Seasons and Time
swing each other onto the dance floor
once more.
These old friends, together so long,
know the moods, the moves their partner
has in store. Here it comes, now—
This July moment when birds and
early risers discover (again) how days
shorten, how summer rushes
past us and February’s thick snow
readies itself to enter the dance.
The birds are talking quietly among themselves
and their tone is bemused—they
watch the dancers and wonder
what they see in each other, this strange pair—
Time always hurrying forward, eager to
See Something New and Seasons murmuring
Oh, let’s stretch our legs, sway through
this familiar circle, remember
October, remember May? Come now, around again.
Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems
This Same Dance
One Explanation, Straight From The Builder
A found poem, from The Poetry Home Repair Manual, by Ted Kooser. It jumped off the page and grabbed me while I was sipping coffee, minding my own business. I’ve only added line breaks and omitted a few stray words. Thanks to Mr. Kooser for writing this wonderful definition, and for writing all his fine and extraordinary poems.
There’s a toy
much like a kaleidoscope
but without the colored chips.
You look through it
and see whatever Is.
Turn it
towards just about anything
and what’s beyond you
becomes interesting.
This is how some poems work.
Whirl #116
Much earlier than my last couple tries, here’s my attempt at a poem using the words above, a prompt from the wonderful site, The Sunday Whirl.
The pressure accumulates of everything that
has ever happened to you or might.
It climbs into bed with you every night, whispering
and smoking. It’s scary, that voice, as it builds its case:
Calamity upon risk, impossible change, disaster. It builds
from an ember to a slow fire that can smolder all night
If fed. This slow, hypnotic voice coaxes, says
Attend to this jumbled order of what could be,
what never was, and what there is no more time to Accomplish.
Oh that voice will keep you company all night long,
If you listen.
Another Graduation Gift
For you, my happy son,
so bored with home, one more gift
after all the tassels, cakes and cash.
The best gift I ever gave
took decades to build—
Here it is—open it—
The life that led to graduation night
spent with superhero movies
playing on the barn’s back door
behind your best friend’s house
chairs and cushions spread on the lawn
huge starred sky above and a projector
flickering pictures against the barn door screen.
I’ve carried your gift carefully, adding to it day by day
over years and offer it to you, now—
This childhood I built with you, and everybody
who knows you in this little town.
Here, carry it with you, no burden
but a memory to hold in the dark.
Heritage
I come from a long line of Alarmists.
In the 1300s, we were the town criers
who ran through city streets
yelling important announcements
of impending doom:
Pestilence! Plague! Invaders!
Here, the cure:
Announce something happy,
or at least not Alarming
every—well, let’s start with once a day
and work up from there
till whole days are full of chocolates and
hidden blossoms brought to light.
Start here
Start now
Look, the berries are ripe
and glisten, all the rain
has written Bright Green
across the orchard.
Encourage The Bears
The Sunday Whirl, #115 Below, my attempt at using all these words, though this turned more storyish rather than poem-shaped.
Next life, I’ll move to a wild island in the sea. This when regrets and bridges in cinders are so thick on the ground that I can’t sweep them up or move through them for one more day. The weight of them, once like piles of fallen leaves or heavy snow become heavier and unstable, a loose scrill of rocks, shale that flakes and cracks, crumbles at every step. Moving cautiously has got me exactly here.
So then, the island. It is difficult to find. In truth, I bent reality, curved the oceans oh so slightly, just enough to make it a challenge. The birds, of course, have no trouble finding it by the scent of green and the whisper of insects. There are bears. Or, at least, a bear. And a sign.
One country lane meanders across the island, linking beach to meadow. I live at one end, the beach end, to get the spectacular view. The bear lives at the other end of the lane, in thick woods beyond the edge of the meadow.
I hear him sometimes, snuffling along through the woods, hunting the wild raspberries we both crave, both the taste and the shape of the word. When he stands at the edge of the wood—Seven feet tall? Nine feet? Who can tell? Who would dare measure? When he stands so tall, it’s hard to follow the directions on the sign I found posted at the edge of the meadow. This small wooden sign says, in careful block letters: Encourage The Bears.
When he’s eating flowers in the meadow, down on all fours, or picking at the berry bushes delicately, his paws careful as hands, and his fur shines so soft and warm in the sunlight, well it’s easier to imagine then, and I shout Positive Messages to him: Looking Good! Nice Fur! Excellent Berry Foraging!
That kind of thing.
The bear, he’s gone with me everywhere in this life. Is he Fate? Chaos? Or just a lost bear, dragged here to keep me company, to fit inside my head, my stories? Maybe, in the beginning, his whole existence was so I’d never heed, or even find, the piece of sign fallen long ago into the tall grass, disintegrated. The part of the sign that said “Don’t”.
In any case, story contrivance or accident, he’s here and real as teeth now.
Wandering With The Martians
Wandering through the isles with the Martians,
We landed here, this cozy lodge, thick wooden
Beams, field-stones, walls insulated with straw bales
And poems tucked into each wall
Snug against the storms. The long days now,
We stay inside, bundled and warm,
Fire built up and crackling,
Sipping tea, eating those crisp Martian cakes shaped
Like Earth with their faint tang of lemon.
We tell each other stories, the Martians and I, softly,
In quiet voices to match the snow
Drifting past our glazed windows,
Building feather mountains like the ones they remember.
Water Colors
Gray silk lake at dusk
To the west, sun tipped water
Tilts the world towards pink.
Mourning Dove Morning
Outside of any proper season,
this cool, damp morning—
A painting, not white-washed,
rinsed in watered gray silk,
world where words are muffled–
the quiet murmur of walkers passing my porch.
Even the cars–their motors whisper Hush into the
Road, which answers with a rain wash shush
and below all these, the beat of this day’s
softened heart, the call over and over
of the mourning dove, this morning dove.
At The Lake
I’d forgotten how it is at the lake–
How the water stills itself
at the end of each long day
and again, at the start
of each new next day.
Smooth and still,
not like glass or mirror,
not like sheets on the clothesline
on a windless day,
not like a full bathtub
before the child jumps in,
not like our jumbled memories. Closer is
the way sometimes the teacher holds a pose
so the yoga students see for once how it would look,
if done enough times, with that peculiar mind of
focus without striving. But even that is not quite
The lake, which stills—
not like anything but its silver self,
stretching to the far shore
giving our restless eyes,
our agitated minds,
our hungry, always moving mouths,
something to follow–
a model for a different way.
Puff Of Smoke Poems 