Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

We live in houses full of holes–
beloved, antique, gently
lumbering beasts of houses,
breezes moving through the walls.
So why is it
our well-fortified neighbors
diligent about such things
who are visited
by frantic red squirrels in the den?

Is it today? Is it
ever the right day
to let a spider
weave her web
across your door bell?

Volunteer cosmos and hollyhocks
appear in odd spots, following
the spirit of early summer, when it was
all columbines and forget-me-nots
wandering the garden

Do you have the heart of a wandering cosmos?
Or the steadier, homebody heart of lavender and daisies?

No matter.
All our hearts are possible flowers
turned by roots and rain, sunlight and bees,
into blooms

She’s still in her housecoat, our neighbor from the era when ladies used the word “housecoat,” when she comes to lean on our porch and tell me her husband’s in the hospital.

“This is how it started for his dad,” she says. “But Doc swears this is different.” Then on to a litany of transgressions and missteps among the parents and children in this town she knows so well, words to distract her from other words, hospital words.

It’s better out here in the sunshine, even if this morning is cool enough for a sweater.

The neighborhood hellion of a decade ago walks by slowly with his mom, explaining in a calm voice… ”We’ve been over it a million times. You’re going to list the house and then…” and they’re past us, words lost in bird song and the bark of the new puppy across the road.

The sun tops the roof-line, and we turn our faces up. My son’s calico chases moths and suns herself on the warm porch as we talk. The cat rolls her back on the fallen geranium petals, swats at a lazy bee, one from the nest under the porch floor, nest I’ve been trying and failing to reach all month. Someday soon, I’ll hear them buzzing beneath our wicker chairs.

My neighbor heads home to hang sheets on the line. They’ll dry in the sun while she’s at his bedside. I offer to bring them in before the afternoon rain. The puppy quiets.

I turn back to the idea of a poem, but it’s gone to sleep and left the morning to us list makers and errand runners. The cat leap onto my notebook-covered lap, scattering words like moths and pink petals.

the way you jot down additions
or cross out ingredients
on the page? Add more cinnamon.
Leave out the cilantro. Another note:
Don’t sit too many hours
with today’s stewed basket of words
or the taste grows bitter
like tea steeped too long in the cup

I see you, intent on getting somewhere—
birds, cars, occasional cats, hurrying by
this wide lawn striped sun and shadow
green on green. Me, I am all attention.
July schedules us—
grateful for this quiet assignment,
I watch on behalf of the whole street—
certain you’ll do the same
when your turn comes around

early rain
thunder in the distance
robins sing in the shower

next to the potted lavender
One dandelion blooms
(because) no one ever told her
she wasn’t a flower

this morning’s experiment:
wish Good Day to every crow you see
especially the one perched on that roof line
Mark the missed things tumbled into your path

Here: a wooden Popsicle stick
covered in ecstatic ants
reminder that we are all filled with
Invisible Sweetness even when
we think we are empty

Here: a fallen branch in the road
imitating a monkey
because even the withered
are capable of whimsy
and wild jungled dreams

Here: a Luna moth
elegant and feathered
in her everyday leaf disguise
not a reminder of anything else.
Pure marker of amazement.

One of the many scattered.
Who knows if you open
your own eyes or if
(as I prefer)
this is all a gift from the crows
A nod to your greeting, Part Two
of every day’s courteous exchange

Banish the word enough
Banish its dark implications,
the you standing in shadow
clutching a measuring spoon
(not even a measuring cup!
a measly spoon! Oh, that one,
she is not your friend)
Too little or too much is hidden
in everything she notices.

Banish the word enough
Love this:
this moment,
these words,
that particular robin
gliding, landing soft,
grazing the grass nearby