The sky brightened to steady grey
showing the swells and ridges of snow that fell,
the world busily churning it from the air while we slept.
Now, just rest. Breathe and look out the window
at this passing moment. Snow stopped falling
an hour ago.
Now, you try. See how quiet
Now, before anyone else wakes and we
hurry to match the world’s efforts by
making breakfast and mistakes and covering
them all with flurries of snow and words.
…in her huge carriage, metal couplings and bits of horse’s harness creaking in the cold air. The doors burst open, because even the minutes are overstuffed. Her cart is laden with packages and glinting bits of tinsel and out in the night someone is singing a carol, soft and off-key, the way they do. The whole day ahead is stacked high with responsibilities and gifts and the secret, delicious joy of seeing them as one woven present.
Christmas was a humbug,
to begin with.
Marley was dead.
The men who watched the light
had built a fire by
the rough table where they sat,
always in earnest.
In came a fiddler
making a great stir.
She was exceedingly pretty
when she laughed.
Every man among them
had a Christmas thought.
It seemed to shine.
He listened for an hour,
his poor, forgotten self
Forgotten.
It had been a very old song
Not an echo, not a sigh.
In possession of the world–
The world, so irresistibly contagious.
In careful suits, with shinyholiday ties,
they point to maps and frown,
deeply serious as they
caution us to stock up
on candles and flashlight batteries
and avoid unnecessary travel.
But it’s no use. The disguise always slips.
Beneath forecasts full of warnings
they can’t hide
their excited voices, the eager faces
of nine-year-old boys
primed for a snow day,
ready to be amazed by weather.
She is on the couch,
watching her laptop
as if it’s about to do a trick
or reveal the meaning of life.
He is closed in his bedroom
with his books and guitar.
This goes on for hours.
“Kids these days…,” is an actual phrase
forming in my head.
Wake up.
He is writing a new song.
She is searching for her way in the world.
They are forging their paths,
while reclining.
After all I tried to teach,
they learned this:
To value being comfortable
on the journey.
Every poem holds its secrets
till it’s written down and opened
the same way this tangerine’s
cool spray of sweet and tart
is held under its rough skin
and the way it glows
knowing it was born
in a place that’s lovely to say.
How can you not glow,
being from Valencia?
In the rainy grocery store parking lot
a little boy splashes
mesmerized by his shiny black boots.
I want to point him out, ask if you remember
how you wanted to sleep in rain boots at that age.
But I know better. We’re busy arguing
about dropping Trigonometry.
I’ll never need it, you say.
What is it good for?
I am almost sure
it has something to do with celestial navigation,
Mariners measuring angles,
Astronomers mapping distances between stars.
You roll your eyes.
Remind me you don’t plan a career
watching stars or the sea.
These days I could use a map.
Something to help me navigate
the distance between stars, or something closer–
the little boy you were,
the man you nearly are.
Yesterday was for unpacking
Christmas decorations and memories.
They’re tumbled into a basket beneath the tree
all those floppy beanbag animals who, one by one,
had their morning to peek from the tops of stockings.
One stuffed reindeer watches now, a quizzical expression
stitched onto his felt face. Any minute
I expect him to step forward,
chosen spokesman for the crowd of puzzled penguins,
snowmen, elves, and puppies wearing Santa hats
tipped at jaunty angles.
He’s ready to ask aloud, on behalf of the group,
where those kids with the stockings went,
and by the way,
where did these extra grownups come from?
The huge copper vase,
a gift I didn’t know how to fill,
now holds roadside treasure from yesterday’s walk—
Milkweed pods, dried goldenrod, other
brown and lacy weeds I can’t name.
I shopped for ways to fill it
but every possibility
was too expensive plus
covered in glitter spray.
When all the time,
during my hours in fluorescent malls,
the world was offering itself
to every passerby, beautiful and shouting
Take me home, till somebody heard.
Already news radio overflows:
Ridiculous men with foaming minds
spout rabid rhetoric.
Everybody else
wounded but walking,
spent the day shopping.
Our children haven’t changed.
in snowsuits tucked in shopping carts,
overtired,overheated,overhyped on holiday as ever.
But we are people
Shaken suddenlyroughly from sleep for this moment
We are awake.
You hear it
In every mall and Walmart for this moment
No matter how hungrywhinybored the children
We calm them,in this cracked open moment,
with patience. We smile at each other
over the tops of their crankysweaty heads
despite and because
of all we’re reminded to cherish.
When you tune out news and tinny carols,
The fallout roars. We’re singing as loud as we can.
there's a poem in every day
aka: The Happy Bookers
Artist
I came to where you were living, up a stair. There was no one there.--John Ashberry, "The New Higher"
custom poems on vintage typewriters
Poems by Mary Kendall
A Ronka Poetry Practice Since 2014
Living in the moment
Puff Of Smoke Poems 