For you, my happy son,
so bored with home, one more gift
after all the tassels, cakes and cash.
The best gift I ever gave
took decades to build—
Here it is—open it—
The life that led to graduation night
spent with superhero movies
playing on the barn’s back door
behind your best friend’s house
chairs and cushions spread on the lawn
huge starred sky above and a projector
flickering pictures against the barn door screen.
I’ve carried your gift carefully, adding to it day by day
over years and offer it to you, now—
This childhood I built with you, and everybody
who knows you in this little town.
Here, carry it with you, no burden
but a memory to hold in the dark.
Another Graduation Gift
Heritage
I come from a long line of Alarmists.
In the 1300s, we were the town criers
who ran through city streets
yelling important announcements
of impending doom:
Pestilence! Plague! Invaders!
Here, the cure:
Announce something happy,
or at least not Alarming
every—well, let’s start with once a day
and work up from there
till whole days are full of chocolates and
hidden blossoms brought to light.
Start here
Start now
Look, the berries are ripe
and glisten, all the rain
has written Bright Green
across the orchard.
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.
Wandering With The Martians
Wandering through the isles with the Martians,
We landed here, this cozy lodge, thick wooden
Beams, field-stones, walls insulated with straw bales
And poems tucked into each wall
Snug against the storms. The long days now,
We stay inside, bundled and warm,
Fire built up and crackling,
Sipping tea, eating those crisp Martian cakes shaped
Like Earth with their faint tang of lemon.
We tell each other stories, the Martians and I, softly,
In quiet voices to match the snow
Drifting past our glazed windows,
Building feather mountains like the ones they remember.
Water Colors
Gray silk lake at dusk
To the west, sun tipped water
Tilts the world towards pink.
Mourning Dove Morning
Outside of any proper season,
this cool, damp morning—
A painting, not white-washed,
rinsed in watered gray silk,
world where words are muffled–
the quiet murmur of walkers passing my porch.
Even the cars–their motors whisper Hush into the
Road, which answers with a rain wash shush
and below all these, the beat of this day’s
softened heart, the call over and over
of the mourning dove, this morning dove.
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.
Peonies
This only in summer—
Time opening its dense flower face,
An old rose or here, a bright pink peony,
All day passing with others of its kind,
Basking in sun, rain, cool nights, the
Particular quiet of mid-afternoon
When even the birds
Whisper in the heat
And the peonies dream their flower dreams
Of stretching themselves
Into blossoms.
Graduation In Translation
Searching for your one important face
in a crowd of caps and gowns
and beach balls—which are against
The Rules and…There— you turn,
see me and grin that always smile
which all these years of practice
taught me to translate with ease
into this jumble of:
I’m hot, this hat itches, isn’t this whole
thing ridiculous but funny?
And as always, the grin includes
Instructions for me–
Please Do Not:
Cry
Take any more pictures
Comment on my sneakers
Or the girl in the next aisle.
I smile right back, knowing you too
are a master translator:
I love you, we both say,
as I reach for the camera.
Puff Of Smoke Poems 