Puff Of Smoke Poems

Today I woke up

with my head full of numbers.

Click of calculators in my ears

tumbled me out of bed

to clutch my red checkbook.

Numbers in, numbers out

and a sleepy number 3

who tried to sneak away

for a bit more shut eye.

I only allow myself one (two)

poems per morning,

doling out this treat of language

to make it last.

After a poem (two)

I put the book down,

look out past the candlelight

to the dark, then lightening

world, the spray of snow on

my neighbor’s roof,

and dream of Wales.

“Her eyes shone like two bright stars, but there was no rest or peace in them.”

From The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Anderson

Eyes full of rest, of peace

is the gift I’d give you, daughter–

Hunting everywhere till I found it,

asking crows and witches

in every village I passed,

willing to pay any price.

I would carry it home tucked in my red cloak,

Then wrap it in bright green paper, to

remind you of holidays and growing things

and tie it with a red bow.

I would tell you, Look for this

one gift, tucked beneath the tree

to delight you in the morning.

Because I’ve bound my heart to you

my gift would be to see you smile

and mean it.

When you’ve been walking

in circles, wrapped in old conversations

that can never keep you warm

and every moment is another moment

she’d rather be somewhere else.

When you’re weary because your heart

is tied to your child

so it is always traveling

or packing its bags.

When you can’t remember

how to reach her or how to get home–

Rest on the road.

Talk long into the night with the other travelers, who are

all searching for their wandering hearts.

Light a fire and sip something warm together.

Swap stories and laugh.

Though this is not the place you sought

you can learn to let it be, for now, close to

Enough.

Do you know that feeling?

The one when it’s a rainy afternoon

and you open a book you’ve never read before

with few expectations,

recalling all those misguided infatuations

And blatant seductions in the past–

by wily books dressed to draw you in—

Thick paper and quirky quotes

lovely art, reviews that make you hope

despite many, many disappointments.

Then, this time, you stumble over someone

ready to be in love with the world,

and discover musty trunks full of old diaries and tattered maps

and everywhere, on every page she writes of the outdoors—-

Misty rain, thick forest, a fog rising

from the fields–

and tucked beneath the mountains,

tiny stone cottages with thatched roofs,

Wild roses and mugs of strong tea.

You sigh and think—

Oh, this book will be delicious.

Thank you, you breathe, to the god of books

who, capricious and irresistible,

tumbles treasures into a reader’s hands

a few times in every life.

You know that feeling?

I found it today.  

A house drove by,

Going fast,

Scattering leaves

And school buses. 

We’re hiking the gorge, this poem written by stone,

down the path thick with leaves, and

stone steps cut into the steepest declines.

At the bottom, ice coats the shale ledge.

We watch our feet instead of the view,

too aware of how easily limbs break,

how quickly a slip could shatter something inside.

Ahead of us, two hikers call down to someone below.

When we reach them on the bridge, we lean over to see—

Three teenagers on the side trail

that leads straight down, behind the waterfall.

The hikers above, middle aged, our age,

are calling warnings about mud and ice

are calling Careful, Careful.

The teenagers wave and laugh

across the steep distance between us.

The lost continent of Atlantis

was discovered today,

shoved under your bed, resting on a pile of dirty socks

and PopTart wrappers, next to your missing retainer.

No one who has ever seen your room

was surprised when I described the green hills,

the ships in the harbor,

the castles and the marble statues rising up.

If you ever find this note—

(unlikely, since I tucked it beneath your pillow–)

you will sigh and roll your eyes

and ask, Can’t you just tell me

to clean my room, like a normal mother?

Picture the moon practicing

while you slept,

showing early attempts to the cat

who remained unimpressed.

Cat, ever practical, said

The moon’s best efforts

at shadow puppets

were the bunny or the bird.

If you’re going to all that trouble

wrangling light and shadow

it might as well be tasty.

Moon smiled, having learned long ago

to ignore cats.

In the night, moon

painted a heart in the middle of the floor,

a trick of the light

you’ve never seen before.