Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘punctuation’

!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 26, 2026| 6 Comments »


for Mark Burrows
 
And there, in your letter, several doors,
all of them in the shape of an exclamation point,
all invitations to slip myself through
their dark slender lines and into
the realm of ecstasies—world of oh!
and wow! and yes! and love!—
into the sensory kingdom of blisses
that is always here, and yet somehow
I miss it, dulled as I am by the ellipses
of shoulds, the endless commas
that join me to the litany of frying pan,
dish soap, calendar, telephone,
toothbrush, postage stamp, pillow.
But oh! The wide spiraling of eagle this morning!
The deepening rose of the clouds at dawn!
My daughter asleep in her room!
Oud! Ginger! Dark crimson yarn!
Emptiness! Cool breeze! Your letter!
What joy this morning when I saw
all those tall, slim exclamation marks
and recognized them as the doors they are,
each one the chance to say yes! Yes!
to vibrating with elation! Yes! to the bright
bubbling champagne giddiness that rises inside
because wing! Because spring! Because sun!
Because pillow! Because toothbrush! Because breath!
Because orange! Because toes! Because you! 

Read Full Post »

Filling My Purse with Commas

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

All afternoon, each time

I think I should hurry,

I pull out a comma,

such humble punctuation,

and invite it into the moment—

and the comma does

what it always does, which

is to invite a pause, a small pause,

of course, but a pause long enough

to breathe, to notice what else

is happening, a slight

suggestion that right here

is a perfect place to rest,

yes, how funny I never noticed

before that the comma itself

looks as if it’s bowing, nodding

its small dark head to what is,

encouraging us to find

a brief silence and then,

thus refreshed, to go on.

 

Read Full Post »

( … )

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 25, 2019| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

She wanders the parenthetical garden,

each curved stem an invitation to step

away from the trail (remember how the Stoic

said to dwell on the beauty of life, to run

with the stars), and soon she is what some

call lost (Any fool can know, said Einstein,

the point is to understand), and there,

lost in the sound of the bird she doesn’t hear

(Heard melodies are sweet, said Keats,

but those unheard are sweeter), she sits

on the swing of her thoughts (what is it

she is so afraid of) (seek those, said Rumi,

who fan your flame)(how comfortable

can she become with her errors)(false start)

and notices how it is the knots that hold up

the swing (what story is she ignoring?).

This garden, my god, it is beautiful.

She was going somewhere, wasn’t she?

Read Full Post »

One for the Ellipses

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

three breadcrumbs

trailing from what we know

to what remains unsaid

Read Full Post »

Punctuated

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 1, 2018| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

I keep in my pocket

a handful of colons

 

to pull out in times of need,

you know, for those times

 

when I’m just not sure

what I’m trying to say.

 

That’s what a colon’s for.

It says, “Here’s what I mean.”

 

It’s a way to introduce things,

and you know how valuable

 

introductions can be.

Something’s so fine about a colon:

 

  1. the symmetry, of course,
  2. the simplicity, and

 

  1. the way that it joins

two independent clauses.

 

And what are you,

really, my love, but one

 

independent clause,

and what am I but a second,

 

ever trying to explain,

interpret or expand

 

on the first. And that

colon between us?

 

Two stars in an intimate

constellation. Two points

 

on a map that leads

only in. Twin cherry buds

on an invisible limb

just before they bloom.

 

Read Full Post »

One Invitation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

the semicolon,

ever winking, ever promising

two independents can come together—

a tiny constellation

glittering beneath my pinkie

Read Full Post »