Posts for June 19, 2020 (page 2)

Sometimes our sins
Become our best friends
We keep them around like pets
To remember
What we’ve gotten away with

My worst sins (some
Actually criminal) were
Done with good intention
When I was at the point
Of exhaustion or ex-
Asperation.  They are 
The hounds kenneled
Behind the farthest barn
But the SMALL ones, the
Small ones, the small ones
Are the mutts in the yard
Whom I like to greet
With my lolling tongue
And wagging tales.
They are the sins (I think)
That reveal my true nature
Let me give 3 examples:
1)…

Just now
You walk past my desk,
Read this over
My shoulder and say
Let sleeping dogs lie

you are somewhere
not here
and I ask myself
what I wish for
when night falls
and another day waits beyond the horizon
what do I long for
call out to
establish as my desire
as this day draws to a close
the familiar, blended with the mysterious
beckons me in equal fashion
we have a long way to go

In a disorderly
world
of hate
and racism
and hopeless
selfishness
shutdown
by a deadly virus
and reopened
too soon
because of the
economy
(people be
damned),
I’m drawn to
the neat lines
of my planner
where I make lists
of the things
adding joy
to small
moments
stretched
across
these long
days
in places
where
I used to write
appointments
and meetings
and activities
on a schedule
I will never follow.

They still must march.
Let us march with them,
because victory is not yet won.
Not yet.

Snuggle up in your blankets

Get cozy with the fan on

Close your eyes

And get all your thoughts out

Play some slow music

Or watch a nice movie

Eat some comforting food

And drink some tea.

Take a day

But don’t let the day take you.

Save your pain for a rainy day

But honey please,

Don’t let your pain stay.

Get it all out and then go

Pick up your crown

And live your life.

All of us are traveling,
telomeres unraveling,
hurtling from one end of existence
to who knows where,

And as I’m zipping by, our eyes meet, 
both our rhythms slightly offbeat,
give you a look as if to ask,
can you get me out of here?

You smile as your orbit passes
mine, you leap across and trap this
moment with a kiss 
between us shared.

What brought us together here, we can’t say,
actors thrown into a mad play–
You thought Hamlet,
I thought Romeo.

start each day with a walking meditation
       cool dew on my feet and the air of a new day
around me, rabbits munch
          grass and clover, robins pull worms from the earth              

slip on garden clogs to make the rounds
             assess the needs of each plant  

water the basil, rub its leaves
        the aroma calling up fresh mozzarella and summer tomatoes
the ferns tell me they are fine from last week’s rain and to move on  

new lilies nod in greeting
      their deep orange cups with purple centers have opened overnight  

deadhead the daisies, cut back
    my mound of petite white geraniums as I have done
          for 20 years, water deeply, await the new flowering  

Indian Pinks take me by surprise
  6 red tubes, each flaring into a yellow star, purchased
         on sale at the end of last season and until this week presumed  dead
weed a bit to help them along

finger the flopping lamb’s ear
       its soft leaves as tender as any person I have known
together we sit back and take in birdsong

year after year this garden and I nurture each other
          it has had its losses, as have I
this bond holds fast

Really?
Maybe.
Maybe not.

Something in the picture says remember me each time he holds it in trembling hands. Turning it over, he sounds out the words in pencil there. Circus. He knows that, the place with wild animals and, let’s see, yes, with other things. Brooklyn is harder. He thinks he might have lived there, but his wife says he confuses it with Chicago. He doesn’t know where that is, though he guesses it’s a place. 1931 is easy. That’s the year he was six and his first brother was three, right before the family moved — from Brooklyn! yes! — to his uncle John’s farm overlooking the fjord in Norway. He smiles. Turns the picture over. Hears remember me. But doesn’t.

The morning is quiet,
except for the sound of a plane overhead.
A car passing by.
Windchimes.
The cat going down the stairs.
The morning is quiet.
I do not disturb
the stillness in the air,
the promise,
with the sound of the piano.
Not yet.
I savor this quiet
with my breakfast
and breaking news.
The morning is quiet.
It is cold in the house.
I take a blanket 
and watch the birds
on their morning commute.
I stay here,
in the silence.
Soaking each moment in,
taking no minute of it
for granted.
The mornings are quiet.