Winding paths through roses
fireflies on the greens
walking meditation
*Betcha thought I wouldn’t come back! I almost didn’t. I wrote a poem every day at Sundress–and read 6 fabulous poetry collections. The experience definitely shifted my focus this month. I’ll at least try to read some of your poems!
Walking through this crowded fair
Seeing people I went to elementary school with,
Wondering how we all got here,
Watching a kid throw a ball and win a fish,
And I think of little me who begged to play that 20 times,
Waiting to leave until after dark
So I can stare at all of the pretty lights
The sound of rides, laughter, and screams
I write about this year after year,
And no matter how old I get
I’ll look forward to the fair every year–
Greasy, deep fried food
Loud cars on the dirt track
Getting dizzy on the rides
Spending way too much money on games
The summer heat making everyone sticky
It’s a little escape
Back into my childhood,
My parents still together, walking but
Barely able to keep up with me
Me begging to come back tomorrow
A little piece of me I’ll never let go of
Pass around the giant Frisbee.
The flames from the metal fire pit
mesmerizing your eyes,
dragging you in like the witches spell.
The soot coming off as pieces
of ashen arithmetic homework.
The twenty o nine camera catching
this all like a fairy tail.
Pass it around. It’s your turn next—
What dirty hatred fills your heart tonight?
What things does your mind whisper
to the stars? What are you about to reveal?
Are your secrets kept in a cage?
Will your mind unlock it? Will the words
flow out like hot and heavy magma
into the ears of the friends who listen?
You twist your tongue, half baked lies
truth sprinkled like pollen.
Your hidden sneeze, a mind
searching for the black hooded
figures of revulsion.
Only to stumble upon those
fragments of conspired hell,
mutters of a death wish
you do not want to reveal.
Quickly pass the Frisbee,
let the tension seep away
like the smoke winding off the bonefire.
Then lock your heart again.
The hatred of a thousand pin needles
attacking your heart. With every cell
in your body fighting the truth.
The same poeple who built
your skin and mind, body and bones
are the same ones who keep
your rose blood boiling.
The frisbee is yours again
What will you reveal
The night darkens
Your lips part
and everything you are built of
everything that lies within you
hides
A man told me today that his theory was
you can’t teach creativity
I said I disagreed
Then further explained that creativity is something
conditioned out of you
I have taught children art
I really enjoyed it
I teach them to trust their own heart…
That sounds like Philosophy! He announced.
Yes, it most definitely is! I replied
He said, how do you feel now that
a.i. can just do all this, instead of you?
I replied, a.i. can’t do this!
I had a different conversation this evening
As the soupy air finally began to cool
about what it is that makes art beautiful
and if the artist puts some quantifiable
Juju
I said yeah,
the juju is Love
you can absolutely feel the
the degree of tender
embedded emotion
the artist has.
The work, whether food or
comedy or opera
is charged with intention,
with attention,
with appreciation
with Love
Through that work, you can be the receiver
of a drenching in the artist’s intention.
Granted, your abilty to receive that experience
can be opened,
In the same way that creativity can,
very slowly wider
And in the same way your ability to hear it see it taste it touch it can open
it can be learned
like it was once forgotten
You just listen to your heart
Your heart knows
listen, listen for the moment
when you feel something
It will (if it’s good work)
pop you open
it will carry you away
it may reach into your insides
and massage them uncomfortably
Tonight beneath a full strawberry moon
Running the interstate ragged
a hot June edge of summer night
while we listen to The Wallflowers
I can feel that longing coming for us
Where we need to be on the open road
Windows down, salt on our skin
In another town, worlds away
From jaw clenched schedules
where time has no bounds and
every song on the radio
another memory made
a frequency only we know
Behind the house was a cemetery,
tucked away in a lump of pines—
five, six graves, unmarked,
no names, no dates, each
headstone no bigger than a book page
slanted into the hill. I sat with them
every afternoon I could steal from summer,
picking amber needles from their beds,
and closed my eyes to write their stories,
giving life to the dead, until a voice
beckoned—my mother’s call beating
its wings against the porch light, frenzied
cicadas drowning in the evening heat,
watching as I crunched homeward,
their ghosts clinging to the trees.
You’re not crazy. The best
parting words I’ve heard
in a good long while so
I repeat this to myself at
the front edge of rain as
I’m running from weather
I can’t stay to make this
my whole afternoon.
It’s not really about
the rain or the running
or the afternoon. It’s about
love and how hard we fall.
It’s about fear and how it
keeps us. From rain and
running and afternoons.
And somehow, despite
these months of nowhere,
I’m still falling at the front
edge of storms that I’ll
never stop chasing because
I love wildly and hilltowns
and over the mountain pass
and downpour and cloud
break and almost hail. I’m
so certain I’m not crazy but
I damn well love like I am.
our garage door
is raised open
because a house wren
that we identified
in our orange
Birds of Kentucky
has built her nest
at the motor
so we watch her
every evening
take a few hops
on the pavement
before taking flight
for a drink of water
we don’t know how
she made it in
and I hope
that these
are the things
I’m allowed
to think on
with you
poised in our chairs
for the remainder
of this stay
It happened at the park one day
like any other, where kids came to play
The sun was out, the lake was warm
and the sands were still damp, after the storm
Adults watched from afar
some from blankets, some from the bar
More from benches, others from cars
and most important, one lifeguard
The children ran across the grounds
and it wasn’t long before the sounds
Of kids playing tag and hide-and-seek
filled the air across the beach
A perfect summer afternoon
that would be marred and ending soon
Ruined beyond repair by the type of incident that
the same lifeguard mentioned was hired to prevent
See, while the kids were playing, shouting, and clowning
a child, strayed from his group and was now drowning
The lifeguard, in the tower, no attention being shown
to the youth in danger in the water while scrolling on the phone
And this is where the story turns and becomes a different type
of how heroes come to be and how legends come to life
Out of all of the kids playing, there was one I didn’t mention
the only one out of all the kids that was paying attention
Because he wasn’t the type to be focused on the games
more of the type to come to the beach to enjoy the waves
And it was at the point where he paused in the middle of play
and saw the small child in trouble that day
And even though he couldn’t swim
he ran to the shore and jumped right in
The water lapped around them both
and somehow the child managed to float
Into the arms of the rescuer and by then
the two in the water had the attention
Of all the eyes that remained on shore
the boy’s heroics were too hard to ignore
Because where all the ones who were trusted at watch had failed
this young person’s heroics prevailed
And just when it seemed they’d both reach shore
there was suddenly one and not two as before
The little boy floated into the arms of his parents
and the search party used all tools for surveillance
And eventually they had to make the decision
to turn this rescue into a recovery mission
But here’s the part that gives me pause and no peace
out of all of the people that day at the beach
No one reported a boy that day going missing
and no one reported that a boy came with them
And the divers that went and scoured the lake
searched for days and weeks, but never found any remains
So I want to tell you all this urban legend in so many words
of a tale that may or may not have occurred
But just in case you doubt the accuracy,
One of those kids
they never found
And the other one
was me
