Add this on the mountain of impossible tasks:
carry Confidence in your children.
Be clear and certain of its weight
like a rock in your knapsack, solidly itself.
Now, its time is here.
Bestow it, confidence given as a gift
when you send them out
into the world that they can handle
whatever stones trip them along the way.
Let go of hoping they need you.
Let go of fearing they need you.
Let go of all that wishing,
all your pebbled memories.
Open your tightly closed fingers.
Let that rock you love nestle
into the ground at their feet.
With your empty fingers
raise your hand and wave.
Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems
Climbing This Mountain
Acoustic Summer
Summer has a soundtrack–
Cicadas and the clink of ice cubes in tea,
water making itself heard
against the dock, the shore,
the fountain’s pool.
In the middle distance,
backdrop of this art,
barking dog, laughing child,
whirr of bicycle tires
on hot pavement,
creak of window fans.
Beneath it all,
so constant, so soft,
reminder call of
the mourning dove.
Learning To Subtract
This too, is part of your job, harder than toilet training or teaching addition.
Don’t pound on the opaquing glass between you and them. Don’t
tap their shoulders like the nervous bird you are. They are
ready, eager to get into the world. Don’t do anything
to make them turn around. But in case they
glance back, you should be Waving.
And, of course, you should
be Smiling as you Wave.
This, too, is part
of your
job.
Favorite Recipe
Our whole week was a recipe
called Indulge.
Days beat gently past us, like slow
waves or like soft, sure hands
kneading bread dough.
The world was warm.
Languid and gleeful,
we submitted ourselves
to the pummeling,
allowed ourselves
to be shaped for
Rest.
Now, like following a delicious recipe
known almost by heart, it is time
to move on to the next step.
Now, we are set to Rise.
Drowning In Coffee Foam
But
what a way to Go
says the bee perched
on the rim of my cup of
Cappuccino
Peach Tree
The tree in the yard
so filled with ripening peaches
that we must brace the branch
or lose it:
Define Plenty
His Work In This World: American Fairy Tale
As we punch our alarms, brush our teeth, hurrying,
the old man takes his seat in front of a rusty green trailer on Route 24.
Five days I’ve seen him now, parked on his kitchen chair
at the side of the road, waving to the cars that pass.
He is the main character in this American Fairy Tale,
set exactly here to dispense Safe Travels,
Comfortable Dinners and Sleep Full Of Magical Dreams
to all who wave back.
Don’t wave and there’s trouble ahead—a fender-bender, a burnt roast,
a sleepless night.
Almost no one, of course, ever figures this out.
I wouldn’t have either,
except I stopped my car today,
thinking I was Lost,
and so learned the twist in this tale.
Here, in his story, no horses, no forests,
no travelers who’ve missed their path,
nor displaced royalty searching for
Dragons
Treasure
or Magical Birds
Or at least
none wise or lucky enough to stop their car
and ask directions from an old man.
August
is tart lemonade and a blue plate of sugar cookies sprinkled with colored crystals, eaten on the front porch, frosty glass perched on the wide railing, cookie on a paper napkin crumbs dropped for the ants (all business, as usual) to cart away.
Blackberry Pancakes
This was over breakfast, your homemade pancakes
thick with the blackberries I picked this morning,
still damp with dew when I drove them to your house.
We discussed living alone–
It’s all about angles, I said.
From a spot in the grass,
one tiny frog can take on the aspect
of movie monsters.
Your eyes light up.
Before this descends into a talk about Godzilla,
I make the transition—all about angles,
Point of View. Just so, life.
From a certain angle, lonely.
From another angle, rich
with magic and words.
You frown, puzzled. Then your face
clears, you pour maple syrup over your pancakes
and laugh. Oh, you say,
I thought we were talking about Angels.
Bliss: Five Sentence Fiction
Thanks once again to Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction for this week’s prompt. Visit her site to read other five-sentence fictions. Here’s my shot at it–
Bliss can be bought in a bottle, you know, so you Google directions to the right sort of store, an apothecary, as they used to say back when they first started bottling Bliss.
If they ever manage to find the store, most people pass Bliss by because it’s hard to grasp, the bottle is small and slippery, always perched precariously on the highest shelf and of course it’s almost invisible, which is why people settle for other bottles, larger ones on lower shelves, bottles labeled Comfort, Success In Business, Health, Wealth, Self Control, or the Abilities bottles: Mechanical, Mathematical, Culinary, Artistic, Musical, etc. when Bliss is what they wanted all along.
You’ll likely never get there by Google, but someday you may stumble upon the shop beneath the squeaky metal sign. It happens that way, occasionally, and if it happens to you, the secret is to walk to the back of the shop where dusty bottles are stacked to the ceiling, hold out your hands, right where you are, and Bliss might leap down and choose you.
But that way is rare and people spend fruitless years searching for the shop, so I’ll tell you the second secret: Bliss takes itself wherever it pleases and often can be found at your corner market next to the children’s favorite jam, or the mustard your love says is tastiest and there it is, ready to crawl into your arms like a sleepy kitten that’s been waiting just for you, and you can carry it home, for free.
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