Dear Poetry Friends,
Thank you so much for the sweet notes I received while I was on vacation letting me know you missed the daily poems. I should have mentioned ahead of time that I would be taking a break from nightly sending. Then, yesterday, the motherboard on my computer went out and I understand it will be at least a week before I have it back … so we will be on a limited posting schedule again until my computer returns. Luckily, through the grace of iCloud (how is this possible) my poems from our trip still exist on my phone. What a great technological twist to a story about a technological bummer!
AND NOW FOR TWO WEEK’S WORTH OF POEMS!
Bouquet of Poems from Florida Keys
changing blues in the water
trying to name them as if this way
I will remember
*
riding rusty bikes
every pedal an invitation
to sing along
*
after facing new monsters:
the ankle grabbing bubba, the dunka—
the swimming pool safe at last
*
between domino spots
infinite space
for laughter
*
drinking lemon drops
with my mother—
afternoon sunshine
*
sea breeze so strong
it makes of all my thoughts
a kite
*
training to believe in luck—
at Boondocks mini golf
hole in one
*
once swimming in the waves
how soon I forget
stench of beached seaweed
*
how quietly they become
part of everything—
all those dropped petals
*
on silent streets
walking with midnight—
never once feeling lonely
*
what shall I listen to—
from far away
a song on the wind
*
after thousands of years
what new is there to say
about waiting
Bouquet of Poems from Washington DC
unable to see stars
I find a tree about to leaf
wish on a greening bud
(at Yoko Ono’s “Wishing Tree” in the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden)
*
we wade into the black
sea of names, deeper, deeper—
salt water on our cheeks
(at the Vietnam Memorial)
*
above the wall of the dead
a field of tiny blue self-seeding flowers—
how peace begins
(at the Vietnam Memorial)
*
night of a thousand sirens—
meanwhile, above the orchestra pit,
the Russian ballerina bows
(at the Kennedy Center, Mariinsky Ballet, “Le Corsair”)
*
surrounded by beauty
he finds only reasons to complain—
rain of cherry blossoms
(beside the Tidal Pool)
*
beside the empty cherry tree
the message of Martin Luther King
still blooming
(at the MLK Memorial)
*
in a room of Rothko
I find it inside—
my horizon
(at the Phillips Museum)
*
Lincoln’s giant marble fist—
staring at it until my own fist
opens
(at the Lincoln Memorial)
