Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

there were leaves flaring
on hills, pumpkins,
purple asters,
harvest moon
in the sky and in the songs—
Shine on, and
Come a little bit closer—
so it was usually my number one pick
even before.
Then?
Then you arrived, a whole new person
I grew. Long legs and wild blond curls,
Unique and shining, close and alive, here.
So, the answer is always
autumn.

Hydrangea flowers, pink green white
I cut and gather them into
The old, scratched purple vase
Where they arrange themselves and glow
Whether any of us notice or not.

They do this every day
Through divisive debates between powerful people
Through our debates about whether or not
to stay awake late to listen to them argue
And say you are wrong wrong wrong

And today? The hydrangeas will glow all day
Alone in the house
While we are out in the world
Remembering where we were that other
September
Measuring it against where we are now
And none of our measurements will
Be counted in blossoms
In flowers that bloomed and passed
And offered us respite
Offered a piece of the world to comfort us
From the other pieces of our world
Crashing while flowers glowed

Written on the wing of the airplane
In bold stencil script, all caps:
DO NOT STEP OUT OF THIS AREA

Good advice, to which I’d add—
Do Not Step
away from safety
outside at all

I’ve always tried to step so carefully
Step around the chasm of becoming my mother—
Frantic and scared, believing there was
An Acceptable Area to step within
and ashamed because she was far
far outside it

Here where I’ve stepped?
There were the sweetest curly-haired children,
caretaking and worry
Failure and counting
Joy and dreams and words and art and books
And oh, a huge surprise of romance

I step in circles, want to hold it all
To build it a box
Beautiful and sturdy
Capacious and deserving enough
to hold it all inside

The airplane wing reminds me—
Stenciled warnings
Are for when you’re on the ground
Preparing for flight or powering down

For the rest of it, in mid-air?
Step outside the cliff’s edge of the box
Climb up so you can see the world

Let it all out, love—
Take your time
Take your chances
Live this life wide and warm and wild,
Lifted on the wind

a mist-coated cobweb
shines and flaps in the breeze—
ethereal laundry hung
on the line of the electrical wire
or the telephone wire—
whichever complicated string of bird roost
connects us
house to house as it carries
sound and light and voices and
the life’s work of one determined spider

New people live now, in my old neighbor’s house. A couple. And they built themselves a whole new person, a baby girl, to live there with them.

in the cool evening air
of front yards
we talk to the tired new dad—
his happy, broken-open soul
shines soft on his face—
right there in the street,
for anyone to see

This world is full of small-time gods you’ve never heard of, and they are the sweetest of the gods.
They are not prone
to vengeance and extravagance
as are their famous cousins
They are not petty
as people are (big fish, little pond syndrome)

Instead, they like to laze in meadows
and on creek banks
or venture into town
as long as town doesn’t feature more than
one streetlight, two’s the top limit.

You can beseech them with hot dogs and s’mores
Or a pair of hand knit socks come winter (which they love, despite not feeling the cold or actually possessing feet)
No temples. Look for them at high school football games, concerts on the town green, the one good ice cream stand.
Or catch a glimpse most nights, late.
Have you noticed how some nights there’s a glow in the air, long after the ball games are done?
That’s them. They leave their ponds and hedgerows late, arrive after the t-ball and Little League teams have finished —the players all had their turn to run and cheer, pick flowers in the outfield, sweat that sweet summer child sweat, then go home for bed and bath with the last of the light because it’s June and the sun sets late.
That’s when the small-time gods come out. They gather to celebrate the day just ended, and the day to come.

The landscaper lives next door to the funeral home.
So
he knows about timing.
Now, right now,
dogwood tree at the edge of his yard is in bloom.
Its wide white petals overhang the funeral home parking lot
and winter’s marble headstones.
One name leans against
another, and another, which leans against the fence
All this below the dogwood whose petals drift down
Slow, slow, between the marble markers or on their tops
Name after name
Ready to be planted now that summer is here

Another sign
of late spring—

coolest mornings,
Furnace still
rouses himself
to roar, no matter
how persuasively the mice
(who are packing their bags
for the June meadow)
whisper to him to sleep
now, sleep till September

pink rhododendron—
from a certain angle
granted by the angel
appears to be shaped—
grown into a giant
heart
Oh, that? you say,
That’s actually an
azalea

She can rest now, with all the others in her long-haunted house.

This is a small town. The funeral home is only a couple doors away. Across from it, the new-painted house with a wraparound porch and a For Sale sign.
Advice to realtors? A slogan for the skittish:
It’s just mice. Or—
The dead seldom cross the street.

And two doors down, in what was once Sheila’s house? Window dressing.

The other ghosts keep to themselves. You only notice them when you’re indoors. But Sheila? She always had a gift for flamboyance, putting on a good show, keeping people guessing. So the front window, with its leopard-print drapes tied back, has an evolving window display. Something new is added every few days. Walk by, you’ll see.

On the gate-legged table, a white bearskin throw. Balanced on top is an ornate ivory and gold telephone from the 1920s, though the dead hardly ever make calls. This morning, a cherub spray-painted gold leans against the phone. Tomorrow, she may rearrange.
That’s so Sheila.