Posts for June 4, 2022 (page 11)

My grandmother was an orphan at 40.

And I cannot begin to understand the gravity of that

Until I reach 40

And thank the good Lord

That all my grand parents are still living.

If all goes as nature intended

I am still two generations away from

The angel of death.

And life is not going as nature intended

Parents are burying children

Left to fend for themselves

While madmen enter their schools.

And child-sized coffins are not made in bulk.

Aren’t we grateful?

And that creates another crises

And good people step up

To make the boxes.

And I am holding on to the hope

That good people

Will step up next time

Before we need the boxes.

LITTLE INDIAN DEVILS

We chased each other around with forks
and declared, We’re little Indian devils.
Kids are strange and the memories stranger.
Every once in awhile a thought breaks
through that can’t possibly be true,
a man, holding my little-girl hand, 
pulling me through a department store
until I run away and find my mother.
Could that have really happened?
Was I almost abducted? Strangers,
and other dangers I cannot explain.
We’re little Indian devils, jumping
over suitcases with forks in our hands,
leaving a lamp on inside a sleeping bag
until it burned a hole in the fabric.
But my father came to the rescue,
surprised at what we had done.
Little Indian devils chasing each other
with forks, running in the house
but no one cared, no one really cared.

Today I said goodbye to the first piece of furniture we bought together.
“Trendy” 90’s light oak farmhouse on four white spindles.
From a tiny newly married apartment
to high chairs, homework and our first fight.
Scorched, scratched and stained; dents and divots that forever mar the surface
It was the only thing about our marriage that grew with us.

But today, it’s just a table.

The orangutan flashes her rust
red coat from the top of the moist
broadleaf forest as she sways,

branch to branch, her coal-hard
muscles ripple like exposed
roots. Meals of figs, flowers

& jackfruit, she rarely
forages the jungle floor. She sips
rain water from holes

in trees, fashions a makeshift
umbrella from a leaf. A twig
turns to a tool to ease

seeds out of hardshell
fruit. We say we don’t
want to harm her

as we carve roads deep
into her rainforest craving
palm oil & lumber, ignite

fires that quickly burn
to flat, making way for quick
construction. From her high

up nest of broken
branches & thick, fallen
leaves, she gapes at us.

Upon the precipice of Spring

When birds whistle out 

Their calls of life

This action signaling newness and life

Resonating a sing song through the air

A lyric upon the winds

This call goes out 

Beyond and through fields of dandelions 

Upon their journey

Going towards the illuminating sun

The transition of their life

Amongst all the joy

The beauty of Spring 

It rained on the bikes we left 
lying like skeletons in the quiet cul-de-sac.
Bullets of rain fell against the skin 
of the above ground pool.
So hard puddled rainbows 
rose from the asphalt and floated away. 
Run-off spilled into the creek in the woods 
flowing past the old barn 
with the tree growing through its roof.
Even the wind chimes had nothing to say. 

It was the summer Dudley died
in a house fire in the U.P. 
So brittle dry one misplaced cigarette
brought down the whole cabin.
We were just ten, handshake
not yet perfected. 

Grey cat became distracted by her shadow.
Ghost sheets of steam danced above the houses. 
Worms turned into twigs. 

At last I could go out, 
into the thick marshmallow heat, 
ready to make up for all that I’d missed,
never to reclaim all that had been stolen.

New Mexico’s dirt crept around my ankles,
sniffing to see if I belonged.
The rest stop with the railroad crossing
felt like home the way some places do

when the people at the gas station 
don’t make eye contact, 
but hold the door open anyway
when they see you coming.

It’s a long way to the desert mountains
from Kentucky, through the open
grounds of Kansas, where I never felt 
more vulnerable or exposed.

Fingers cracked and bleeding from the dryness, 
I watched a train pass so closely its shadow
left a mark across my chest, a reminder
of where the sun can’t go. 

My stepfather was a poet
It was something we bonded over
We read each other’s work 
His words on the page always spoke to me

In the months since he died,
It has been very comforting
To see, read, and touch his words
And I am grateful I have them

Words are powerful
Words are tangible 
Words live on,
long after we are gone

in the back yard
a contemplative standoff
we defer to each other