Puff Of Smoke Poems

weed-filled yard, tired old house
but
bright hydrangeas beckon
could this be your door?

We can’t stay here
not in this house
not in this space
between us
not in this space
between before And
after

No clinging can make the liminal stay
but it is
Here For Us
right now.

Here, now.

Breathe it in.
Breathe it in despite
the wildfire air
of worlds and bridges
already burned.

Keep moving, and move fast.
If you slow
or (worse)
stop
what you see
will scare you.

It will be debt
or a dead fawn
Lack
or a predatory wolf
Feeling stupid
or a flood.

Then I remember—Rules
Are stories I made up
So don’t believe them all.

Truth is,
when I said slow down,
Look around,
The first thing I saw
was a snail with a green and golden shell
snailing along through the grass
and because I slowed
he survived the dogs and I
who were, only a moment before,
busy barreling forward through the world

This morning, finished reading Joy Sullivan’s poetry collection, Instructions For Traveling West. My book review—

I dog-ear only books to keep—

Thank you, Joy, for stirring up

words–

alien, familiar, culpable,

blessed as a fresh

tomato, a half-eaten pear,

red lipstick,

French 75,

hips and longing,

a diving creature of 

the deep blue

raking last year’s leaves
find this tiny galaxy
buried in the dirt—
wonder who
dropped this chunk of universe
here in our driveway?

while I tend gardens, weed and plant,
mulch and sweat
and yell at the dogs
to not pee on my dahlias—
All that time,
quietly alongside me the
wild Phlox—purple, pink, white
bloom in the world
everywhere else—along paths,
side banks, in the woods,
even at the edge of the driveway—
wind sown reminder
to look up
to not try so hard
all the damn time

in the night, strong winds
knocked the robin’s nest from our porch—
tiny losses, fragile and blue.

Add it to the list of losses—
that ever-lengthening list
we each of us carry
through our coping—
a house in the woods, travel,
books and food, tears,
Sex and friends and wine
and laughing
and dancing, badly

Some years,
losses flow by us,
fast current we can step into
or away

Some years, our losses are boulders piled on
holding us frozen in place

But even boulders wear down
Eventually
become stones we carry in our pockets

By now, by our age,
all our pockets are full to overflowing
and still
we add more

Lucky. Lucky us to have loved so well
and been loved so well
That we have so much to carry

early spring trees, newly green—
They might as well be shouting, Hope
with each unfurling leaf—
I put down
my box of worries
at their feet,
their roots spread and veining the ground—
Look up, through their half bare, half green branches.
Until I put it down, I hadn’t noticed
how piled up, how heavy that box had grown.
Now, breathe easier in all this green

in winter-dead grass
wild violets spring up
alive demonstration
of the season’s next move

Another day, another poem that writes itself—-

Power line workers
cut huge, meandering branches
from the interfering trees

Blossoms
Falling
Everywhere

Falling on the chainsaw men
and the sidewalk
the road
the children walking home from school
and on the clean-up crew—
men with rakes and push brooms
hard hats covered in flower petals