Posts for June 10, 2017 (page 3)

“Burdens too heavy to bear . . “, someone 
Wrote that, maybe it’s a song, maybe 
It’s not true, hope so. Stuff keeps happening. 

New job, lost Pa, new baby, lost Ma, 
New house, lost sister. Remember Pat? 
A loss that augured more to come? 

How heavy does fate pile on, shaking
Foundations of family  before the tree
Falls on the roof and the rain pours in? 

Sunshine tomorrow is never promised,
To reach for the clearing is allowed,
Hope for arms lifting a sleepy child.

Tassels and libraries challenged.
Will I be warrier enough to accept
And wend a way through grit to grin? 
K.  Bruce Florence 

We had both and often together—

the herd of dairy and the bee hives.

All fed from the same fields of clover and alfalfa,

and, in different seasons, the pear trees

and the corn stalks.  Never anything

so magical and soothing as hot cornbread 

or hot biscuits dipped in a plate of fresh butter and honey 

swirled together.  We need to feed the creatures 

that drive all life on earth.  

“—we are at war with what comes most naturally to us”  from rupi kaur’s  milk and honey p193, loaned to me by grandaughter. 

“But we also need the teeny creatures that drive all life on earth.”  http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/11/29/166156242/cornstalks-everywhere-but-nothing-else-not-even-a-bee

Winter settled over us,
freezing streams, shrinking scrotums,
burying landmarks under the snow.
The face of the earth became a white field
upon which we projected
the screenplay of our apocalypse.

That is how we will remember it
from the place we go
after it’s all gone.

You Snapchat me

just to see what I’m up to

and I tell you

that my nose is sunburned.

You invite me over

for aloe vera 

and iced tea.

This is the fantasy 

I made up

of a perfect world.

What if
we don’t know about time travel
because the future doesn’t find us interesting?

What if
everything we’ve done
is still just the footnote to our dictionary entry?

Submitting poem #5 for the poetry challenge,
Should meet the requirement to get one of my poems included in the anthology,
So, what do you think of me now, girl who was popular when were both in the ninth grade?
You wouldn’t go with me to the Valentines Dance,
You only dated football players,
Your parents owned a boat on the lake,
They both drove Cadillacs,
Well, now you and I are senior citizens,
And I am the poetry man,
I could have made you feel alright.

Though the hours were small
and full of more
delectable distractions,
I have never known hunger
so completely rid
as by this tiny taste of you.

Though the feast be denied,
my place at the table
reserved to the floor space
beside your chair,
happiness is there.
I could live on this alone.

I sit patiently in my favorite restaurant
a comfortable booth
a glass of wine in the proper glass
amber light dimmed but not dark.
I watch the maître d straighten a bit
as she comes through the door.
He guides her to the booth decorously
her hand on his elbow as if blind.
And so she is blind, and so am I
at least to each other, at least until now.
As I stand to greet her
I try to suppress preconceived notions—
her runway walk in four inch stilettos
her perfectly round
where she should be round  
her impossibly flat
where she should be flat.
I am dressed to best hide my paunch.
My head is shaved
to imply baldness is a choice.
We have not yet said a word
but she can see I am and ageing sailor
on the sea of heartbreak.
I am certain that, for all her beauty, has been dumped
probably for a younger woman
at least three years ago—
and in the interim, has suffered
through the worst, the best, the in-betweens
but has not yet clicked.  
In the next ninety seconds
I will know and she will know
and we will each know that the other knows
if there is even a slightly plausible—
wobbly little—
chance in the known universe.

Lord, what should I write today?

Write about me, son

How?You created the cosmos. Everything in the universe is in your hand. Nothing moves without your permission. You created matter with speech. You put yourself into a body and entered into the human narrative. You let us beat and murder you and withheld your wrath. You loved me into salvation. You overcame the Enemy by letting him destroy you. You promise me treasures incomprehensible to the imagination, and, even better, you have promised me yourself. Anything I say would be inadequate.

Have you ever felt anything your three year old has said was inadequate?

I hang on her every word

…