She reached up and grabbed the plant
by its soft, celery-green tendrils
and plopped it in my cart
I thanked her and adjusted the cascading baby leaves
around my succulent and impatiens
She reminded me of the labor and delivery nurse
who bathed you
rough and thorough
I tiptoe needlessly through this world
So much to do!
1. Make coffee. Eek! Another mouse in a mouse trap. Better take care of that.
2. I need to make changes to the presentation. ARMS (add, remove, move, substitute)
3. Oil Change – 1 PM. I wonder if the brakes will have to be done. They keep bringing that up at every oil change. Money in. Money out.
4. LexPoMo Poem (I forgot yesterday! That’s two days I missed. I could have written about data collection after yesterday’s review of test scores from last year, but I didn’t. Too late now.
Stop. Your enneagram 1 perfectionistic self is showing. Nobody will burn you at the stake for missing a day! Take your coffee out to the porch and write.
But I need to check my email and my texts and the day’s headlines and Facebook and….
STOP. SIT. WRITE!
These shrubs really need pruning. That red oak Is getting so tall.
The bur beside it barely survived that last storm, and it was a lot smaller.
I need to get someone to prune all the trees….
The twittering birds mimick the cacophany of the endless words flitting through my mind. They are so noisy! How can anyone think with all this racket!
Shhhhh!
Close your eyes.
Breathe.
Relax.
“Listen to us, the birds seem say over and over.
God is here.
Cast aside your worldly cares.
Take a moment and praise the One who made us instead.
Be silent.
Be calm.
Empty your mind.
Surrender.
Let us show you how.”
Feel the breeze playing with your hair as I see your beauty from the eyes of the birds who find food on the grass I grew in front of you, Food I have provided them so they don’t have to worry. Let their songs of joy become your songs of joy, my child.
Trust the story and spend some time with me.
Enjoy this perfect moment I made for us to share together.
Yada me.
There is a lot to do, but right now, I want to join the birds and sing God’s praises.
this term seems more fitting
for you than the others —
hypophonia, dysarthria, apraxia
you whose voice seduced me
with Neruda, who raised our baby
on Milne and William Blake,
blasted your classes with Ferlinghetti,
whose words got you fired more than once
now cursed with Parkinsons,
you offer a toast
at our daughter’s wedding
with words inaudible
when we are alone, I put my ear to
your mouth, breathe in
what sounds you still can whisper
of traffic and crowded sidewalks
and honking horns and clanking
flag poles, heated arguments
and breezes by the freeway,
screaming geese and children
and fumes and scooter engines,
I see it all boiling, machine guns and daisies in hair
and bloody protesters and horny politicians
and Himalayan peaks and thorns on the head
and rising tides and grandmothers
handing out chocolate cookies and Diet Rites
and smokes signals from the jungles and skyscrapers
and here above the soup
it’s all the same but one,
everything blended
into a puree of light,
nothing crashing together
because I cannot crash into myself,
I can only flow like sauce
onto root vegetables–
oh, isn’t it delicious,
just this fleeting taste
before gravity takes hold
and I sink back down
into this pieced-together meal?
Who knew you knew the story of corn
in your fifteen dollar lavender and lilac
floor length dress from Kohl’s that sweeps
across the floor of our one story ranch
style home and cinches just above your pregnant belly.
The old wive’s tell: take a piece of your hair,
string it through your engagement ring, hold
it over your ring finger. The first time it was still.
The second it swung back and forth. We gave
no name to the first proof of our love.
Thigh high by July you say of the small plants
in their orderly and innumerable rows. The first leaf,
the flag of emergence, will eventually die. Senescence,
it’s called.
When your last breath leaves
The pool water is almost
80 degrees
in early June. The sun is still high
at dinner time.
With no one else in sight
I choose Wynton Marsalis
for company
turn up my speaker
and walk
into the shallow
end of the pool
to wash away a sweaty day
of doctor appointments,
unanswerable questions.
Overhead two hawks glide
and play,
catch air currents. I am buoyed
by a flotation belt
and my pumping legs
in the deep end.
She sits in the sun
Sipping on the summer breeze
Head tilted skyward
Nose twitching
She swallows down smells of dirt, and grass, and honeysuckle
Summer smells of –
Hot asphalt
Sunscreen on sweaty legS
Climbing roses and lilac bushes
Grill smoke
Birds nests
Oak pollen
Creek water
Scents trailing gossamer strands of memory
On her frosted face you see the remembering
Steamy summer afternoons
Lounging on the cool porch
Snowy mornings
Plowing drifts with her nose
Long spring walks
Trailing chipmunks and rabbits
She sighs
Lowering herself carefully to her favorite patch of grass
Clover tickles her nose
She snuffles quizzically
Chin resting on crossed paws
She breathes in contentment
Her soul shining in the afternoon sun
Pure as mountain snow
Bright as poppies
Sweet as honey
This good girl. This very good girl.
#1
He crosses the street to the vicarage,
having spent his hours crossing swords
with the demons harrying his flock.
A cold roast, a glass of wine, then bed.
He will pray to his shepherd for refuge
during the dark hours of his dreams.
#2
He steps slowly off the sidewalk,
a stranger far from recognition,
trying to decide if the woman
standing beneath a street lamp
should be asked into the shadows.
#3
He staggers from sidewalk to gutter
to street and back again, again,
oblivious to the chance of a bus,
a speeding car or fatal trip,
having eased the pain of good-bye.
#4
He walks a different way home,
noting dark shops, high steeples,
low lights behind apartment shades.
These places call to him, will him
to return at different times of day,
camera in hand to immortalize them.
(after the 1949 photograph, “London #1204,” by René Groebli)
