Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

cardboard box of cups
left by the side of the road
rainstorm fills them all

rainy morning
coffee on the porch
last of the blueberries
in the blueberry colored bowl

car in the driveway, ready to go
your necklace hangs from the mirror
blue agate oval
glued-on circle of tiny pearl beads

reading the the local magazine
from the closest city
happy DIY article about an old student

weeks of travel ahead
to be with friends
and beauty

right this minute
propped on the edge of this covered porch
rain falls straight down, steady as a painting
and me, here, leaning
semi-dry feet
and a head full of
so many stories

when my daughter
speaks to me in that too patient voice
voice I know
voice I likely taught her
voice I use on my own father
voice I hear as condescending
Something in me shrivels

Here we are, again
Me with little packages of words
Mismatched
Ill-fitting for the occasion
Or wrong for the weather.

After so many years
You would think
I’d be better at packing
Better at choosing the right
words. But no.
Always too many
Wrong mood
Wrong color
What’s next?
Keep practicing
Or stay home and
Be quiet.

deer came in the night
ate all the green beans
and tiny zucchini from
my next-door neighbor’s
garden so when
the woodchuck who lives under
the shed where my next-door neighbor
on the opposite side
stores metal things with gears
and wheels, also pieces of wood,
random lengths of siding and
one woodchuck or possibly
a whole woodchuck family—
When the woodchuck waddle-scurried
his foraging self across my lawn
to the feast next door only tomatoes
were left and those are not
his favorite.

Gone, again and why
do I think I’ll remember the image, scent,
overheard perfect line,
words that hopped in the car on the highway
to keep company with the others, gathered
like wildflowers on that dirt track,
the steep hill, the long coast down
the other side.

Was it something the waitress said?
Skinny, tattooed, overwhelmed by the crowd
of hungry tourists?

No. It was that tableful of theater people,
The one woman who talked so Loud-
Trained to project her voice—she said,
“It’s my goal in life to bring horror to live theater.”

How Singular, Spectacular,
Specific.
Goals are so
Lively.

So here’s mine: to remember
that memory
isn’t to be trusted.
Write it down. Background noise
of all delicious varieties
steal away the right words.
If I remember nothing much,
Remember this. Write it down
To see what I saw.

high wind tips the striped hammock
to the ground where it
stays for days. Our bodies
holding books
holding puppies
holding only long afternoons
would save its gentle sway but
I was
busy I was elsewhere
and the hammock fell

morning rain, robin
on the handle
of the rusted wheelbarrow

wheelbarrow I found
in my father’s barn
before he sold that big country place
(loneliness, dementia)

I dusted off generations
of spiderwebs
painted it red
because Williams

now it lives in my yard
where it is frequently
Admired. People can tell
it’s led an interesting life
comfortable in its skin
and happy to be a perch
for searching the rain-soaked yard

blue green early sky
awake for hours
awake even before
the puppy. trucks rumble
beneath bird song.
almost
ready for
what happens next

rain
soft enough
to not disturb
morning’s singing birds

puppy stirs, not yet
ready to wake and
the part of me I’ve been
Training to Stay On Schedule
(guarded by my mind,
old task master who frowns
and taps his wristwatch)

Sometimes, I turn away
sit in the grass, even in rain
look around—sky, trees,
wet glisten of flowering sage
who went full-bloom while
I was busy elsewhere. Another
reason we love dogs
Mine, sweet person-pleaser
sometimes sits down in the grass
nose to the breeze
and won’t budge. Sometimes
I only pet his soft fur and murmur,
Good job. Good dog.

baby maple trees
everywhere lately
nostalgia-laden
search for their roots
Just this weekend,
bright green seedpod
appeared in the middle
of the living room floor
Was it tricked by swirls
in the laminate, fooled
into believing this was
hardwood, a distant relative?

The very next day
an older seedpod,
dried out dark green
hid in the empty drawer
of a wood file cabinet
I bought at a yard sale.
Real wood, this time,
so the mistake is understandable.