So what I’ve learned
that until the end
there’s this voice
in your head
who thinks it’s you
with a running commentary
looking out for your interest,
explaining, deciding what
to do next–
until one day lights out–
the projector stops running.
Darkness.
we find them as we turn out empty pockets;
poems shatter on a floor of glass.
they’re all we have left at the end of the day,
a little dusty, but they shine if you peer deeply.
everything mundane truly does.
This is a private poem.
I wish I could tell you more
but you know how it goes with wishes.
When I was a little girl
my grandparent’s yard had a light pole.
A pole light. What else do you call it?
And we had bats and birds
and aunts who said
If a red bird lights on something,
make a wish and watch.
If the bird flies away,
your wish will come true.
That’s how I found myself this morning
staring at a cardinal on the chainlink fence,
making a wish of habit and optimism.
–
There was this one time
by a mudhole at the Wild Animal Park
I saw a rhino and a hippo in a stand off
One stomped the ground,
the other stared, neither moved.
The guide said they could kill each other.
–
I stared at the red bird til a brown bird came
and they flew away together
leaving me and my optimism behind.
I took a walk instead
and while my feet moved
me through the morning
I made a list in my head:
quarreling crows, eastern
kingbird, bright flash
of indigo bunting, unknown
bird with yellow breast
and sweet song.
Three rabbits playing
by the lake. The cool
breeze that moves mist
across water. Cows munching
on tall grass beside the cemetery.
Dancing brown calf
with white face.
I’m not not writing a poem.
I’m taking inventory
doing research, as I did
in college but instead of facts
and quotes on 3×5 cards
I am storing images, sounds
sensations. I don’t have
a place, a plan, a form
for them yet.
But I will.
I hope.
*Inspired by Grace Paley’s poem “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative”
Happiness
came
unexpected moss-covered warm
flicker of understanding
tall flowers words
she could
feel for
when under threat
needier
O to slip to
shudder to
commit love
~ Erasure of page 29 from the novel, Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
The art of dying well is lost to us
long gone with the old notion
that all God’s children
are saints
where no dread ledgers of tresspass are kept
to account the souls of the wicked from
the rolls of the pure
of heart
and promise is not forgiveness of sins
but for indulgence and absolution
of innocence borne
in sin.
Imagine these days to die unafraid
to face dread angels whose tears would lift us
up and carry us
to peace.
The ghosts, they thrive, for they don’t know
they’re not alive, they’re not alive.
Relentless stars, too, never knew
that they should wane, that they should wane.
Daquiris soothe with slushy fruit, enspiriting with booze.
Defiant, I sit, at Death, I spit,
a ragged saint, a battered bonepile,
relentlessly alive, on earth emparadised.
Full of mystery
I see her watching me
while I lean against the wall.
She knows I am watching
her when she walks
left to toss an empty.
plastic bottle into the
trash can.
She turns, and
ballet steps the
final distance-her hands empty-
in her return to the sea. She talks
to the water before beginning to sing
a song I do not know, and all
I see
is her swimming the ocean tide,
as full of mystery as her eyes.
