Adrift
For forty years, they wandered
in the wilderness, their lives
in constant chaos. Did they ever
wonder what the problem might be?
Don’t worry Yahweh; we can take
it from here.
The night insects began
to sing again last night.
I remember.
She said if I ever cry,
I will flood the world again.
Demeter in a blue pick-up,
follows the creek.
Eyes, Dublin blue, see beyond
summer sycamores
filled with singing cicadas.
She’s the last of the breed,
a heretic living at the foot of the cross,
hoping the cicada song
is true of resurrection.
A perfect fit for the palm,
but squeeze too hard,
it cuts into skin.
Even its flat surfaces snag
your shirtsleeves;
there is more to be worn
away. Red clay
in its past
beneath fertile soil.
It begins with a story familiar, deciphered
in a milky swirl of light: she stands at her window
and night has come like a curtain dropped
as it makes that beautiful arc
caught in the slipstream of its falling
the skies, the tilting dome of time
And now, lost in the flowering of memory
with its special brand of brilliant
iteration, like a reappearing
from the friction of dream against the rough stone
light years away, beyond the veils
what the heart most desires, you’re taught to lose
Then floods of sorrow
the key that opens every door; each entry
shifts and gathers itself once more
a space of truth blank like the sea
the stars turn, the empty
symmetry, centripetal, slowly opening
into the gullet of night
And how she aches to break and run, be
the lifeline of a phrase tossed over the abyss
and (unimaginable) ignites
the sheath of her cocoon–everywhere
she finally slams
the ideas that freeze her this time
It’s my turn now, followed by
Now everything is starting
the door of the dead is opened in the heart
an endlessly unfolding flower
of creation, where everything is
now everything is starting
She almost shudders as she hears
the steady murmur of bees
the view and every syllable of sound
what multitudes it can contain
where the moon lay, white and naked, on the pond
as hope, evanescent
And sense comes untied, a knot to lose
outside the frame is an immensity of blue
that echoes and reverberates
like larvae in the dark
and it was as if every seed
was the sound of hushed breathing
the sweet elixir of our tears—
kindness after so much noise.
~ Cento created from lines of The Girl with Bees in Her Hair by Eleanor Rand Wilner
Yesterday I wrote a poem about not writing a poem
Today I am writing a poem about what I wrote yesterday
Namely, that I resolved to write a poem today.
As child, I was told that my creativity was “a gift”
I wasn’t told that everybody–well, almost everybody–had that gift.
If that art school in Vienna had given Hitler another chance, things might have been different
But maybe not.
when you think of the house that lies
empty, that contains broken things, important
and unimportant—the picture frames
and plastic bags, never you.
You and your spirit. Maybe
some days will feel like fall
when it’s certainly summer.
Don’t let the cool or heat dissuade
from the greening trees, the sky
moving overhead. Remember:
even decomposition
has its purpose.
The seasons will come, even the spring.
And if it doesn’t, flood
the house with rain.
Let the water come anyway.
Let the sun shine on us again.
These are the eyes that caught mine unexpectedly when you turned to speak with the someone behind you, distant blue planets calling out for a journey of exploration. This is the sunshine-golden smile that guided me as I approached. This is the hand that gifted mine when I asked you to dance, the cheek that touched mine as one of us drew the other close, the ring our orbits drew around the floor. This the dress you hung with deliberation, these the fluttering kisses and the feeling in me as we touched. This is the image of you, of us, of the perfectly imperfect angles and compound curves that somehow found a way to fit as I saw myself reflected in these eyes.
Aloof of Hoof
the golden tickseed and
brown eyed susan
afford these thickets
femininity.
i am utterly lost, and all i
did was round a bend.
i intuit the direction i ought
to head -impossible, in the
circumstancial myriad tree
stands.
i end up on someones
property with no permission.
admire the sweet peas in
passing. cut through unkind
woods that are birdless.
climb and shimmy under
whats dead or growing.
there is a camoflague
ball-cap. parts of bullets.
i see an opening in a fence
and must walk alongside
a house.
come out seven big farms
past my mark. way out, many
dozen bulls take off with my
masked embarrassment.
they are aloof of hoof.
Seems not remarkable, one more day.
A day to watch the borning sun chase a lazy mist.
A day to hear soft words over morning cups.
A day to parcel out the day’s best chores.
A day to watch purposed puttering at daily tasks.
One more day not remarkable on this shore?
It would fill my earth, my hope of heaven and fling
Itself to the far universe to rest with all the stars.
(for Katie Belle)
