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Posts Tagged ‘comparison’

The Teacher

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 4, 2026| 21 Comments »


 
The cantaloupe was golden 
beneath its raised veins, 
the globe of it heavy in my hands,
its musky perfume filling the hot 
summer air at the farmstand.
 
When I handed the woman my money, 
I was paying her not so much for this melon, 
but for the memory of other melons
we have shared when I moaned my delight,
the sweet orange flesh deliquescing 
in our eager mouths.  
 
This melon was no such melon. 
Though we waited and waited, 
when I sliced in and offered you a bite,
we both agreed the flesh was a bit too hard, 
the flavor sweet but a little flat. 
A fine-enough melon. But not a melon
for rhapsodizing or writing an ode.
 
I think of Grandma Betty, how 
in her later years it didn’t matter
what you served her, she would always declare, 
This is the best pie I ever had. 
This is the best tea I’ve ever had. 
This is the best. The best. 
 
This is not the best cantaloupe I have ever had, 
just a substandard stand in for ecstasy. Yet here I am 
writing an ode to this mediocre melon, learning again 
how my longing for something to be different from what it is
can destroy any joy found in what is here. 
Somehow, this fine-enough melon is bringing me to my knees 
at the altar of the moment, humbling me, inviting me to question 
how I choose to meet the world. 
It is, perhaps, after all, the best melon I have ever had. 

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Tempted by Comparison

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 23, 2021| 2 Comments »


 
 
Today I know the self
as a stone in the stream—
everything around me rushing and quickening,
and me, a way to mark all this moving.
Amidst all the bubble and rush,
a stone has its own very slow journey,
and yet, there is no doubt
the stone belongs, is doing
exactly what a stone should do—
which is to be true to its stone-ness,
to know itself as a traveler, yes,
but also as an integral part of the path,
a model of consistency, seldom
in a hurry, inclined to show up
exactly where it is.

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I Cut My Own Wound, Pour In My Own Salt

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 21, 2014| 2 Comments »

I like to torture myself with thoughts
of how perfect her world is every day,

how much easier, more beautiful, more
pleasuresome than mine. Surely

the eagles in her sky make wider arcs
on their statelier, darker brown wings.

Her Easter lilies must fill her rooms
with sweeter more honest white perfume.

Her elderberries must have more bioflavinoids.
More antioxidants, too.

The earthworms in her garden are probably fatter.
The leaves on her elm trees are greener for sure.

I will not mention her grass.

If she rode an elephant, it would have jewels
dripping down its majestic, wrinkled head.

If she had an ermine, its fur would be whiter
than any snow found in my yard.

If I am the stroppy, shaggy emu, then she
is the egret with filamentous plumes, all milky

and showy, that cascade down her slender back.
If I am an eel, she’s an angelfish. If I’m cracked

and scrambled, she’s an ornate Easter egg.
Not that I want to be an Easter egg. Nor an egret.

Nor angelfish. It’s just that I want to be happy,
as happy as I tell myself she is.

*an E-poem for Lian Canty’s Alphabet Menagerie

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