Midnight Symphony
Cicadas continue into the night
Their urgency proof
That time is short
A lonesome whippoorwill
Repeats his call
Fervently, with no reply
Baritone bullfrogs
Provide the beat
For a beautiful symphony
Cicadas continue into the night
Their urgency proof
That time is short
A lonesome whippoorwill
Repeats his call
Fervently, with no reply
Baritone bullfrogs
Provide the beat
For a beautiful symphony
We have a picnic.
Open the umbrellas,
sit out on the deck.
fire up the grill:
hot dogs, brats, burgers,
dill pickle slices, mustard.
I make a trifle in a rectangular glass container
that is attached to a pedestal:
layers of strawberries, angel food
cake, whipped cream,
blueberries–red, white and blue.
My husband notices the significance,
whistles something patriotic.
The grandkids lick every last smear of
whipped cream off their plastic spoons, run
down the gravel path too fast, one loses his shoe,
play on the tire swing until dusk.
House sparrows are still chirping, chimney swifts are swooping.
I fall asleep on the couch,
listening to PBS,
a show about World War II:
women code breakers, a decoy town
in Seattle where fighter jets are made
underground, Mussolini, 5 or 6 officers
in Hitler’s elite killed for smuggling Jews
to the safety of allied countries.
All of this significant—
Who is watching?
I doze off–
good night,
grandchildren,
good night.
I realized about halfway through our conversation last night–
a real conversation, with real people, in real time,
a rarity nowadays–
that we were not talking about doughnuts anymore.
Nothing about the memories we shared
felt contrived or small,
and more often than not
they hurt us more as we released them.
Miscarriages, deaths, and daily disasters,
along with slights that unsettle only us fragile people,
all of them carried away on a manufactured stream
in a nearby paradise that has always been there.
You may never know
how important this short walk felt,
but I want the universe to know
that I did what I could do.
And even though past experiences so often become reversed upon us,
we do not need to tinge traditions with tightness in our chests,
even if memories taste better than resolutions,
even if we have not found the right doughtnut yet.
My summer,
Why should I not spend it
Lost in fictional worlds?
Reality presses too hot
too close too terrifying
too much.
But fictional worlds are brief
And even if I’m swept away,
The real world lurks
just beyond the last page.
Don’t think, just write.
How can I think of only one thing
Among all the things I think to write about?
you+me
you are
my sign,
a wonder,
serendipity.
i am
your miracle,
love magic,
synchronicity.
we are
meyou
ONEcl/d
a singularity.
you+me
us now we
all us be
evermore,
eternally.
I wanted a healthy green grass,
large backyard covered with planting beds
Wildflowers on one side
—- poppy, bellflower, and aster
Foxglove and marigold
Vegetables all around
—- potatoes in the ground, peppers on the vine
Lettuce and turnips
Fruits that gave it all color
— hazy blueberries, juicy strawberries
Raspberries, and oranges
The bees buzzed all around but never to harm
The butterflies were blue and
Red and yellow
And orange
The hummingbirds so fast
You can’t keep up
The mourning dove cooing somewhere
In a shady tree
How I saw you there
On a rocking chair, eyes closed
Jaw relaxed, hand on my knee
But you wanted butterflies with no flowers,
Sunshine without rain
Love without compassion,
And I can’t recall a time you bought me flowers
It was the Wilmslow house – south of
Manchester, east of Liverpool –
where you retreated to counter
the cackle, to rest – recover
from the procedure, within view
of the radiant foxglove. She
found you that June morning laid out
like a medical Venus strewn
on the couch, or Antinous in
Hadrian’s Nile, left arm bent back,
hand softly cradling your head,
digits disturbing proper part,
disheveled – face pressed to elbow’s
crease. Right arm draped cross your torso,
hand hung loose, open. The apple –
bitten, browning – loosed to the floor.
