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Archive for February, 2017

Learning to Wander Those Paths

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 10, 2017| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

between the question

and the answer is the garden

where the rose is still open—

soft-petalled and fragrant—

regardless of what comes next

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One Unexpected

Posted in Uncategorized on February 9, 2017| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

these many-petalled kisses—

apparently they didn’t hear

the forecast for snow

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Wet-in-Wet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 9, 2017| 5 Comments »

 

 

 

while not looking

at Van Gogh’s sunflowers,

inside my thoughts

I find them—

large unruly bouquets,

torches of hope

and yellow

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Journey Back to the Prefrontal Cortex

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 8, 2017| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

Susie suggests to improve

my stress, I “put space between

the stimulus and my response.”

Breathing will help, she says,

and so tonight, never mind

what the stimulus was,

I imagined taking in a breath

the size of North America,

let the whole topography

unfurl in me, and when

I still felt the urge to fight,

I upgraded the next breath

to a space more the size

of the milky way and while

I was out there, on impulse, I put

that little almond-shaped amygdala

of mine on a passing comet

and watched it fly away,

its fists still up in the air

swinging at nothing.

I don’t know how it made it

all the way back to Placerville

so fast, but it was there in time

to hear my lips say what Susie

told me to say, Let’s start over.

And damned if it didn’t just put on

its fussiest pucker face, but

instead of mocking me,

it got all starry eyed, as if it were

thinking about how nice

it had been on that comet ride,

tiny lanterns of stars all around.

 

 

 

 

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An Open Luff Letter to Jack Mueller

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 7, 2017| 5 Comments »

 

 

Think about it, wrote Wendy.

There’s no such thing as a fish.

She explained how the word

 

is a catch all for species

that do not hail from the same source,

they just happen to live in the water.

 

And I think about how we use any word—

as if to name is to know. This is a fish, we say.

This is a friend. This is moon. This is shadow.

 

And this is love, a word

we sometimes toss from our tongues

as if it were ketchup or curtain,

 

cranberry, lichen or crane.

There’s no such thing as love,

I think. It’s a catch all for these unclassifiable feelings

 

we don’t know how to name.

(                ), wrote Jack,

and I wanted to write it back to him

 

in exactly the same way, but with words—

some glorious, speakable phrase

that might say how grateful I am

 

to swim together in the same water,

in this precise time, in this precise place,

and how his words make it easier

 

to be grateful for life, easier to attune

to what we are—not fish. Not moons.

Not tables. Not shadows,

 

but communities of trillions

and trillions of cells that co-exist, who knows why,

all of us spilling out of our parentheses.

 

Well, Jack, though it’s hard to improve on blank,

I love you, even if there’s no such thing.

Or as you might say, I luff you, I loof you,

and I love, too, your words, which are never just words—

love how they never point to anything,

not really, and how they mean everything.

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From Dust

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 6, 2017| 4 Comments »

 

 

So busy cleaning the cottage

I forget I am here

to enjoy these quiet rooms

 

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While Reading the Labels on Shampoo Bottles Containing Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, • Dimethicone, and Quaternium 80, I Realize

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 4, 2017| 3 Comments »

 

the only multisyllabic ingredients

I want in my hair

are your libidinous,

prurient, benevolent

ravenous hands 

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Five Cents

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 4, 2017| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

Finding by chance a buffalo nickel

my son decides to spend his fortune

on a girl he’s never met

who woke one morning

with cancer in her marrow—

 

he tells me he’s thinking

a lot about death,

and he’s scared,

and I tell him yes,

it’s scary.

 

Later, I look out the window,

and though there’s not a hint

of leaves on the trees outside,

I feel some certainty

about green and summer,

 

and I’m amazed at how

just when we think the world

could not get any colder,

we are reminded what even

a tiny bit of warmth can do.

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Imbolc

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 3, 2017| 3 Comments »

Before the planting

of the seeds,

the preparation

to plant the seeds—

too soon for the soil,

of course, but

here, the hands

of the planter.

Rose milk lotion. Rest.

The time for verbs,

later.

These long nights,

the time for dreams.

Out of darkness,

sprouting,

unstoppable budding,

sweet frolicsome riots

of soft and feral pink.

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Grace

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 1, 2017| 4 Comments »

It’s a slippery

world with slippery

ways and the treads on our soles

only keep us from slipping

until they don’t—

slippery words and slipping red shoulds

and slippery thoughts and slippery roads—

and each time we slip, we bruise,

then we rise, ’til we slip again

with our slippery steps

and our slippery lives,

it’s a slip of a wish,

this slippery hope

that we and the world

remain unbroke

n.

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