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Approach work as if you were
another in the factory of craftsmen
building warriors in ancient China.
You do the same task all day–
craft torsos from long coiled ropes of clay,
Or form clay hands, empty or grasping a sword.
Or paint the eyes, adding features—a scowl,
a dashing mustache.
All day, turn your mind away from the ranks
of blank faces surrounding you, waiting for you,
the one in charge of fierce or sweet expressions.
When your energy fails, pretend a stranger
from the future whispers in your ear,
with news ridiculous but heartening:
They swear that centuries from now,
this enormous, crazy task
will be not an army but an art.

After the guests go, leftovers and wine glasses litter the table.
Leave it till morning, believe it’s your choice, just one messy secret.
In truth, it was planned–
The good china wine glasses teaspoons and coffee mugs conspired
To be left at the end of the cheerful night
Retelling each other, before it’s back to the cupboard,
How much fun we had.

because it demands attention,
rattling the old windows
panes loosened by years of this shaking,
so lonely it wants to be let in
to curl up by the fire
while someone who loves it
cooks oatmeal at the stove
and serves it in Winter’s favorite blue bowl.

Winter, of course, knows this will never happen
which makes it rattle the windows harder.
And this is why it steals your breath,
why it freezes your hands,
determined to take the warmth
the warmth you won’t give freely.
The legend says if ever one person
gave the Cold a kiss, a willing hug,
it would calm down, stop this bluster
and be June-like in its joy.

Incandescence is on its way out.
It lingers like an old employee refusing to retire
though everyone else can see
It Would Be For The Best.
Let’s remember—it gave decades of glow
before we grew so concerned with
Being Efficient.
Let’s remember to say thank you
for countless little sizzles of connection:
The lit farmhouse in the distance
visible from the highway.
The convenience store down the block
when the children are sick and
you are out of diapers or ginger ale or patience.
All those times you flipped a switch
and transformed a dark and empty room.
Or right now, that window across the street—
the one above your neighbor’s kitchen sink
when you thought you were alone in the night.
That little sizzle.

The story arrived in the middle of the night and I was delighted, especially the way it finished with a flourish and swirled itself into a poem, like an encore to a splendid piece of music, or a wave from visiting, gracious royalty, or the whipped cream on top of a sundae.

But I had been very sick and I wanted to sleep, so I asked the story to please stick there inside my head till morning. Insulted by the suggestion to wait, I felt that story gather itself to leave with a sharp swish of its tail. Stories are like that.

I hoped for more from the poem—poems tend more towards patience—often, you can fasten them loosely to your head with a picture. But not this time. The poem followed the story. I could see it going, tumbling down the well away from me into the depths and dark distance with all its parts—a little boy named Jerome, a bouncing rubber ball, and a tiny gray elephant, looking surprised. Going, gone.

So what? said the Cranky Chorus in my head, made of old ladies and grumpy businessmen in rumpled suits. Go back to sleep. You’ve been Very Sick and what’s the use of all this midnight nonsense anyway? All these words—what’s it For?

That’s when you laugh because it becomes so much itself, a puzzle wrapped inside an answer. The people who’d ask? That Disapproving Board Of Advisers? They couldn’t ask the right question even. What’s it For? It isn’t for anything. It’s a story. It’s a poem. Itself and nothing else.

Behind the wheel, the salt truck driver
gives what he has to offer the world
at his own steady pace, able from long practice
to ignore the parade in his wake.

Next the cautious Plymouth
driver hunched towards the dashboard
whispering songs with only two notes—
Careful, careful.

Then me, caught between caution
and the Lexus behind me,
who is certain he isn’t built to wait.
Flooring it by the bright yellow lines
he gleams, so full of righteousness
that even the deer by the side of the road
raise their heads to watch him pass.

Surprised again
again
by all the faces we wear.
So many times you turn a corner
into a dark alley
cobblestones wet with rain
and abandon yourself there, again.
Alone and wailing, you throw your
complaints once more against the
narrow brick walls—though long ago
the walls grew hardened to your problems.
But then, here you come again,
walking up the street whistling,
hands in your pockets,
able to hear your self and
ready to stroll into that alley
lift your self
up, wrap it in
your own warm coat
and tell it a funny story
just to make your self laugh.

Pearl gray sky,
dark gray skeletons of trees,
scribbled gray line of the road through the hills,
edged by coldmetal gray guardrails separating
one gray from another,
sleet falling hard,
scrubbing grays till they glisten
and slide together into this
charcoal gray pencil scratching
jumbled gray letters.

In another dream, you could buy fortune, 20 cents each. You had to buy plenty of them, though. In the whole marketplace, stuffed with fortune vendors, each was in charge of just a tiny bit of fortune—your favorite color becoming famous, no flat tires in the rain, full moons on nights you wanted to stroll outdoors, fresh pomegranates on sale every day, no weeds in the garden—that kind of thing.

And payment was very confusing. It sounded straightforward—20 cents each. But as fast as people put down the coins, the fortune vendors were sliding back change across the counter and soon it was all flashes of gold and copper back and forth across the counter so fast that you couldn’t count anymore.

You step back, out of breath and headachey, clutching the coins you have left, not sure exactly what you’ve purchased or what else you ought to buy or if you’ve enough coins left for what you need.

That’s when you see it. Off to the left, in a stall apart from the others, up a little flight of rickety wooden stairs is a different kind of fortune vendor. You’ve heard of them in old stories, but didn’t think they were real. Or at least not still in existence. You certainly never thought to see one for yourself in this lifetime. But there she was, her booth so quiet compared to the bustling and shoving of the market.

And so you went to her. If nothing else, it was worth the quiet. No one else visited her stall. The whole idea was too preposterous, too old-fashioned. Pay your 20 cents and this lady would guarantee nothing. She’d just tell you your fortune. Whatever she saw. Out loud. It was amazing.

Sometimes, instead of poem-shaped, words come together as pieces of stories we didn’t write yet.  Usually what lands in my lap tastes like the beginning of a story, something that would make a meal, or at the very least, a hearty snack, if I followed its scent to the kitchen, where the rest of it is simmering on the stove.  Here’s one now…

     Whenever the queen moved, small bones crunched beneath her feet. Tiny dead things caught at the hem of her red velvet gown, then fell away. It was as if, even in death, they wished to skitter and scramble far from her.
     Every fairy tale requires an evil queen. She must be lovely, and cold. Ice at every window of her castle.
     Yet, who froze your father’s bones in that distant winter?
     Who brought rains and drought to the farm fields outside the village?
     It wasn’t me, whispered the queen.