Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

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.

Springtime.
I hand you things to pay for
at the busy garden center
We tell ourselves
these will be blooms
instead of snacks for the deer

Morning glory sprouts nestle
in tiny plastic pots
I plant them around the lamp post
again
Despite last August’s
photographic
evidence of just how high
a deer can reach
Delicious

5:17
and birds
sing
in the wet, dark hour
before sunrise
They shake out today,
this new created fabric,
smooth its wrinkles.
Early commuters weave
through with headlights
with windshield wipers
to guide their stitches.
While you slept,
they made this for you.
Good morning. Love.

Before you bloom
and leaf out
let me write
and remember
how each morning
your bare branches
reminded me
of flight
Shaped as you were
like a blue heron
bent to pluck a fish from the
bare ground which was,
to complete the image,
forced to stand in for a still pond.
And as we three—
you, me, the hard bare ground,
Change as we will
in the season ahead—
Let’s one of us recall
that beneath all your full leaf glory
there is another glorious self—
hidden blue heron

One friend suggests cheese
instead of peanut butter.
Someone else swears by dog food
which also
doesn’t work.
Packing to leave for a long weekend—
I pry open the Hav-A-Hart,
dump the uneaten kibble in the trash
and prop the empty trap
Open
on the kitchen floor
to prove to myself
that I do.

to sleep and wake in late April—
both sides of the night
darkness fills with busy songs
of springtime birds
carry straw and sunlight
to build the new season, again