The Way it is in my Garden
Bees bumble by
beseeching branches
boasting blessings
That sharp whistle steam
Spews out of the pipe
The brakes have been pressed,
The engine is still running,
And that noise
Punches in the gut every time
Your timeframe was bad and you shut down fast
Golden Girls played over and over again
At three in the mornings
Waiting room waits began to feel like a bookmark
“I was here earlier, so I need to go through that door
To get to room number…?”
Prayers for magazines and old pizza boxes
The recliner got stale and when you were gone
I finally opened my eyes to a bigger picture
Blue Umbrella by John Prine played on repeat in the Neon that year
Alabama Shakes played at the service
I didn’t say anything
There was nothing left to be said
It would have all been bad
So they went with
“…’bout the size of Morgan.”
And, “Back in my day.”
The soft sound of the
great blue heron
as it lands upright
in a curve on Marrowbone Creek.
The wet slate serves
as an altar,
wings folded in prayer.
A time to forage,
measured in the crystal current,
looking upward as if to hear
the lilting song of some angel.
It waits in silence.
A quick thrust, it
finds a meal and
takes off gently in flight.
Words spill from my mouth
the way dragon scales fall
from rooftops in hurricanes,
the wind whipping up cyclones
and ripping apart homes.
But enough is enough.
Even the sun must shine
when the clouds part.
It cannot help itself
but to warm the earth.
My tears belong to alligators
and all my moaning
sung by song birds
who carry them into the forest
and drop them like so many seeds.
Plaintive meows beg me back to bed;
the only light,
dim phone screen;
only movement,
flushing water;
only smell, my sleep-sour breath
Don’t got time to lay back
Don’t do it for the payback
Do it for the pay forward
ain’t tryna take orders
Tryna catch a wave
like a wakeboarder
Scratchin out the lines
of your fake borders
Change machine only take blood
It don’t take quarters
If you don’t love yourself
I hate it for ya
Gotta make it more than
It ever been
Ain’t set up to win
Unless you comin from money
Fed up with friends
That ain’t really for me
That’s why I deaded them
I write my own story
Can’t make this shit boring
I can’t give you the pen
Need a plot twist
You cant see through this lens
You just goin off optics
Catastrophic, on the edge,
an unbidden darkness
clenching us all as we fall
the poor go first
no resources for protection,
while the rich watch
thinking themselves invincible behind their
walls of money,
which only burns in the end,
a vast field of concrete painted in plastics,
nothing standing but plumes of smoke.
But maybe there’s hope in there somewhere?
The rebellion of community, love for each
other while the world shifts.
Stand up to rich dictators and those who would see us burn.
After all, the birds are still singing aren’t they?
And right now, we still have trees and oceans and mountains.
Let’s band together and keep them, and in doing so,
save ourselves too.
when you were younger, I was your best invisible friend, your bedtime bodyguard, tear-stained confidant. Most evenings, after dinner with you seated on my lap, I brushed and sometimes braided your hair while you sat on the floor, book in hand and imagination far away in time or distance.
Neither of us has outgrown or tired of who, what, we are together. I don’t feel threatened by your husband, and he’s happily accepted me as part of you. We’ve all aged. My paws are stiff, your eyes weaker. Your husband, bless him, brushes your hair each night, reads to both of us from books for and about all ages. When you ask, he obliges and massages my digits.
I will go to my grave swearing he hears me say thank you.
(after an undated and untitled sketch of a bear-like animal braiding a young girl’s hair, by Barbara Baldi
When it’s quiet
And you walk by that low table
The one with the lamp on it
There’s a low repeating vibration
Like a phone on mute
Ringing, calling
Stop to answer, listen, explore
No, there’s no phone there
Beside the lamp
Sits a small stone Buddha
Check the lamp, the Buddha
Must be something vibrating
With nothing apparent
Must be Buddha calling
Stop, be present
Listen
