When the handwritten cardboard sign
at the side of the road
turns out not to say
Quiet Shrimp
which is what I read
and spent hours trying to picture
as I drove away from that particular mystery.
Only much later, on the way home,
did I discover it actually said
Quilt Shop
which is likely accurate
but much less fun.
Category Archives: Learning
Define Distracted Driving
Weight Watchers For Worries
The Big Worries
hog all the space in my brain:
Kids, money, work, madmen with axes
crouching in the basement.
Today, treat them like rude and chubby
house guests, intruders with
lousy manners. Today, teach them not
to squeeze out all the other tiny worries—
Will frost nip the mums?
Does this outfit make me look fat?
Is there tea left in the pot?
Let them come, the little
inconsequential worries. Give them room
to breathe. Soon enough, their clamor
might make me long for the good old days
when worries were fat but few.
The New Boy
So many bells, he says.
Every day here is broken into
the same question in every class
and many strict blocks of time.
Tired but polite,
the new boy from Pakistan
answers again.
Your country is so very clean
it feels almost like a movie set
where everyone must adhere
to the bells, the script,
the tight shooting schedule.
He gathers his books.
It doesn’t always look real
he says, as another bell rings.
Gorillas In The House
Amazing, that’s the truth. They were not expected, not what I went looking for. They were not the wild black dog I’d been catching glimpses of—dog that might be rabid, might be metaphor, might be just a shaggy black dog.
Instead, this white gorilla at the bottom of the squared, open stairwell. Quiet. Visible only because I leaned out so far over the stairs, metal railing pressed against my stomach, my hands gripping its cold circle, breaking my palms into sweat. Old air of baked dust rose up, mixed with the scent of metal touched by decades of hands.
I’ll remember this smell my whole life, I thought. And it will always take me here, to this single moment. The moment before I decide if I’m scared, the moment before the gorilla senses me. The moment before he raises his enormous head and looks up.
Summer Ends
Again, this circle.
Rain threatened to fall all day
both inside me and in the air.
The world grew colder. Clouds gathered.
The wind picked up.
It shook those
poor windows, so used to being
Opened to the breeze.
It took hours, mostly all day,
to remember: Words written down,
and autumn comfort food—soffritto
made with the last of the garden’s tomatoes
and yesterday’s bread. These were the cure,
the Art of making do with this particular life,
the one life I have.
Toast to it with the last of the wine.
Encourage The Bears
The Sunday Whirl, #115 Below, my attempt at using all these words, though this turned more storyish rather than poem-shaped.
Next life, I’ll move to a wild island in the sea. This when regrets and bridges in cinders are so thick on the ground that I can’t sweep them up or move through them for one more day. The weight of them, once like piles of fallen leaves or heavy snow become heavier and unstable, a loose scrill of rocks, shale that flakes and cracks, crumbles at every step. Moving cautiously has got me exactly here.
So then, the island. It is difficult to find. In truth, I bent reality, curved the oceans oh so slightly, just enough to make it a challenge. The birds, of course, have no trouble finding it by the scent of green and the whisper of insects. There are bears. Or, at least, a bear. And a sign.
One country lane meanders across the island, linking beach to meadow. I live at one end, the beach end, to get the spectacular view. The bear lives at the other end of the lane, in thick woods beyond the edge of the meadow.
I hear him sometimes, snuffling along through the woods, hunting the wild raspberries we both crave, both the taste and the shape of the word. When he stands at the edge of the wood—Seven feet tall? Nine feet? Who can tell? Who would dare measure? When he stands so tall, it’s hard to follow the directions on the sign I found posted at the edge of the meadow. This small wooden sign says, in careful block letters: Encourage The Bears.
When he’s eating flowers in the meadow, down on all fours, or picking at the berry bushes delicately, his paws careful as hands, and his fur shines so soft and warm in the sunlight, well it’s easier to imagine then, and I shout Positive Messages to him: Looking Good! Nice Fur! Excellent Berry Foraging!
That kind of thing.
The bear, he’s gone with me everywhere in this life. Is he Fate? Chaos? Or just a lost bear, dragged here to keep me company, to fit inside my head, my stories? Maybe, in the beginning, his whole existence was so I’d never heed, or even find, the piece of sign fallen long ago into the tall grass, disintegrated. The part of the sign that said “Don’t”.
In any case, story contrivance or accident, he’s here and real as teeth now.
At The Lake
I’d forgotten how it is at the lake–
How the water stills itself
at the end of each long day
and again, at the start
of each new next day.
Smooth and still,
not like glass or mirror,
not like sheets on the clothesline
on a windless day,
not like a full bathtub
before the child jumps in,
not like our jumbled memories. Closer is
the way sometimes the teacher holds a pose
so the yoga students see for once how it would look,
if done enough times, with that peculiar mind of
focus without striving. But even that is not quite
The lake, which stills—
not like anything but its silver self,
stretching to the far shore
giving our restless eyes,
our agitated minds,
our hungry, always moving mouths,
something to follow–
a model for a different way.
The Girls Who Run The World
Last night, in the middle of some other dream, I saw what lives behind the curtain—
that heavy velvet hung between awake and everything else,
back where dreams and soul, subconscious, spirit run the show.
It was Not What I Expected. I expected gears and pulleys, or
spreadsheets and projections, or possibly clouds.
Instead, two girls gossip at an outdoor cafe,
heads bent together, posture telling everything about
their delight in the world, each other, the unfolding all around them.
Cindy & Suzie are the names embroidered
in pink on matching bowling shirts.
They could be twins—short black curls,
heavy blue eyeshadow, bright red lipstick,
girls fixed up like the Andrews Sisters, ready for the USO show.
They don’t expect me, of course, back here where
we aren’t supposed to be able to peek.
One glance and we all know I’m in the wrong place,
me with my million questions about dreams and our futures and
why, oh a mountain of questions about why, so insistent and distraught.
They both smile, big surprised grins that say—
This is SO against the rules, but we’re happy to see you.
Pull up a chair. Let’s see What Happens Next and Oh,
this part is going to be fun.
Packing Up The Year
It fits into a dozen boxes
Of budgets and lesson plans,
Meetings and mindless jargon.
Do not forget
To pack the sweetness, too:
memories of children and
Books, all the delicious
Conversations that won’t stay
Inside any box, so they
Ride on your shoulder or
Swing from the rear view
Mirror, waving goodbye.
Sycamore
From Sycamore bark, he said.
That’s where people got the idea
for camouflage cloth.
What else could we have learned
from the Trees Back Then
when we listened and
They were so willing to talk
and be seen?
Puff Of Smoke Poems 