June Haiku
summer’s
sun
glitters
road glass
fragments
glisten
pine needles
translucent
She approaches the podium,
body erect, manner assured,
outfit impeccable, she’s a ship
ready to launch. Her voice
is strong, her style says money–
success, she’s accustomed
to the best. She entrances
us all with her sly introduction
of her new beau, saying she
no longer reads from 8 to midnight.
We can only marvel at her intellect,
the depth of her knowledge,
her understanding. I’m wondering
at her secret of youth–Pilates?
some magical well-spring of youth?
By the way, did I say, she’s 89?
Sleeping Beauty tried, but could not escape fate,
but Prince Phillip, now, could have been anybody,
and at age seven, I was he, dancing, leaping on sloping hillside
stick sword in hand, to the sound of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Such exhilaration, such speed in which I galloped into the sunset light
of Hali`imaile Maui, blackberry stains still on face, mid-day heat
settling in cool elevation, spinning, agile hands reached, stretched
in battle, fearless me, I swung and slaughtered brambles sharp
and vicious, scratches on brown legs and summer shorts,
pushed to crescendo, to save my sleeping bride, Aurora.
*Trigger warning: violent death
Our threads, my friends, are plied
with trauma. Granddaughter
plummets horrified to Gorge’s
foot. Son’s spree leaves wife
and daughter dead. Husband’s
plane crashes into Rockies.
My mother survives only ten
days after gun-cleaning accident.
Grief’s loom weaves our plied threads
into one cloth, sand and stars—
that ancient wisdom—our warp
and weft. Sand scatters, reveals
what we would leave unhealed.
Stars guard our dream-starved
nights just as they lit
the psalmists’ thirst for words.
With thanks to Pat Schneider for giving me the courage to tell this part of the story and to Alex McIntosh for the sand and stars.
Due next month
my daughter is making
me into a grandmother
before I am ready
before she is ready
(no one is ever ready)
to bring a tiny human
into this world
into this house
lately near-bursting
with bassinets high-chair stroller carseat pack-n-play
diapers wipes tiny hats tinier socks clothes burpcloths
bottles pumps nipples lotions soaps towels diaper bags
playmats with mobiles baby gyms bathtubs stuffed cows
cardboard books boppy monitors pacifiers slings rattles
the baby’s great-uncle, schizophrenic,
signs his bi-weekly letters to me
like the weird has come upon him:
it is not a good time for children and babies
as if I don’t know that already
as if I could barricade the doors and windows of this house
with all this stuff
to somehow keep a baby safe
as if inside is any safer
with three needy dogs all teeth and nerves
one pissed-off cat a pissant problem
steps with sharp corners toilet bowls
knives nail files medicines bleach
uncovered outlets extension cords
unlocked cabinet doors trash cans
a pile of prophetic letters
lately unopened
growing on the kitchen table
Dreams of granduer shattered by empty space.
What I hate they love
and what I love they politly move on from.
Constant comparison accompanied by the little voice in my head
“Stay true to yourself, you’re doing just as good”.
I wasn’t raised to be “just as good”.
I was raised to be better.
Raised by gifted kid syndrome.
I know I don’t need to be better.
But who’s going to tell the other voice in my head that?
I dream of jealousy
and cloak myself with emeralds.
And so I slap my knuckles
over zero-drafts
and dreams of grandeur.
I wage constant war against
the normal ways one gets old.
Will I be allowed to hold
on to the pull of deep water
and walk the shore to collect,
in discarded milk jugs, heart-
shaped stones no one will see?
Do you know,
this lake has its own Moby Dick,
nature’s leviathan waiting for me
with its whopping tail? 84 years
in the plurality of this world,
my surface scratched by every
kind of delight and madness,
love and rejection, but it’s here
under the palisades of the Dix,
that the singularity of my life
has been revealed
Scouts
Invaders
Baited besiegers
Make flesh crawl
Sleep impossible
Hordes disappear
Only corpses remain
–For now
a.
The lion roams the streets
and roars his noisy bravery.
The tin man hits on anything
in a blue skirt and petticoats.
The scarecrow has Einstein-ed
whole flocks of birds senseless.
And Dorothy, the only one
with an honest goal, the only one
who could keep her three suitors in line,
has made a one-way trip back home,
leaving us to deal with what she started.
