Puff Of Smoke Poems

If it is your wish to, while you exist,
Be lovely —then you choose your
destiny by tiny steps along the way
For example,
these maple leaves from the same tree—
One graces the table, arranged with the last
of the purple mums, an acorn, a heart shaped stone
while another falls
gracefully,
as they do, swept together with many cousins
Raked up by a dad in flannel, a dad chosen
specifically because in a moment
He will be laughing. There—right then
when the children jump into the piled-up leaves
demolishing his effort, scattering their joy.
What maple leaf wouldn’t choose
this spectacular way to go?

inelegant word
for the softest moments—
fall back to sleep with stars
shining on your face your pillow
your peaceful closed eyes
Later, we’ll drink coffee
together and talk only
of how well we slept

Beyond the hedge, this other garden
where we tend the brittle shells of the young
each protected by a fierce spiked tongue
or over there, past the hydrangeas
the rusted thoughts of the old
creaky with fears and forgetting
And what is it we dream, as we
water and weed?
To soften their landings, as they grow
To show them the constancy that
holds them safe like the soil
to turn now and then away
to have someone else pour the tea

Over dinner, he tells me
about the lecture he attended
on Native American hunting techniques.
My mind drifts, as it does,
and I find it wandering a grocery store
in Minnesota, where a young native man
talked as he bagged my groceries
I wrote a poem about him.
How curious it is, this world where
now that poem is real
existing as firmly as any bone knife
museum artifact, or lecture on its use,
or artist’s rendition on canvas
All of these—knife, lecture, painting, poem
Created objects, our postcard
to ourselves, our note to the world
that we were here

is all news sweeter
pulled from a mailbox draped in
scarlet trumpet vine?

half buried in gravel
mostly gone to road grime and rust
Once a metal bottle cap,
now a message
from the road
a little reminder
of what we’re here to deliver

While busy searching the road
collecting pebbles, you miss this
sky wide view, field of clover
white-edged by
Queen Anne’s lace in the ditches
Remember how you explained
about the single dot of purple
at each white lace center?
So now add this
to all my notes about the world, these
hints about balance—notice the near
and notice the wider world
Isn’t it amazing how the hints
are all in bloom?

Awake before dawn
at the end of vacation
There, the same sweet song
from the trees in the dark
familiar birds still on duty
whether we listen
or not

It’s high summer here
so when you, whoever you are,
drive so slowly ahead of me
meandering along the hills
down country roads passing slowly
fields of corn, soybean, sunflower
grazing cows all with heads nodding slowly
in recognition of a fellow ruminant
passing vineyards where the grapes ripen
also slowly, so slowly, like you,
far below the speed limit
I conspire with cows and corn
to console myself about you
that you if nothing else you
thwarter of schedules you
remind me to admire
this patient panoramic view

Last night’s rain and a family
of snails collaborate
to build a castle with a pool
from a blue plastic bag
you threw from your car

All of us
architects
building some thing
out of this world