Puff Of Smoke Poems

clouds taught me this
on my daughter’s birthday
one more lesson on
the nature of time

sunrise streak of orange clouds
across a bright blue sky

gone in minutes, clouds
and sky fade to grayblue

whether the clouds
remember
or not
I was here with those colors
as they formed and as they faded
and when time changes this sky, too
one of us remembers.
Whatever sky does next
doesn’t unspool the moment
when those colors
were real

again today, time
and I meet
Again today, I try
to cajole time into
Meaningful Dialogue
about its peculiarities.
Today, in particular,
I’d like to discuss
Childhood. Yours,
specifically. Where,
I want to ask, did that
quirky crazy-curled
little girl go? And how can it be
that the beautiful young woman
sent in her stead
doesn’t remember that little girl
as clearly as I do? Time, being time,
lets me go on about this until
the coffee grows cold and I
am late for work.
Again.

Ghosts
of last year’s leaves
hide in the pavement—
sapped of past lives
dried beyond dust
almost gone but
quiet, busy
dreaming new colors
for seasons about to arrive

The title of my next poem may be
In Praise Of Dawdling
maybe
but I haven’t quite
gotten around
to writing it
just yet

Once, many years ago when money was tight, you found a five dollar bill in the street. Back then five dollars was a boon, an unexpected gift from a mysterious universe.

Yesterday, I found a grimy, rain-soaked twenty on the same block. Money’s not so tight these days. You? You are long gone.

What does this all mean? Oh, the question I often ask with no hope of a Definite Answer. Maybe it means nothing at all. A careless hand, a hole in a pocket.

Or maybe it’s a message from money. Maybe money has a sense of humor. Maybe money is trying to let us in on the joke by juxtaposing these two incidents, cash in the street, years apart, needed, not needed.

What, you might well ask, what is the punchline? Only money knows. And so far, it’s not telling.

The rest are ready to move on.
Only the weather resists,
with many a backward glance.
The calendar page flipped
geraniums and hollyhocks grew
leggy and tattered
Bicycles and skateboards sigh in their wheels
bored with the back and forth of our street
a dozen times, just today
Sneakers are ready, and lunch bags, and pencils
Even the crayons, hesitant at first,
are shy but eager to begin.
Only the weather, sentimental and humid,
clings long and sunny to the memory of August

Amazement:
How long glass can live
Unbroken
when framed in wood

I talk a big game about this poetry practice. Some months are harder than others. Over the years of ebb and flow, I’ve discovered magic in Taking Whatever Comes. There is a cycle of smallness and plainness, yawn-worthy poems followed by surprising gifts. Some days I open the door to a baby on the doorstep, or a bucket of words like pearls. Some days the doorbell never rings. Some days there’s only a pile of old leaves, with rickety edged words mixed in. But the trick is to open the door and welcome all, even the less lovely, rusted buckets of stones and worms and mismatched words. There is a balance inherent here. Only by kindly greeting all who arrive, inviting them in and offering a cool drink, maybe a foot rub, a polishing and a sending forth again whatever words come knocking—only by this welcoming do all the words, both the beautiful and the barnacle-covered, encrusted with polished stone or grubby pockmarked concrete—only by a genuine gladness to see them all do I move forward in this practice, mysterious and goofy, serious fun.

There are two kinds of people on my street.
On Mondays, some of my neighbors
wheel clackety green plastic cans
to the curb. This, a well known cure for too much,
famous for the removal of
What Would Otherwise Rot.
We all need a ritual to dispose of what indisposes us.
The Monday morning journey down the driveway,
in summer or in snow, is one path.
But some of us, by habit or preference,
take away our own burdens, deliver them
weekly to the town dump. I am one of those.
I say a proper and glad farewell
as I accompany my garbage
on its final road trip. We’ve been together for days
Or weeks, but it’s time. I love especially
the part where I drive away alone
lighter, as if I’ve been on one of those weird cleanse diets
The kind that ends on Saturdays.
Then I travel into a new week, as we each do,
a week,this week, every week, full of
Accumulating and Sorting Out
what to Keep
and what to Toss Away

Shadorma is a poetic form, possibly Spanish in origin,
built on a syllabic line count: 3/5/3/7/5
Warning: In the right mood, it’s as addictive as rhyme!

Most mornings
On long rambling walks
Easily
We solve the world’s big problems.
Neighbors, you’re welcome

Sweep the streets
Of loose rusted nails
Screws, thumbtacks
Be the savior of tires, praised
By wheels of all stripes

Taking a walk, sunny and sweaty
Beneath a breeze, one gray feather
drifts down, lands on my shoulder
maybe a metaphor
maybe a reminder
of who we could be