Puff Of Smoke Poems

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

The snow is deep and leisurely
with plenty of time to be creative
Here, for example, outside the mechanic’s
the rusted body shop sign sways
in the warm wind
while the snow pile
melts into the shape and gleam
of a marble torso

After all the storms pass
roof tiles, tree limbs
fallen to the ground
and all our crackled roads
show the slow wear of weather
while in the garden
last year’s hydrangeas
soft brown blooms,
tissue paper rustle
somehow still stand

cemetery fence—black iron
knocked to the ground
though the gate is still latched.
Dusk and a robin
perch on a gravestone
for the spectacular view

tree thoughts crowd the sky,
drift above these blue gray hills—
drink in these green dreams
now, before they wake
Another delight of early spring

When I feel bad
about homeless cats
I remind myself of
Worse Things—
mass graves, tsunamis,
plagues or fires or famines,
other disasters man-made or
natural. A list that
horrifying but true
could go on for a long, long time.
Halfway through the seventh stanza
most of the homeless cats have grown bored
and wandered away to settle their own fates.
Except for you. Only you linger,
ready for any story I want to tell,
as long as my voice stays soft and I remember
that one part of the one story you care about—
the part where I scratch the perfect spot behind
your always-wary ears.

Yesterday’s birthday?
My mother’s. I know for sure
what choice she would make.

In my quiet house
endless choosing for others—
Syllables, and weight
so many, so much.
Responsibility pounds
on my closed front door

Oh grow up, I shout.
So I did. What did I get
for all that effort?
Rooms, roads, and choices
and Responsibility
humming in my head

Late March, trees still bare
All their wiring shows—they are
stretching for the green dresses