Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

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

Stop listening so hard
to the talktalktalk of What If
drowning out
wind through the leaves
of this summer’s maples

Look here, this
white bowl full
of lemons
taut pebbled skin
holding a core
pure essence of
Bitter Sweet
sudden swooping nostalgia
on a sunny day
Life of pucker and joy

I prefer a sky
of tumbled puff clouds
tacked onto bright blue
above a field of wildflowers,
a few cows in the meadow
edged by forest with
its cool dark depths
beckoning.

Today’s forecast:
Sunny and warm with a
journey by afternoon.
Under cloudless skies
we’ll meet a
Missouri Fox Trotter
called Hero.
I’ve packed carrots
and an apple to feed
to your dream come true.

pink geraniums
still shine beside yellow leaves
where two seasons touch

Not much of a summer,
she said. Too cool, too wet.
Her disappointed face
irritated with weather.
Weather never gives you a thought,
I wanted to say. Didn’t.
Instead, the orderly progression
of small town talk
wide and long
never plunging
aware of the high dive
but facing away.

Another prayer for the list—
Let me remember
to reach for the jolt of the jump
shock of fast cold joy
on a hot enough summer day.

Sunlight over stones
just add water for diamonds
to fill this river