Yesterday, it rained and rained,
quiet and steady,
all day long.
I wrapped my 3 month old grandson up
in a muslin receiving blanket
printed with drawings of smiling giraffes.
Rain, dripping like liquid pearls,
slid down the big green umbrella
we sat under on the rickety deck.
The rain, splashing off the gutters,
pinging off the neighbor’s tin roof.
The air fresh, new.
This new baby listening,
listening listening receiving
receiving the rain, the rain.
1.
All morning he sat at the soup kitchen door,
This giant of a man,
Wrapped in layers against the spring heat
Like a monk, displaced here on the street
In silent meditation. I envied his contemplation
As I moved in and out with sandwich bags and soup.
He was in that place I try to reach
Every morning. Only to have my trying
Block the gift.
Then he opened his eyes
To smile at me.
2.
I came to pray at the house of strangers and
A woman, shrunken,
Her head back to gasp in air, eyes seeking nothing
Save some words, the caress of holy oil. The brood
Of daughters hovered. They wrapped the room
With what’s left to give as death hovers
Just beyond. They cradled an infant swaddled
In the promise that life passed on would continue as
They mirrored a mother’s legacy:
Ninety-plus decades of gift.
And then she opened her eyes
To signal Amen.
the store always has
temperature controlled air
by rusting window units
with decade old music stale
aisles of neatly placed packaged items
in a low ceiling with dull fluorescents
noon sun pouring through tall windows
glaring off the warped flooring
that’s when I forget the year
and start to believe that if I could
just stay
standing at the deli counter
comparing cellophane wrapped foods
made by the frowning woman
in a white apron
that time will cease
beyond those glass doors
powered by tired whining auto motors
that it is all just an empty parking lot
stretching infinitely
disappearing in the wavering heat
It is so hard to hate you even after everything you have done
I know people tell me to leave things in the past
My mind deliberately places you=shun
I lie and say I can’t remember most of my childhood to save my ass
But who am I really protecting?
My childhood recollection of joy in your presence
Or my adolescent realization of everything you did to me.
she will leave me
hag stones
and dozens of little colorful cloth bags
a polished rose quartz angel
and a tiny rough crystal
Japanese fridge magnets
and a half finished mandala coloring book
saved Christmas and birthday cards
and a black and white beaded bracelet blinking “I love you”
a hole in my heart too big to fill
and her poems
and they will try
The sky fire burns the horizon,
and from Mako Sica
earth-baked colors emerge —
arid yellows and scoria blood reds
warm buttes and pinnacles
while canyon shadows deepen
coal-blue to violet.
Midday, the pale earth
void of hue
echoed my desolation.
Unending vistas
unending musings
Will anything ever change?
Tonight, the painted land whispers:
Wowacintanka,
embrace your wowasake.
Lakota translations
Mako Sica — Bad Land
Wowacintanka — patience
Wowasake — strength
– headline from a news article
And what would you do if one day,
say a Wednesday before the heat of summer had yet settled
in and you had pulled the last of the warm sheets
from the dryer to make the bed and the rain had slowed but not stopped
so that each tap tap tap could be counted against the porch railing
and the kids were at school
and your husband had just risen from his desk to pour boiling water
over his peppermint tea and the dog softly rustled in his sleep
and the mail lay on the counter unopened,
you turned to retrieve your milk from the fridge that always hums
and you saw a woman before you,
her half smile caught perfectly in the photo’s frame
and for a moment you forgot it was you
and looked again, surprised to see your own
undeserved exquisiteness. Who would there be to tell?
And would they believe you.
The morning whiles away a lazy wind
& wicks the sweat from skein of last night’s dream.
Invisible, it spins a dervish din
that sets a bit of fallen ash to seem
to dance within a web—and echo when
the things I hoped gave way to dawn’s harsh gleam.
There is no breeze as dark descends to night;
the spider has devoured what remained.
& cast aside, or swallowed, that svelte wight
of nicotine & paper, wanton stain,
has drifted to another world, from sight,
or risen to the pulse of dreamer’s vein.
I light the tip & birth a wayward twin
to introduce the two somewhere within.
Eighteen is some imaginary,
arbitrary line that we cross over.
One day, a child then
boom!
You wake up the next as an adult.
No matter whether whether
you learned your lessons,
the box is checked,
the documents handed over.
Here are your bills,
your job,
your anxiety,
your endless responsibilities;
The adulthood welcome package.
No returns accepted.
Forest flowers line
caterpillar trails while guard-
ians hold their breath.
