changes in water balance
and differential growth of cells
due to temperature—
but here we are,
my son and I, nocturnals,
lingering in the two-note hymn of crickets,
opening in the dark.
One Timing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, time on August 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »
watching the kids play
I consider we will never be young together—
not all flowers bloom in spring
One Conviction
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged perception, poem, poetry, weeds on August 27, 2016| 2 Comments »
in the knapweed field
a butterfly moves
from flower to flower—
trying to quiet the part of me
that only sees a problem
One Running Path
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mushroom, poem, poetry on August 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »
One Revelation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart, poem, poetry on August 27, 2016| 2 Comments »
Lesson for the Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry on August 27, 2016| 2 Comments »
A boy stands
in the middle of the path
and asks whoever comes by
for a password.
I try sandwich,
matchstick, concubine,
ranch, nightcrawler,
ranunculus, spider.
No, no, no, he says
to all my guesses,
but eventually we
get distracted
and speak of the lake
and breakfast.
We went on
to play, somehow
forgetting
that there was
ever a barrier
to uphold.
So arbitrary,
sometimes,
the lines we draw.
Ah, to let all
those boundaries
melt invisibly
into the floor
while we walk freely
around the house,
all the rooms unlocked.
After the Bear Incident
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged goldilocks, perfection, poem, poetry on August 19, 2016| 4 Comments »
Goldilocks never ate porridge again,
nor did she sit in wooden chairs,
but she spent the rest of her life
looking for another bed
that was just right—
damn perfection, the way
it always makes the rest of the world
so hard, so cold, so not enough.
Muse
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, cat, muse, poem, poetry on August 18, 2016| 2 Comments »
Muse
It’s like the absence
where the cat used to come
and rub against your leg
and you had some hope
there was real affection,
perhaps she even favored you,
you were, after all,
the one who fed her—
no wonder she nuzzled your shins—
but that was before you tried
to pick her up and rub
her belly. Eager fool.
It was days before the cat
let herself be seen again,
though you set out cream,
though you promised loudly
not to pick her up.
God, just to feel her
rub against your leg.
That would be enough, you
tell yourself, but you
and the cat both know you’ll try
to pick her up again, your hands
desperate as a blank page.
Return from Summer Camp
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged august, growing up, parenting, poem, poetry, summer camp on August 15, 2016| 1 Comment »
The boy who has been gone for a week
approaches his mother at the curb
outside the school. Did you have fun?
she asks, and he gives her a lopsided
smile that doesn’t even pretend to be cool.
His cheeks are sunburned and his hair
is sun drenched and his shoes are mismatched
and dusty. He is happy. Oh yes, mom, he says,
and he falls in her arms and she holds up
his tired weight. It is August and the leaves
have already begun to yellow on the hill.
He tells her of herons, how they flew at sunset,
their wings backlit and shining. Then he reaches
in his backpack to pull out a rock, a gray flint
in the shape of a heart. He slips it in her hand
and doesn’t move to leave her. They stand
on the curb long after all the other campers
have left with their families. All around them,
the scent of rain about to come, the sound
of men with their hammers building
something new.
One Eventually
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged healing, poem, poetry, time on August 14, 2016| 1 Comment »
Things to Do While Waiting for the Alarm to Ring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, self wrestling on August 14, 2016| 2 Comments »
Don’t move. You don’t want to wake
the person next to you. Don’t sing.
Watch the clouds as they transform
form gray to gold to pink to white.
Fight with yourself about what to do first
when you rise. Count the leaves
on the philodendron. Follow
with your eyes the cracks in the ceiling
and imagine travelling in there. Lose
track of the path that brought you here.
Remember the day in second grade
when you knew you would never be loved.
Try to quiet that bouncy pop song lyric
that will not leave you alone. Don’t hum.
Beat yourself up for not being more courageous.
Tell yourself you shouldn’t beat yourself up.
Give up. Notice the way that the sheet
is so thin and still somehow warm enough.
From My Kitchen in Colorado
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged arrival, childhood, poem, poetry on August 13, 2016| 1 Comment »
Long before we could see
the smokestacks rising above
the rooftops of Madison,
my brother and I would shout
from the backseat,
“I see Oscar Mayer!”
Though we had never been in,
it was the building where
our grandfather worked
and its gray flues meant
we were close to Papa’s home.
I remember wanting it
bad enough to create
the vision in the distance.
“I see Oscar Mayer,”
I’d say, and my brother
would say he saw it, too,
and my mother or father would
explain it was still an hour away.
Five minutes later,
my brother would insist
he could see it for sure,
and then I’d see it again,
and an hour would pass this way
until finally the dark smoke
rose on the horizon
and we’d shout in unison,
“I see Oscar Mayer!”
It still happens sometimes,
I want to arrive somewhere
so badly I can see it
though it isn’t there,
or more likely I have no idea
how the destination will appear and so
I declare myself far away,
though I don’t really know.
Decades ago the Madison
plant was closed,
though my brother still writes
sometimes to tell me he can see it.
It was easier then—
we knew exactly
what we were looking for,
knew it so well that
I almost think
I can see it from here.
The Simple Answer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged answer, approach, poem, poetry on August 11, 2016| 1 Comment »
What, she said, are you going to do?
I thought of the Tarahumara
who run over a hundred miles
in their huaraches—
take many small steps,
I said, and let a smile
find my face.