Puff Of Smoke Poems

pink geraniums
still shine beside yellow leaves
where two seasons touch

Not much of a summer,
she said. Too cool, too wet.
Her disappointed face
irritated with weather.
Weather never gives you a thought,
I wanted to say. Didn’t.
Instead, the orderly progression
of small town talk
wide and long
never plunging
aware of the high dive
but facing away.

Another prayer for the list—
Let me remember
to reach for the jolt of the jump
shock of fast cold joy
on a hot enough summer day.

Sunlight over stones
just add water for diamonds
to fill this river

Summer’s crop of feral kittens
cry all night beneath
your bedroom windows
skittish and wild
eyes gleam in the dark
If you got out of bed
tried to catch them
they would scatter, hiss
Cornered, they would bite
to escape you, Wary
and more than wary of anything
larger than themselves
But still they return, night after night,
drawn to houses, to heartbeats
summoned to any lit windows
Small electric vibrations of desire.

Change is in the air
pennies and dimes
the odd half-dollar
floating and clinking
through the clouds,
falling heavy metal rain

last night in my house
a bat! A batbatbatbat
Eeeek! Aarrgghhh! Batbatbat.

The pine tree cure must
be taken alone on
a restless night
where once, this once,
you do not reach for light or
phone or book or anyone
or anything. Distractions
fall from your hands
nearly full
moon lights the evergreen
who for so many long years
Effortless and Mighty
has been standing
through all the other nights
when you were not
prepared
and this still night
when you were.

This mirror
said my mother
was mine and my mother’s
and her mother’s before her.
Look,
it shows your face
and all of ours.

Years later, long gone,
I finally look.
Now there’s time
and miles enough to wonder
how my mother held it all.
Imperfectly.
The waved glass
distorts or softens
depending on the light.

Look,
we are all trying our best
juggling and comparing mirrors
mirrors of the past
or of the parallel worlds
all around us.

Look,
my daughter lifts the mirror
grown heavy with its years
of showing.
My daughter lifts it
to her own small face
every gesture
a reflection
every breath on the glass
an arrow pointing
towards
or away.

Life is not circled
It moves in spirals
direction depending
on the mirror in your hand
All glass reflects
Each image it has held
is held still

Breathe on the glass
See the faces who came before
But still
All this? Only tricks with mirrors.
Anyone can do them
Instead regard the handle
Wooden or silver?
Wood is best

elm oak cherry
birch or maple
mahogany walnut rosewood
ash
or
pine

Regard the spirals patterned in the grain
of woods which once grew wild
Needing no reflection
Only sky.

squash blossoms
dream yellow dreams
humming in the sun
Beyond the garden
wide fields of soybeans
corn potatoes each plant
sings its one-note song
among and through the stalks
the busy melodies of mice
Beneath
them
all,
dark bass note
of stone.