Puff Of Smoke Poems

but let’s wait
a few more minutes–
birdsong in the dark
front door wide
Open
to warm day ahead—
this early, cool air
kicks the furnace on.
I write with one hand on the puppy
he sighs,
falls asleep, and I
(the one who pays the gas bill)
Ignore the cartoon image in my head
of dollar signs leaving
while I pet this dozing dog
and let all our heat
pour out into the street
for a few minutes more

by the silo,
facing the road
a blue leatherette recliner
waits for somebody to sit
and dream
as traffic streams by
Is it you?

I first read Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg many years ago and it inspired my writing. Since then, she’s written several more books about the connections between writing/meditation/art/creativity and living well. I’ve read them all, and learned from them all.

Her approach to writing–set aside a specific time, write and take what is given—her approach is deep within this long-time poetry practice of mine. For the past two months, I’ve spent my Saturday afternoons in an online writing class taught by Natalie Goldberg and it’s been wonderful. On the last day, she read to us from her newest book Three Simple Lines–A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku. Then we all wrote haiku –two thousand of us, I think—or maybe at the end of eight weeks of Saturdays we were down to 1500? In any case, this is what I wrote:

5 minutes, three lines

Blue toy
Filled with peanut butter
Puppy concentrates

Listen hard–hear
Haiku
Over the neighbor’s lawn mower

Blue spruce leans in
Nearer to the almost
Blooming quince

Orange leaves, dark branches
Next to the new leaves
Lilac–not yet

White stakes mark
Where
The peonies will live

After my neighbor died
Movers empty her house today
While I plan the garden

we need to remember–
Love this world.
Lucky for us,
world is a good teacher–
today it’s whale vocalizations
from Trinidad on the radio
as we drive through spring snow
It’s the same lesson
over and over
with new words
the way that
you play the same song
on repeat for hours
to soak it in

red candy heart
on the sidewalk
outside school
waited all day
melting in spring sun
until just now,
after football practice,
stepped on
accidentally broken
by some oblivious
anonymous boy’s foot

Stuck in traffic
which, here,
means on a country road
behind the farm tiller–
twenty miles per hour
Time enough
to notice
after this hard winter
last year’s leaves
tissue paper gold
on the lowest branches
still

your birthday–
can you see us today
remembering
filled as we are
with buying strawberries
answering emails, going to jobs
and playing with puppies.
Anna said she bought
goldfish and ate them
in memory of you and
it took a full minute
to figure out she meant
Goldfish crackers–
Do you remember
that’s how things go here
Often
so busy
it takes a minute
to see the point?

long-hair man, bandana
few teeth
many tattoos, builds a
new wooden deck
on the ice cream stand

outside the farm market
stacked pallets of mulch
and a sign that reads,
this is a sign

roadside trailer’s front yard–
truck tire planter
spray-painted blue
holds forsythia in full bloom

furnace rumbles on
because I left our front door
open
to catch bird songs
in the still dark morning
sit down with this
frisky ball of puppy
One of us trolls through
Big Thoughts
about life,
about time and change
and loss
One of us quiets
and falls asleep with a sigh
while inside and outside
birds and furnace
continue their songs
Again and again
Someone hands me
a silver tray
heavy with gifts
and the clearest message–
Go ahead
make a poem
of all this

rain fell hard all night
Today
her funeral
two thousand miles
away.
picture she painted
just for me
long ago
has followed me
home to home
for decades
follows still
carries its bottomless basket
of sweet memories
keeping company
on this long day
when I should be
two thousand miles away