Posts for 2020 (page 218)

                For A. S., because you always taught
                                 even though it was never your job

You were the bigger guy
our entire childhood
and pre-pubescence.

What more can a poet say
to describe how I saw you
than to mention 

a dream I once had,
where my Prince Adam
changed to your He-Man;

you were always there
fighting my fights, protecting
my diminutive form. 

I always had the louder mouth—
the louder voice—but now,
to read your words,

to hear your voice—
still the bigger man, still
dwarfing me with your power—

but cracking, taken to tears
because of everything
we see, we hear, happening

and not about just now—
about what you’ve always lived—
you’re still healing

my fragility.  You’re still
teaching me what it means
to be a man.  You’re still

helping me recover
from this sickness.

we’ve been collecting
the names of the lost
well before this event
heavy on our shoulders
weary of the

Same
Old
Story  

I can’t say when this will end
when this rupture
this old ancient wound
will close permanently
I am ashamed
to use such weak language
void of the brevity
that surrounds this
tragedy
we’re going to lose more
because of the ignorant and paranoid
who play at being big men who 
are just scared at what the world is
because they made it all this way
they made this happen  

and I wonder where has the reasoning gone
where are those immortal leaders
that rise out of the chaos and save us
save America  
who is going to save us from dying in the street? 

it’s just left to
You and you and you and 
You and you and
You and and and and

Since everything has changed forever, 

This mundane timeline seems to matter.

I would have forgotten it before. 

Last flight + Last Real Trip: January 4

Mexico City. Danza de los Voladores,

The Diego Rivera Murals, 

An elegant meal at La Casa de las Sirenas,

At sunset, overlooking the Zócalo, 

Hours by road though Michoacán

To Sierra Cinqua and Cerro Pelon

Monarch butterflies warming their wings

As the sun shimmered through the trees

In their threatened paradise.

The air so cold and thin at 10,000 feet

I shivered and could hardly breathe.

Last road trip: January 24

A five-hour drive in blinding rain.

Wings of Winter

In improbably named Paris, Tennessee. 

Eagle-watching on Kentucky Lake.

Then slogging through the cold marshes, 

Exclaiming over trumpeter swans.

Last Group Hike at Floracliff: February 22

Winter Tree Identification

The day a brilliant blue.

Sycamore seeds, hornbeam buds,

Locust thorns, the pods of coffee trees.

Every promise of a spectacular spring. 

Last Book Club Meeting: February 23

Poetry night at a member’s country house.

We laughed, drank wine,

Ate too much party food, 

Talked of reading and travel, 

Never thought about Wuhan.

Last swim lesson: February 24

Falling Springs, with Hannah

Practicing to snorkel

In the Indian Ocean this fall.

I won’t be going. 

Last haircut: February 25

No worries there; my hair already gray. 

A simple cut, a few long layers. 

Amazon sells sharp scissors. 

Last public meeting: March 5

Woodford County Public Library

Beginning Vegetable Gardening

Seed packets from the extension office.

The next day, a state of emergency declared.

I planted the pumpkins yesterday. 

Last meal out: March 11

Lunch for my husband’s birthday.

Don Jockey in Midway.

I had the divine poblano dish

With the pomegranate seeds.

We both drank gin for a toast

To a happy and healthy year. 

Last studio yoga class: March 14

The regulars all there, as if summoned

That Saturday morning. 

I awoke knowing I had to go. 

The old body so willing that day, 

Lifting easily into Crow. 

Last private Pilates lesson:  March 19

A weekly ritual for fourteen years. 

My trainer and I, both germaphobes,

Fretted about what would happen next.

We were right.

Last time the housekeeper came: March 19

So I posted a housekeeping schedule.

My husband cleaned the garage.

I cleared neglected closets.

We’ve gotten so good at this

We want to keep it up. 

Our well worn possessions shine.

First mask order: March 21

An odd start to spring. 

The CDC still said don’t wear masks. 

Political nonsense, bound to change. 

The friend who sewed the custom order refused payment.

I donated money to her local food bank instead. 

The World After

I don’t remember the last time casually stopped by a shop,

Left for the grocery without a mask and sanitizing kit,

Didn’t feel frightened if I anyone got too close.

Wasn’t panicked if a touched my face. 

I don’t know when I will ever again board a plane,

Stroll into an elevator, stay in a hotel,

Sit in a restaurant, browse a bookstore,

Book a massage, have a haircut,

Meet with friends and not go home afraid. 

My traveling days are likely over. 

There was a last time for everything.

It was a mercy not knowing when. 

“When I’m by myself, like if I’m birding or if I’m exploring outside, I feel like I have to publicly display that I’m not trespassing or doing something sinister outside,” she said. “I feel like I have to go above and beyond so that the people who are driving by or walking by don’t think that I’m someone they need to call the police on.” –Corina Newsome, a black biology master’s student at Georgia Southern University studying birds, from CNN’s “The realities of being a black birdwatcher”  

Alouette, gentille alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai.  

Lark, nice lark.
Lark, I will pluck you
the song says and it shares
a list of what can be destroyed–
head and beak and neck and feathers—
anything  that lets a singer consume.  

We just accept those words
because we’ve heard them before
and grown-ups sang them
and cartoons played them—
it’s easiest not to question the familiar.  

But the words we memorized, intentionally or not,
are a song of violence.  

An innocent bird,
Innocent black birdwatchers,
A man in a dog park,
A woman asleep in bed,
A man shielding his niece,
People just trying to live,
to love, to breathe.
God in Heaven, how are we not better than this?

Do we dare
without a thought or care, 
turn over dark gray stones
uncover dry old bones
in a fog so thick that we
can only faintly see
the source of mystery?

The candle light flickers
then fades away
casting shadows in
varied shaded of gray. 

Her son is to hang this morning.
She watches him meet each step
grey lead eyes, heavy lead heart
and wonders where she went wrong.

She loved him, once
loves him still,
despite better judgment.

He left her a boy
but came back a Man.
Stripped down
cold in her arms.

How does a Man unlearn 
lessons from a mother?
Words, embraces, stories

I’ll plunge feet first
into the depths of
winter just to feel
the satisfaction of
the edge.
The dulled nerves
of age have me
numbed
to sensations
I once found
overwhelming.
Now, I seek the
ones that cut
right through.
This all ends.
Our deep obsessions
and manicured lawns
and doing the “right” thing –
or not –
it crashes down in a heap
of time burned too fast
by bright screens
and races to the false finish,
an artificial end
where we have it all,
except we never do
(and we can’t).
That’s the catch.
But here we go,
racing.
Sprinting
when it should be
a marathon.
Standing apart
when we should
hold each other’s
hands and
march against
this idea we
should be running
at all.

                –“To see, we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.” – Claude Monet

Drawn up from glazed sleep, my consciousness returns to me,
a thousand drowsy houseflies gathering to settle on the windowsill.

I break the wax on this day, snap on the lamp and dose
with reheated coffee. I enter into this cathedral one line at a time.

The stain glass is dark and I incandesce in the dance of yellow flames
on white candles in red glass votives. I steal time from my voracious day,

and wonder where I am. The world doesn’t need my ars poetica,
it doesn’t need me to redefine the saltpeter heart.

This morning is cold like all mornings away from night’s kiln. I reach
to the barrier to see in the not-me a soft-edged reflection.

If I invite you here, lay your hand on this frescoed wall, do it not
to learn of purpose or valor, but rather that you see your story

written in the plaster cracks of saints’ robes. You can only see it as you will,
even with my breath in your ear. We exist between dogma, between stanzas.

Sounds of muffled air and whistles
 That float like a bomb

Birds chirp on my front porch
 And messengers sing in a chorus
 It sounds like the Court of Owls out here
And time has been paused

I’m a privileged white woman who is an anti-racist
I grew up abused And psychologically damaged 
But still had every human right

 I say these names that have been brutally murdered
 And feel sickened and unclear on just how
 We as a country can call ourselves free

A country who murders black people
A country that puts children in cages
A country that elects a pedophile as its president 
A country that is in desperate needs of police reform 

Crooked smiles come from their gears
 As smoke fills the air and fire burns 
I’ve never stood for the flag and I never will 

Silence is expired
 It’s time for change 

It’s always been time 

While snatching those coins,
you get to play the hero.
No one asked your help.