We roar into summer
like an ancient pickup truck
hauling that travel-trailer along.
Our plans and packed up hopes
stream behind us. Inside,
the cab is all downdrafts and tinny
music from the old transistor, drifting
out windows that won’t roll up anymore
So the world pours in.
Category Archives: Creativity
Spring Into
Field Guide To Poems: Location and Storage
Hidden as strawberries,
mysterious as the moon
shadowed by thin wisps
of clouds. Floating
through your head, abundant
as the spring sky full of dandelion seeds.
Sudden as the gleam
of wild eyes on a midnight road.
So many times.
Missives sent long distance
on fire, streaking tales of light
landed here in drifts and
overflowing drawers and
musty attic trunks accumulating
year by year, these ordinary wonders,
these letters addressed
to your invisible singing self.
My Father Forgets
Poems happen quick
then get lost in the rushed
onslaught of a day and
I’ve gotten enough practice
to be able to (sometimes) see a poem
as it moves past me, as it pauses and my attention
glazes to the world around me for a breath and
the poem might as well be waving a white sign
that says, I Am A Poem in big blocky letters
because it’s that obvious. So some days
I get fooled into believing I’ll remember it.
But that’s not the way of a poem.
So here I am, hours later, frustrated,
tapping my forehead like my father does
when he can’t remember a name, as if tapping
might dislodge that name or this
poem and tumble them into our waiting hands.
But They Don’t Come Back.
Gone Is Gone. So pay attention and
take good notes or you’ll be left playing
with whatever words are lying around when
your actual subject has gone
wherever all those names go when my father forgets
and you’ll be left with no poem at all
like me, today.
Questions Who Go Out Searching For Answers
knock on doors in early morning
when the sky is the same gray as
mourning doves who love this hour
and the questions stop to talk
to any sleepy soul in rumpled pajamas
who answers the door and the questions
Ask, Which takes longer, to
pay bills or write a poem
dress for work or write a poem
pack lunch or write a poem
?
Plenty of smart, well-rested people
don’t answer the door so early.
Those awake are no wiser than
their sleeping, dreaming neighbors.
None of us knows the answer.
But here’s the new plan: Next time
the questions knock, let’s turn
their quizzical selves right back around,
grab our shoes and say we don’t know
but we’ll be happy to keep them company
while they walk.
Everyone, Your Homework
is: Loosen your stingy heart
that keeps you strangled
barely breathing
telling your self No
all day long.
Give yourself the big gift of
What you Really Want. Heart’s desire.
It might be something simple
like letting yourself
assign homework to the whole world.
Window shop the whole earth
for the gift that brings
mysterious smiles at two p.m.
and makes you leap
into each morning
eager for more.
You’ll know when you find it, whatever
makes you feel like
these poems feel to me—
Something bountiful and wise
Tugging your brain through
crowded fields of weeks.
And if that’s too big, too generous,
start small. Stop in the middle of the field.
Make believe your heart’s desires are
bright red berries you gather
growing close to the ground
hidden by real leaves.
I Am
taller than I pictured
and sudden as the spearmint
growing wild at the edge
of this careful garden.
I am strolling up to the door
of my next life,
the third date with myself,
after
I’ve charmed myself
as best I can,
smiled as I wove my story
kept my baggage
mismatched and colorful.
I’ve tilted my head and studied
my future over candlelit dinners
trying to picture us together
as I describe to myself
the shape of dreams I’ve gathered
herding them back each time they wander
shutting them in the yard till now,
the third date,
the one where I go all the way.
Be True To This
When you stumble into a poem,
life—your life—is suddenly
Lit Up. Exactly what it was—
only the angle
shifts, and tumbles you
into a brand new world.
All day, you can open this drawer in your mind,
remember the lamplight before dawn,
scent of morning coffee,
the cat anxious to be on the other side
of any door, while you write.
Later,during ordinary gray
bits of the day, find yourself
Smiling, the air filled with lavender.
Crossing Worlds
We cross worlds each night inside our dreams,
but the images we carry back are garbled.
This is intentional–
Its job is to remind us which are real
of all the worlds we wander.
Poetry Birds
Some days I wake as a woman lit up
with impractical plans
for printing off poems
by all my favorite poets,
folding them into origami birds
and traveling through the city
trailing paper birds, all colors,
hiding them in plain sight
for you to find.
Snowstorm Saturday
Still snowing, but my closest neighbor
inside his homemade red and green shack
built on top of his tractor
is plowing his driveway already,
his tiny house protecting him from the wind.
He’s retired now and so has time
to turn his inspirations
into inventions.
All up and down my road,
I can hear the low-roar symphony
of snow blowers. And I’ve got to get out there myself
because I love to shovel snow without any motor at all.
But also, if I don’t hurry, my neighbor and his house
will clear my sidewalk and free my car
And because we’ve been here, side by side, a very long time,
I know he’ll be sitting inside his invention
shaking his head at my indolence
when he sees me through the front window
sipping my coffee, writing away.
And I want to shout Hey, I’m inventing here.
But he’d explain in his fatherly voice,
words on paper don’t count
when there’s snow to be cleared,
and so much practical work to be done.
Puff Of Smoke Poems 