Puff Of Smoke Poems

Back home
apples tumbled to the ground
while I traveled loudly
through the world

Now evening and we are home
mom kids Sam the dog
full of dinner tired from chasing
so many sticks

Now the dog leaps up
at each leaf rattle thump
ready to protect us from
Dangerous Fruit

Now we are
quiet enough
to hear the apples fall

and there ought to be a word
for this feeling both lonesome and cozy
for how other apples fell
while we were far away and noisy
neither us nor apples thinking of each other
though there’s the outside chance
the dog was listening for them,
even then

My problem, since you asked,
Is only this—all the things
I didn’t do in
This summer

Which is
Just another way
To say
Things I didn’t do in
This life

I have not
Written enough books
Read enough books
Thrown enough parties
Lost enough pounds
Sorted enough closets
Painted enough pictures

I have not
Glided at dusk
On a still lake
In a kayak
Or better yet, as a swan.
That’s it—
I have not turned into a swan
Enough

Or if not a swan then
The birch tree
At the water’s edge
Who sees every sunset
And how the lake calms
More times than enough

Here, she said,
and held out the box of syllables
because good girls like us
bring hostess gifts
when we visit.
She emptied the whole box
onto my sunny kitchen table.

haiku tumble out,
start counting the tomatoes
fresh from the garden

She smiles, stirs them with a finger,
says, Go on, live a little.
They scatter, to see
what they can make of themselves
leaving dusty little footprints
fragile as moth wings
as they stop counting steps.
Instead, with a little hop, and a
goodbye wave, they begin
tracking new lines all over
the checkered tablecloth

Cloud-covered
to hide the meteors, the
dark filled with cricket song

After enough time
even songs disappear
and it’s too early or too late
for anything except
me keeping company
with the night
while it fills up
all the jars of tomorrow

one cardinal
flies a mad dash
across the rain-soaked sky
layers himself over
the damp green trees

his body brushes
bright shouts of red
which wakes up
the whole picture

morning ladies walk
alone and serious or
in laughing bundles

a date
and not the kind that grows on trees
But
like a date,
or is it a fig
familiar and
foreign, at once—
a flavor you haven’t tasted
for a long time
but remember fondly.
So one day,
Today
strolling through the grocery
strolling through the world
you think maybe
and try one

daddy-long-legs
dew-damp, folded in the ferns
unfurls into day

lean into summer
write it a haiku each day
to
slow
down,
see,
breathe

coffee on the porch
balancing summer before
morning yoga class
**********************
kitchen calender
bends this season at the fold
into two green halves