Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

Here’s another birthday
in the big bouquet
another gift wrapped
exquisite and particular
dinner at your favorite
Middle Eastern place
on the water

Here, the still glowing
circle of our table
Boats glide by
people wave to those
of us on shore
If they knew you
they would all be bringing
roses and cupcakes
to celebrate the gift
of you,
Happy to be Here.

While I drive to work
or stop and scribble
a Ukrainian grandma hides in the cellar
from every loud noise
bomb not bomb

In Sierra Leone six million
people stay home
waiting to be tested
viral not viral

Here on a mountain road
twisted with fog green
garbage truck swerves
round the bend or not
another near miss

Tomorrow we will go back to school and work to stubbed toes and computer errors to leftovers for lunch and bad mufflers and yellow mums and pumpkins and Halloween costumes for the kids but today today we are at Calling Hours.
The name for this is Calling Hours archaic beloved plywood of built tradition where we stand in line counting mourners wondering how our tally will measure up remembering being the teenage grandchild coolness and sullen stare misplaced remember being the smallest grandchild in tight black shoes remember being son daughter spouse in that twilight world of sleepless reheated lasagna and not sunk in yet remember being here among friends and strangers murmuring shock and weather forecasts sliding our eyes towards the casket as we wait in line at calling hours wait together where we will return another day to stand in line for each other’s calling hours calling we are all calling we are just as Seuss said we are calling we are here
We
Are
Here,
Calling

Silver fan blades still.
Wind moves world on its own now
Turns us all fallward

Storm brewing stirs up
leaves and horses
scattering where they don’t belong
We go out, armed for our work
always the same
with rakes and reins
Gather them home

The new neighbor wants it Gone
because it places its gifts of cones in his yard
He being a squinty eyed measure man
rakes their fragrant selves together places
a pine cone mound beside the trunk
refusing all he’s been given
Do not be him, always turning away
Instead, be grateful for the bountiful
gifts this world offers— pine cones,
light to see by
and a venerable tree to see.

Before dawn, begin
by going for a run
or singing in the garden
if you happen to be
a frog or a cricket
or unwrapping a poem
delivered
like morning news
by the steady beat
of sneakered feet
and songs beneath
leafy darkness
out there
beyond the circle of
porch light.

They arrive September scented
in hot tight new shoes Everyone
still has a pencil and a schedule
clutched like map and compass
to guide them through the woods
where, Everyone Knows, the key
is not to look lost or scared or alone
or, worst of all, excited
In this way, they will reach
the edge of the woods and arrive
on the other side
Someday

Poem for the first day of a new school year–

All the books you never read
are stacked against you
one tall precarious tilt casts
a long invisible shadow over you
Shadow you will not admit exists
However
like gravity and oxygen it is Real.

This is our year.
I didn’t know you when you were
turning away or turned away
or never brought near the
world’s foothills and mountains
of board books, picture books,
easy readers, chapter books.
But I know you now.
I am offering now I am
handing out climbing gear and in
this world both
tools and mountains
are made of Words
Somewhere up there are stories for you
every thing you need to scale
any height you choose.
Here’s a great book.
Start climbing.

Autumn in the wings
wild geese above this quiet room
with its fresh paint clean and empty
waiting
all the laced windows open and fluttered
whole blue house mountain-posed