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.
Spring Into
Therapy
I stop at a farm stand selling flowers,
tiered displays in pinks, purple, white.
I’ve got petunias, she says, and double petunias
all ruffled. Marigolds, tomatoes, too.
One dollar each. Oh, it’s not to make money, she says.
This is therapy.
I wish I’d stopped moving right there.
I wish I’d asked her to explain, to tell me
her story. Instead I got lost
in the picture she made in my head—
A long line of doctors-to-be,
interns in psychiatry, and those who
study the heart, and those who specialize
in the working of our hands. They arrive
at this farmhouse door in white lab coats,
ready, faces eager and open to learn
all this gray-haired expert can teach them
about How Therapy Works.
She puts down her trowel with a patient sigh
for though she has much work to do, someone,
someone must teach them. She begins simply,
the way you would with very small children.
She leads them to the greenhouse door.
At the sight of them, standing awkwardly
in the muddy patch between potting shed
and vegetable garden, in their thin and shiny city shoes,
unprepared for this practical world, she remembers
where she meant to begin. First, you need boots,
she tells them. She opens the door to the greenhouse,
remembers to speak.
This is a seed, she says.
Personification
“Better no personification than bad or foolish personification.”
Mary Oliver, from A Poetry Handbook
The message in my head
from that wise poet
delivered early. I will take it
to my heart with its serious
wild face, my heart so quick
to close its eyes and tuck
its tail round itself into
a snug and dozing circle.
Hibernating now, it’s
slow to rouse, but dreaming
in cold sleep, dreaming
of new roads crossed by so many
other hearts, their wild creature eyes
glinting reflected light, wandering adventures
beneath a huge night sky
swirled with starlight and gold,
the quick and the possible.
Unplugged
Breathe
is the prescription
when all my cords are frayed
from being wound so tightly
and I no longer remember
how to,
when clearly there is
Absolutely
No
Time
for a refresher course,
busy as I am
in this hectic, important life.
But that tiny part of me
that is not insane,
not addicted to the word
frenzy
Calmly writes this cure
in the margins of novels
I want to read this summer,
writes it across the top
of the dusty picnic table
waiting in the yard,
writes it in sunscreen and lemonade
across the wide lawn
till it meets the trees.
Fabric
These days, the fabric of Time
is thick burlap that chafes
and snarls itself into knots
even as it unravels at all its
Edges. It stays awake all night,
watching for Summer.
There are stories Time heard, oh
long, long ago now, of what
will happen when Summer arrives—
Tales of transformation, highly
fanciful, hardly credible, nothing more
than fables really, myths that promise
Transformation.
but so the story goes that Time itself will
Change, become bolts of green silk,
unfolding in luxurious swathes
over this whole world, swaying free
to the music of water and wind chimes
till it covers the ground
in smooth, soft waves
for Summer to float on.
Or so the story goes.
Green Is A Color
now
green is all remember
those bare trees of winter
though I do know
they lived
I cannot
conjure them again
meaning
Spring, at last.
Graduation Gift
“Roofs are easier to fix than roads,”
says the historian in her dry, reedy voice
which explains covered bridges
and opens the possibility of
the perfect graduation gift.
Along with that Irish
Blessing
about roads rising to meet you,
knowing they will roll their eyes
at your choice,
after much consideration
The Perfect Gift
for setting out into the wide world
may be
an umbrella.
Late, Again
Welcome back to the tightness in the chest, the almost-frantic voice demanding, Hurry, from between clenched teeth. Hurry means wrong again, means miscalculations in the intricate morning mix, ingredients that must be layered in particular order, precisely measured, a cake that never rises, a dance the whole household knows and nobody greets with joy. Hurry means measured wrong again, one shower too long, or shampoo in somebody’s eye, lunch boxes left on yesterday’s bus or we’re out of bread. Again. No one can find a pen for the permission slips that appeared in the night and so they pile up, years of field trips, from zoos to Shakespeare festivals, signed in crayon or eyeliner or not at all. But there are shoes on every single foot and each delivered to its proper place to spend the day. By the time you reach the office, someone should be there to greet you with a medal, a fanfare, at the very least a gold star and a mug of coffee, crowds applauding all you’ve achieved before 8 a.m., followed by space inside a quiet room with a soft chair where time stops sprinting towards the finish line. This room is yours for as long as you need to breathe, to settle your racing heart, a room where absolutely nobody ever says You’re Late.
Again.
Memorial Day
I never survived anything like war
Not even a single, ruthless battle.
Instead, this whole cold holiday
Spent sick in bed, those battle-earned
Hours squandered on sleep.
This year, the day’s miracle is sunlight
Filigree of tree shadows through lace curtains,
Peace in the streets,
My lap full of oranges and poems.
Grateful, grateful to be here and free
In a place where gratitude is personal,
This tiny town,
Where the War Memorial is etched
With names they remember
With names they know by heart.
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.
Puff Of Smoke Poems 