Posts for June 30, 2021 (page 8)

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. – Bruce Lee

If you wrote a poem a day, it would take
more than 27 years to reach 10,000 poems.

Though I’ve written longer than that, I haven’t
penned a poem each day the entire time,

so I’m definitely short of the mark. Will I know
when I cross that threshold? I know not

to expect confetti or the heavens to part,
but I hold out hope for some kind of sign:

the click of tumblers falling into place, some
small feeling of competence or satisfaction.

you should know your papa 
was smitten with your little self,

walked with springs in the balls of his feet, 
danced without rhythm, 

drove with music turned up too loud for conversation,
baptised himself regularly au naturel in the pond,

licked his fingers as a member of the Shiny Plate Club,
removed lids from drive-thru sodas for proper gulps,

saved his best stories for dessert,
savored the best bourbon neat,

knew the most fun was to be had in close calls,
(even funner if it meant running)

never said “I’m sorry” or “I love you” 
unless in the moment the words rang true

you should know 
your papa was smitten with you

*a Father’s Day holdover for my grandson

i have always wanted a breather

a break from my too much all the time feelings

maybe slip a bit of my brain to someone else

in a first come first serve manner

so now i do not feel

even so

i will say those moments of feeling are raritys in life

charish your ability to feel whether good or bad

because it is fleeting

and then you will regret pulling your brain from your ears

and you will hurt

for a time of emotion

and chemically incorrect pity

Why Don’t We Ever See a Live Armadillo?

My friend Jennie poses this question for her blog
the very same weekend I present my four-year-old

grand niece with stuffed roadkill in answer
to her query, “what eats ants?”

It all began when I attached my brand new beagle pup
to her tie-out, so we could have an outdoor family visit.

“Why did you do that?”  My grand niece lives in an 1800s
historic building on the main drag of a little Ohio town.

Not much call for tie-outs.  “She’s so little,” I explain,
“that a hawk could just scoop her up and fly away.”

My grand niece wrinkles her nose just like my beagle
did the first time she heard bullfrogs and cicadas.

Just like you do when a notion is new. She’d
never thought about hawks and what they eat.

“What else might eat your puppy?”  Her eyes
widen in interest that can’t or won’t look away.

“Coyotes.”  I say.  “And foxes.  They’re not
very big, but they hunt in packs.”

Unable to consider predation on this scale,
she changes the subject to ants.  My husband

searches the garage shelves for a gift one student bought 
online when my AP class read A Prayer for Owen Meany.

My grand niece doesn’t ask how I gained such treasure.
She pokes at orange eyes, rubs stomach hairs, fingers 

the narrow slope of nose, and knuckles armor plates. 
When she asks about glue and a missing tail tip,

our conversation turns to roadkill and taxidermy.

Glass trinkets on fold out tables
refelct sun.
A few from his wife’s curio.
Sometimes he finds himself
able to remove a piece or two,
feels her eyes still watching him,
like the cooper’s hawk 
that circles the chicken yard.
He keeps meaning to shoot that thing.

Sun-tanned women more broken
than they let on
circle the tables.
Flip flopped, tank topped, pink toenailed.
Betsy would say dressed too young
for their age.

“How much for this beveled glass?” one asks.
He thinks, but can’t remember
how much was give for it.
“What you got on the fiestaware?” another asks, 
before he can answer the first.

It’s hard to see them walk off
with her pretties.
She’d get him, because he knows he let
those women get away with a steal.
But, he can’t stand sitting at the house.

It’s quiet.
One can only watch Gunsmoke
so many times.
The new guy on Price is Right
looks out of place.
No Bob Barker.

He rearranges the pieces 
on the table to fill in the holes.
Maybe next Saturday he’ll bring
a few of the rifles from his cabinet.
Sits down in Betsy’s lawnchair
to finish his chicken buiscuit
from the Kwik Mart.
Coffee’s done cooled off,
even with this blazing sun.
Wasn’t any count no way.

This Is What Came Out Of My Brain This Morning  

The bamboo pearl colored car rolls
over         and          over.  
Words roll off poets’ tongues,
images roll gently down bare,
from mountaintop removal, inclines,
into a quaint village of rubble
ruined saltbox and single-wide trailer
homes, into the open, brightly painted
red door of the corner store, where canned
goods lay strewn in murky mud brown
and grey slush, and the car rolls
over         and          over.
Teeth lay like scattered seeds
in the coal sludge residue next to tongues
with no voice, next to eyes with no sight,
and the dream of the car rolling
over         and         over 
becomes a reality, inside a dream
as I worry about the weak teeth,
the failing sight, but not life,
because my breath has been,
and still is, devoid of the power
to move anything but air.

The tree beside our porch bears
all we hang on it,
wind chimes, a basket
of red blossomed begonias,
but its bare branches 
with spare leaves and its algae-
covered trunk speak of old age,
illness. It will bear these burdens
now, but not forever.

As much as we speak of saving it,
I fear the tree is an empty shell,
a facade, decay
at its core.  Any Buddhist
can tell you resisiting what is,
brings certain pain.  I wonder
if the squirrel’s feet detect an echoing
hollow husk.

We’re awaiting the diagnosis 
of the arborist, all family members
pacing the waiting room.

Sometimes I travel in the wilds of my mind.
Beyond thoughts andplans, I find myself hidden.

Jumbled images, unbidden tumble.
Sparking wonder and awe until I’m humbled

by this miracle of life, this grace, this love.
Sometimes I travel In the wilds of my mind.

I tell my students, “Words
are an imperfect thing, our best
way to transmute our exact thought.”

I say, “If I could connect us–me and you–
it would still not bridge us. Imagine
a micro-USB, our two brains almost
together, and yet we’re each distinct, alone.”

But I can say, bird’s wing or mother’s hand
and you can feel its shudder towards air
or her cooling touch. I can explain distance
in numbers, or in the image of a door closed,
or of being surrounded by walls or woods. 

If I could tell you how I feel in this moment’s end,
I’d say, outside, gray, the clouds brood–gloaming
because I’ve never been one for an ending,
no matter how temporary. If it’s something 
that’s brought me a modicum of life,
I’d rather say, “Please, go on.”