Puff Of Smoke Poems

According to this meditation book, we each possess
a vase—no, we each are a vase—that’s it—
And we, says my book, decide what to fill ourselves
with and we can choose Positive Self-Talk. It doesn’t
mention what falls or drifts or tips accidentally
into my vase. What am I to do with
leaves and snow, pollen, road salt, insects,
occasional tiny frogs or salamanders?
Ferns? Candy wrappers? Cottonwood?
This river otter?
Obviously, I’ve fished out the candy wrappers.
But otherwise, I decide I’m keeping them—
Strayed far again from cool and carefully
Detached. Instead of a clear vase of good intent
I’ve gone and built an ecosystem and
crawled out of the river of me and I’m sitting on the bank
listening to the frogs on the lily pads of me,
watching that river otter happy at the far edge of me,
deep in my cattails and here comes some salmon, for dinner,
and a blue heron for awe and mighty luck.

Make oatmeal, not poems
On the mornings words freeze
Or move as slow sludge deep
Inside a region we don’t
Discuss, someplace you can’t
Reach into and stir.
Unlike oatmeal
Which will wait forever.
Stirred easily, heated,
It transforms.
Add pecans, some blueberries,
A dash of cinnamon
As changed, as built from
Very little, as delicious as
A poem.

Late last night, while the wind rattled at the windows, I finished reading my book club’s choice, The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey. Knew I had to make an attempt at a poem about the experience.

Story behaved as if discovered
not invented or made up,
not easy in its unfolding
this Found thing, unearthed with effort,
solid as a boulder, real as a red fox.
It did not need our eyes on it
as, led down from the mountains,
it turned from fur to words on a page.
Wary creature, deep stone, could only be told
by one who knows and loves.
It followed a storyteller who did not forget,
who made sure to fold all that matters
into a tale of snow and wilderness,
magical children, lanterns to skate by
beneath a cold sky, northern lights,
swan wings sewed into wedding gowns,
loyalty and long, long loves,
the whole salted with tears
and found joy.

Because the battery is dead
and if I charge my cell phone
while talking, I will lose you
and my crazy phone
will offer to show me photos
or attempt a call to Bulgaria
instead of the Bahamas.

Because while I clear out photos
you try to call back and
it won’t come through, as if we
were at a seance
on opposite sides of this veil.

Because when we finally connect
you can’t hear my voice, stolen by fish
in the deep seas between us
or maybe it’s all done in the air now
gulls flown off with our voices.

Because face to face is not currently
an app that’s available for this model
unless we upgrade.

Because nobody uses landlines anymore.
Remember the thrill of cordless?
Remember when we could talk while
we cooked dinner or folded laundry
or washed dishes?

Because now it’s all Hello? Hello?
Shouting into our handheld devices
like grandmothers from the old country
mystified by all this folderol to hear
familiar voices saying the same old things.

Because creaky as an old grandmother
I’m going to pick the basil now, start
the sauce and bury the cell phone in the
herb garden to scare the beetles
and encourage the earthworms.
I am going to write you a letter
and cook and read and work and sleep
while I wait for your answer
written in your own sweet voice.

Okay, not a poem today, but a starter. Try this prompt from my latest favorite book, a vacation gift from me to me. The Pocket Muse, by Monica Wood. She suggests writing down ten random letters, then writing sentences using words that begin with those letters, in that order. Or, I supposed, you could write poems…or lists of ingredients, made-up song titles, invented words. GO ahead, give it a try. I used exactly the letters Ms. Wood gave as an example, because I am a Rule Follower. Her letters: C W I T S N E M B R

My tries, which quickly veered towards food:

SENTENCES
Captivate wildebeests in town, shy neighbors end meandering but restless.

Culling wishes in tinselled sieves, never eat memories braised, roasted.

RECIPE: WITCH STEW
Cook with
imps, toads,
snipped nails,
Eeks, mangroves.
Boil, repeat.

LIST: INSTRUCTIONS FOR ODD FOODS
Chew wiggling
insect tapenade.
Saute nasturtiums.
Eat mackerel.
Bring radishes (really, because most everyone needs some tastes indulged with commonness.)

      Written in response to a prompt in The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop, by Diane Lockwood. Though this wonderful book encourages much revision, I enjoy the prompts for my first-draft, slapdash, on the run efforts at a daily poem—quite a different animal than polished, much revised and burnished poetry—the difference between a dollar store coffee mug and a Ming dynasty teacup.

Today, I am going to say I travel.

I’ll say, I’m leaving for Europe—
Though I never travel so far—
Just to picture myself packing, then
Unpacking in a foreign hotel.

I love the casual tone of friends who travel,
Those who say Barcelona or Mykonos
Without exclamation,
The way I might say hardware store.

Today, I bought a leather bag
With a cunning little passport sleeve
Though I don’t have a passport.
I hoped the store clerk might ask, Where…?

Which they didn’t. But I was prepared.
Scotland, I might answer. Edinburgh.
Or Florence or Tokyo, the names all lies,
Intoxicating promise on my tongue.

When I travel in real life, it is business
Or family—Cleveland, Atlanta, Houston.
I study departure boards, imagine myself
Hopping instead on the next flight to Paris.

I love it in my head, to think of my bag full
Of silk shirts and fountain pens, me walking
Cobblestone streets bristling with cathedrals
And cafes, music and pigeons in the square.

Though we have pigeons here.
And lies aside, the truth is this—
Home from Cleveland, I will open my front door,
Not with a thrill, but a deep persistent joy at the word,
The very sound of the word, Home.

Winter burns us brittle.
Don’t make any sudden moves this month.
When we brush against each other
to warm ourselves on these banked fires,
move slowly,
so pieces of us don’t break off
in all this bone deep cold.

That’s what they say at the home.
So I picture her, little old lady with
a knapsack on her back, touring Europe,
eating baguette and cheese and grapes
on a hillside, surrounded by her traveling
companions—not scruffy college kids, but
Earl who used to farm near her farm,
Alice from the room down the hall,
Robert, Mabel, and Louise, who always
sing along on days the music therapist
visits and plays the battered old piano
in the common room, songs they know
by heart. If she wanders, let her friends
come too. If she wanders,
let it be far into joy.