From Sycamore bark, he said.
That’s where people got the idea
for camouflage cloth.
What else could we have learned
from the Trees Back Then
when we listened and
They were so willing to talk
and be seen?
Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems
Sycamore
Someone Else’s Sign
Today, the North Wind’s strong arms
full to overflowing
with signs and portents,
faltered in the heavy rain.
He dropped one at my feet–
one I don’t even recognize.
What are we meant to do
with someone else’s sign?
Too Busy
There is a point
When my mind fills
And begins to quietly break open
Under pressure. Small holes appear
Where words and lists slip
Out and disappear forever
I’ll never know what becomes of
Them, my babies
But this talent of the brain, to
Become a sieve
Leaking away what it can’t hold
Relieves the pressure
So, despite all that’s lost,
there’s space now for light to shine
Into all those cracked open bits.
Poetry Round
Be patient, poems,
as I have been with you.
Our time round, but not round like
a game of golf, a mushroom cap,
a beach ball, acorn, moon.
Round in circles, our time together.
We pass each other, over and over,
catch glimpses of the other’s face
carousel horse,
rider,
brass ring,
face in the crowd,
There. That girl with the red dress and cherry lips,
eating cotton candy—
You choose, Poem.
She can be me or you
this time around.
Old Friend
We meet again, decades later,
Choosing rhubarb and pink geraniums
At the farm market. It took long moments
For us to peer through the wrinkles and
Gray hair and bushy eyebrows but
Suddenly I saw you at five—
Long brown hair, schoolgirl plaid,
Your huge family, picnic benches instead
Of chairs at your kitchen table.
I remember your deep, scratchy voice,
So funny on a little girl.
It finally fits. There should be a new word
For this old moment
When time pulls back like curtains on a stage
And here among the spring plants
And baskets of ripe berries
Two people look up, cross years,
And say, I knew you in that other world.
Red Suitcase
Closed story in my mind,
Red and locked, waiting for me in
The empty room.
In last night’s dream, it laid open
Full of folded clothes
I’d never worn, bright
Flower colors, soft silken dresses.
I marveled at their new selves
Neatly stacked and waiting
And wondered what it
Was I was
Waiting for.
Spring Into
We roar into summer
like an ancient pickup truck
hauling that travel-trailer along.
Our plans and packed up hopes
stream behind us. Inside,
the cab is all downdrafts and tinny
music from the old transistor, drifting
out windows that won’t roll up anymore
So the world pours in.
Therapy
I stop at a farm stand selling flowers,
tiered displays in pinks, purple, white.
I’ve got petunias, she says, and double petunias
all ruffled. Marigolds, tomatoes, too.
One dollar each. Oh, it’s not to make money, she says.
This is therapy.
I wish I’d stopped moving right there.
I wish I’d asked her to explain, to tell me
her story. Instead I got lost
in the picture she made in my head—
A long line of doctors-to-be,
interns in psychiatry, and those who
study the heart, and those who specialize
in the working of our hands. They arrive
at this farmhouse door in white lab coats,
ready, faces eager and open to learn
all this gray-haired expert can teach them
about How Therapy Works.
She puts down her trowel with a patient sigh
for though she has much work to do, someone,
someone must teach them. She begins simply,
the way you would with very small children.
She leads them to the greenhouse door.
At the sight of them, standing awkwardly
in the muddy patch between potting shed
and vegetable garden, in their thin and shiny city shoes,
unprepared for this practical world, she remembers
where she meant to begin. First, you need boots,
she tells them. She opens the door to the greenhouse,
remembers to speak.
This is a seed, she says.
Personification
“Better no personification than bad or foolish personification.”
Mary Oliver, from A Poetry Handbook
The message in my head
from that wise poet
delivered early. I will take it
to my heart with its serious
wild face, my heart so quick
to close its eyes and tuck
its tail round itself into
a snug and dozing circle.
Hibernating now, it’s
slow to rouse, but dreaming
in cold sleep, dreaming
of new roads crossed by so many
other hearts, their wild creature eyes
glinting reflected light, wandering adventures
beneath a huge night sky
swirled with starlight and gold,
the quick and the possible.
Unplugged
Breathe
is the prescription
when all my cords are frayed
from being wound so tightly
and I no longer remember
how to,
when clearly there is
Absolutely
No
Time
for a refresher course,
busy as I am
in this hectic, important life.
But that tiny part of me
that is not insane,
not addicted to the word
frenzy
Calmly writes this cure
in the margins of novels
I want to read this summer,
writes it across the top
of the dusty picnic table
waiting in the yard,
writes it in sunscreen and lemonade
across the wide lawn
till it meets the trees.
