When fetters broke
Every year I find myself guest-starring
in the romantic subplot of Kentucky’s spastic
weather, more like a soap opera than a meteorologist’s report,
and yet as many times as I’ve relived
this same old narrative, I always manage to forget the Ohio River Valley
is as stubborn as I am, and she doesn’t like to settle.
For a few heavenly days each March, we forget the snowflakes that tinged
our yards white just the week before and revel
in the whisper of warmer climes as Spring
bends to peck the Ohio River Valley’s outstretched
palm. Just as I begin to unearth linen
shorts and floral sundresses, she swats
his lips away and turns her back to Spring. Just like that we’re back to gloomy
skies, frostbitten windshields, and starchy
overcoats.
This rejection only stokes Spring’s infatuation.
He can’t resist his coquette’s goldenrod-
plaited locks, her eyes that sparkle like gemstones in silty
riverbeds. He tempts her with bouquets of early-blooming daffodils,
chickadees’ chirping melodies, and sunshine-
fermented wine, but she thanks him only with sultry
winks. She sashays away, leaving us with chilly May
mornings.
After months of this flighty dalliance,
warm breezes tickle leafy boughs, and the last memories of winter
float away. For three days straight, storybook skies
have coaxed me from my covers, the kind of days in which chipmunks frolic
among flower beds and children splash in glittering
pools. Spring settles in the Ohio River Valley. As they kiss,
the credits roll, and we bask in balmy June noons,
their love’s consummation our summer vacation.
A Post-Covid Journey Through Media
1: Bee and PuppyCat
some of us are born to be mothers
or born to be fathers,
others only to inhabit the shape of a monster,
wherein the cradle of our bodies
encages just a carcass of the kid we were
whilst the kid we are
wanders far outside the cradle bars, cloaked in vomit, poverty and stars.
at least
they can’t call us failures to launch;
since we do in fact walk the black of space,
be it with but a partial tank of gas and only change for
lunch, none for ourselves.
at least we earned that change
by being —- at something.
but we cannot call us
back to the spice of youth; we cannot
bake, we cannot wait, cannot make
ourselves,
cannot say
we’ve made
it.
god
what an embarrassment to pay your way there
in coins.
Here we are again,
Kids splashing in the creek,
Heat beaming off cars,
The trees bright green
And here I am,
Like I wasn’t in love in the fall
Like winter wasn’t just wreaking havoc on my soul
Because the seasons don’t wait
They are more on time, than time itself
Summer is here with her hand out
Asking me to move on
Whether I’m ready or not
Your dearest wish will come true,
I hope
and you will find what you have lost
once you stop looking for it.
You always do
Do not rush through life.
Pause and enjoy it.
Because it is too fast
You’ll accomplish more
if you stay focused on gratitude.
Don’t be thankless
Someone is speaking well of
you at this very moment.
Speak well of others too
Be prepared to receive something special
It’s the only way to live
Your dearest wish will come true.
(Note: Found poem based on all of our family’s fortunes from takeout Chinese fortune cookies, which was my son’s requested birthday meal today.)
Thanks for stopping by
You always seem to know
When my heart needs you most.
I dreamt of you last night.
I don’t know why
Or what brings you to me
moreso than the others?
But you always show up
You were with your dad
He was holding you.
Both in gray sweaters
Matching maybe?
Eyes so gray-green–
Red curls everywhere
You looked like a doll.
He was afraid of dropping you.
You were reaching for me…
I woke up
Before I could touch you.
But I saw you at least,
for a moment
Always in colors
that don’t exist.
There was a net in the closet.
It was made of string which crisscrossed itself in a simple, repetitive way.
I remember all of the times I held it by its wooden handle.
I dipped it in the water, and I waited for the fish to come.
All those times used its end to move the mud and leaves,
Will be remembered long after I leave the net for lost,
For now the net is at the bottom of the pond, waiting for the fish to come.
They make their nests in the mud and leaves which have covered it by now.
In one hundred years the pond will be dried up.
No fish will live there anymore.
Someone will find the net, then.
They will dip it in the water, and all the fish will come.
I do not write of fantastical things
with lyrical words
and vocabulary
that rises from heart
to mind
to sky.
I write of the mundane,
the plain,
the usual things
one sees
or does
or thinks.
I write not of the grand
but the common
place.
