Puff Of Smoke Poems

I might have made
the start of a poem
early yesterday
scribbling as I drove—
I know that should
Already be Edited to:
Scribbling at a Stop Light—
but anyone who knows me
knows there aren’t any—
stop lights, that is—
on my commute.
So
I scribbled as I drove.
I don’t remember
what I wrote but
I’ll bet it involved the view—
winding my way
through hills hugged close
by low, misty clouds
till the sun came up
and dried the sky, till those
clouds wisped away
and I arrived
to become
Practical
and Achieve things all day

outside, again.
how quickly I forgot
how smoothly winter erased it
how the air is soft and damp green
sprinkled all over with
pink geranium petals
and the conversations of birds

men with Nerf guns
chase through the yard
yelling and giggling—

small boys returned
for an afternoon or
till they run out of breath

instead of bread crumbs
tiny poems
mark the path home

Yesterday, driving
(home from a weekend
of too much food
and the right amount of
laughing crying talking
remembering hoping and then
Laughing more)
alone in the car
Springtime finally arrived
carrying tornadoes in her arms
trailed by hail the size of quarters
She’s just another one of the girls
You know how she is, we all say and
we roll our eyes—but fondly
Some seasons believe in
Making An Entrance

Because its language is foreign
damp and full of rhythmic tapping
but unintelligible to us
except for a vague recognition
that this language
is cousin to the current
of the creek in spring

Because its language is foreign
we don’t know what it says
Insistently. Relentlessly. Day after
day for three weeks, the rain
wants us to know—
Some mysterious thing

Maybe it is saying, with its whole self
—don’t be stingy
with what you have to give.
Give Insistently. Relentlessly,
day after day
Until you wash something
Away.

one day
morning moon
bright and full

another day
morning sun
dazzles through
the window

neon advertisements
for the day to come