Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

not a metaphor—
first morning of our school year
rain,
then a rainbow

the head of the history department
told me,
shaking his head,
Lately
I don’t have the attention span
for a whole book

He said more,
I think,
but I was
Distracted
and didn’t
hear any more

chilly August night,
first time in months,
dinner indoors—
garden tomatoes, basil,
zucchini dressed as pasta
a bottle of red wine,
dark chocolate you bought
just for me,
though I share.
We laugh and eat
and talk in early evening dark
of all the seasons ahead

We are used to each other, the flowering quince and I.
Neighbors now for over thirty years, we glimpse each other in
flashes
separated by long, oblivious stretches

all summer, next to this tree
I drank in my morning coffee and early skies

Our moods suited each other

she glowed pink with blossoms
and hummed, full of bees
until summer turned her lush and green

Her branches quieted,

as did mine

Good neighbor,
she knocks when needed.
Today, I look up and there she is—

Instead of a casserole or cup of sugar,
her arms, still green,
hold a scatter of yellow leaves
which fall at her feet
reveal the deep red fruit
growing all along
hidden
among bird nests and green shadows

She came to remind me
we all—woman, tree, everyone else—
work and change and grow
even when nobody else
notices and now
it’s time to pull in to our roots
drink up this summer sun
Ripen
and turn towards autumn

Stories from the world surround us if we listen.
It tells us tales we already know
and half-forgot,
the way you try to recount a dream over breakfast
frowning when you can only recall a shade of green
or a secret about to be told
hiding in the next turn of the stairwell

The trick is to listen. The world’s response, inevitable
The trick is
to find your own way—
where meaning and metaphor
meld
just as we melt together, half awake in the night

****************************************************

We talk on morning walks, the world and I.
I let the dog lead, with few rules. Sniff whatever
but only pee on street signs, utility poles, fire hydrants
Not the neighbor’s lawn ornaments bird baths realty signs

Never go back. Move ever forward.

The dog stops to drink from a puddle,
which he prefers to our kitchen’s clear water in his china bowl
I’ve known men like that.

Haven’t we all known men like that?

Down the block, the possibly stray black cat cries alone outside a back door
Oh, there have been long seasons of grief in all our lives, and will be again

And I’ve had whole years
sharp as the shards of broken glass
we swerve to avoid by the side of the road
None of us get to miss all the shattering
You have had those years too, I know

but today,
the world’s best story waits in my own garden
where enormous white hydrangea are barely blooming
weeks and weeks behind the rest of their kind
Mine are covered in beginner blossoms
and, as so much does these days,
it makes me think of you, love
of this romance whose weeks I’ve stopped counting

I choose instead what my hydrangea echoes back—
Savor this—
this leisurely flowering
the tissue paper blossoms
unwrapping
themselves
slowly—-flower by flower, chapter by chapter,
on this day, and then the next.
Enjoy every minute, every page of this, says the world
And ever practical, always recycling for its own sake,
the world adds—save all this softness. Later you can use it
to wrap all these scented moments
memories any girl would want to keep

Saturday’s bear
arrived two days after your dog
treed a smaller bear in the oak
at the bend in the driveway.

You could not be described as unconcerned
since, after all, the dog ignored your call to come
and you had no weapon
Not even a pocket knife, you said.

Still, there was a thread of excitement
in your voice as you told me.
Saturday’s bear was bigger
and, importantly for this story, farther away.

When I first spotted it, you estimated for me
in hundreds of yards—three, maybe four.
What I love wasn’t that he didn’t notice us
or that the dogs didn’t notice him.

It wasn’t even that I felt safe beside you
knowing you would shoot it if you had to,
if it came for us. Though I was glad.
None of that is what I love.

It was that you burst into song
And it was the Jungle Book,
Bare Necessities.
It was that you knew all the words
and sang them for me.

quiet is the small birds in the maple tree—
Here,
gone to the pear tree,
to the chestnut,
then back. Above
and below the notice
of the deer
or the two dogs.
They carry on their whole winged lives
in lucky trees

began on the quiet front porch,
coffee, berries, notebook
till too much sun
drove me to the back yard, beneath the trees
with coffee , berries, notebook
and the dog.
In the dappled light, I think
oh, what a summertime phrase it is—
‘dappled light’
and there is the seed of a morning poem
But
he has tangled
his long leash
again
by circling
from me to fish pond fountain to apple tree
to metal shed with its tantalizing scent
of woodchuck, past the clothesline and back to me.

His is a walking meditation

I untangle him
again. The third time, I threaten
to Put Him In The House
direst of dire and empty threats.
He circles, offers a damp toy
and his hopeful, goofy face
No, I say. No. I am writing and meditating, damn it.
Can’t you see how contemplative I am?
He drops the toy
on my foot
barks once
and wags his whole body
happy, happy, happy

It is your own heart, in all falling things,
That calls you singing to the banquet door.
from Fontenen (The Fountain Cycle, Oslo: Frogner Park) by Nancy Willard

On my best days, I hold my hopes loosely,
relax into joy and wish this same
deep and easy happiness
for all my beloveds. On my best days,
for strangers too.

These days I’m steeped in joy
and hold my own hand whenever I get scared,
whenever I whisper in the dark—This Can’t Last.

These days I’m learning to smile and say,
Oh, hello again to you, lifelong worry,
Hello, familiar impulse
to shout at the blond girl on the screen,
Don’t go in the basement!
Or when I’m looking at one shoe—
a sneaker, a red stiletto—
to flinch, to duck, because everyone knows
they come in pairs and the other one
is about to fall on my head.

These days I’m older
and walking towards wisdom
or its neighborhood.
I sit down next to myself on the couch,
our shoes kicked off and transformed
to chew toys for the dogs
I pass myself the bowl of popcorn
because why not add some delicious crunch
to the hard truth—Hard? Soft?
Truth is truth, just itself,
solid as a pair of shoes.
Truth is, our houses have basements
and while we laughed and raged and cooked and slept
and wished
our basements waited all along,
patient and dark and not unkind,
full of our buried dreams and dumb luck
and shelf after shelf of history and hope.

In my dreams
gardens and crowds in the rain
funny, laughing boys and books left on a bus

In your dreams, forests, an abundance of bears
sometimes lions
and a woeful lack of firearms

And me, lifelong pacifist, says, why didn’t you shoot it?
And you, lifelong hunter, says, I didn’t have a gun.

Oh, what luck.
What luck to travel to and from those other worlds
with our solid sleeping bodies spooned or
softly, slowly stilling each other’s limbs

What luck to wake and laugh out loud
or puzzle the pieces together

Oh, dreams.
Oh, to have a man who tells me his
who will listen,
bemused but listening
to mine