Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

another string around a finger,
reminder to Look. Count the birds
on my morning drive
some days, six
some days, sixty
or more
some days, the birds conspire
to help, fly close and fast
past my windshield
Yesterday, sixty-four
Mostly dark but startle of
one red-winged blackbird
one jay flashing by
blue-blue-blue

I’ve decided.
I can predict the future.
I bought my friend
a funny notebook. On the cover
a lady in a pillbox hat, a label
that read “Unexpected Turbulence”
Two weeks later? Her troubled
twenty-something daughter moved home

You might be thinking
trouble in their twenties is not
Particularly
Unexpected.
True.
I predict it could happen
to you or to someone you know
and soon.
See?
Right again.

there are doors we are

there are doors we are
meant to leave open
and there are doors we are
supposed to close.

Deciding which one
you are
right this minute
standing on the threshold of?
Work of a lifetime.

haiku hold the world
in seventeen syllables
tiny nest of words

pattern of our days
my neighbor revs his engine
drives off in the dark

birds start to gossip
in bare trees, in the still dark
possible robins

though what do I know
about bird calls? It could be
anyone at all

what I can tell you
is this world wants to be seen
be here to see it

In the memory care doctor’s office
the sun shines in hot and bright
We call it the Florida room,
says the nurse who asks my father
when and where he is
Later, the doctor closes part way
the window shades
also called blinds
words for those things that soften the light
as the aging doctor, tired and patient
tells his ever older patient
again and again
the same bad news

three in the morning
world gets its heavy work done
but it’s noisy work

the sound that woke me?
a surprise of geese, night flight
carrying springtime

Right now, I’m taking an online writing class with amazing Natalie Goldberg, and rereading in little sips both her Writing Down the Bones and Clark Strand’s Seeds from a Birch Tree. I bought the Strand book from a used book store for $5 long ago, read it, loved it, tucked it onto a shelf. This early morning, I just reread: “Haiku…its purpose is not to convey information, but the feeling of a particular place and time.” (p.90)

today I’m the pen
that hiccups over a dry spot
shaken, scratched hard against the paper
And ink begins to flow again
deep and rich and effortless
but never smooth–random
occasional ink blots
add mess and joy

“We must allow a little space within which to compose a poem…no need to be frantic or hurried. There is always plenty of time.” (Strand, p.94)

one more wonderful
book fact–
words stay on paper
waiting for us

a year, ten, twenty-four–
no matter.
Here, open it
It’s for you–

sometimes my winter phone
lights up with beach pictures
sent by my sweet friend
from the Bahamas

here where I live
late winter is a dare
a challenge to take up
day after snowy day

an island in the Bahamas
might as well be Mars

but just this morning
I watered the shamrocks
a row of pots by the sunny window
lined up on the radiator, lush
flourish of green and purple
and then I can picture
every lounge chair, every beach,
every memory of being warm
all the way to my bones

what I love now is
candlelight, electric light
strings of fairy lights

because before dawn
my world is black and white, snow
and melted absence

not tree trunk, field, road–
until sunrise or snowfall
or springtime sweeps through

only the birds know
world’s about to change again

so I fret my way
through coffee,
and my drifting,
inefficient mind
I write about managing
Time
better,
as if my mind
is a puppy to train–so I
chop yellow peppers,
scallions, scramble two eggs
breakfast for today and
tomorrow. I congratulate
myself on
Becoming
Efficient
two breakfasts at once
I rinse the bowl–get caught
on the moon high up
framed by the kitchen window
here, where my daughter
once sang and washed dishes
A bird soars between me
and the moon.
time passes
And I’ll only be late to work
If I stop to write this down.