Do lilacs wake and question if they are fragrant enough?
Do ants kick themselves at the end of the day for not working fast enough?
Do trees sweat over whether they are providing good enough shade?
Do raindrops apologize for inconveniencing an eyelash covered in mascara?
No.
Then, why?
Oh, why do you let yourself drown in self-doubt?
We’re on the front porch
Snapping beans into a metal bowl
I got the glider so I was swaying
We made peach pie with fresh peaches
Cheating a little by using jello
But it was still tasty
I got to stitch my very own bookmark
With the plastic canvas and some yarn
But I think that the
Best thing was just knowing
That you were my best friend
every night this summer
that hasn’t been raining
we go on a family walk
immediately after dinner
I hate family walks.
my dad didn’t come today
when i asked my sister
she just mouthed to me
something unrecognizable
Just me, my sister, and stepmom.
I don’t talk during these walks
write poems or focus on the
pitter patter tippy taps
of my walking feet
A puppy runs up and jumps on me.
“You’re like a tree for the dog”
I laugh at my sisters joke
speak up “or like a giraffe”
I earn a laugh back
She doesn’t know who’s brother says that.
alabaster plumes balance above
narrow ebony legs below:
harmony in the pond’s shallows.
pure and strong, she is
Mother Egret wading
showy, snowy in a black pool.
the ancients and astronomers
bred discourtesy
when no heavenly constellation
was chosen for her –
she is both star and syncopation,
a white light scarcely swaying
in June’s stillness.
her feathers tether
the physical and the spiritual,
water and air,
bird and brethren and believer.
if only i could join her Congregation.
Starla came home to us three years ago.
Immediately, overwhelmed she
Scaled my spine, claw through cloth and
I know I scared her. I know. Her
golden eyes, wide-on alert for portals to the unseen,
I was stricken I’d lose her to the rubble
of me that that life had left behind.
In my memories, it took weeks to coax her from beneath the couch,
but time stamps on photos show that by the fourth day,
she was under the fastidious wing of Dotdot
—the parentified eldest daughter I never knew I’d create—
in a week, she was venturing sniffs
of my mouth, my neck, my fingernails
Now (almost any now you can imagine) she
has wedged her malleable belly
into my palm like a sentient floof of football
—expanding and contracting into the stretchmarked softness of my sides.
I know I can’t be all bad if she knows my hands are safeholds.
What more could I ever wished for in an afterlife than proof that I am worth forgiving?
Silence stillness quiet rather whatever it is called is peaceful. The ambiguous ambiance of the room ringing like a singing bowl in your ears. Pleasantry presents drowning away thinking thoughts fear worry anxiety rather the noise that is called- I can’t say but- the opponent of our hero peaceful.
Sun shimmering across your face from outside or the view from a window on a spring morning. Sitting on your porch as the neighbor’s loving dog approaches you for pets. Or the cat lying asleep on your lap both resting in bed. That is the silence, the stillness the quiet of our hero peaceful.
When Jenny got lice I invented
New forms of communication
That doubled as games without objectives.
We had conversations through window screens—
I said it was probably more fun that way
From the safety of the utility room’s
Midday gloom amongst the mildewed socks.
Because I didn’t know if a louse
Could hurtle through a screen
I moved back, my back pressed against
The utility room door, (which echoed my heart’s thuds), said
Communication was more meaningful
When effort was involved.
OK, a little exposition:
Jenny’s family lived next door and collected lice
The way some gather refrigerator magnets
Or novelty coins. The lice
Feasted on them. I remember one day
Her family was having a really bad lice day:
As we played “telephone” in the backyard
I leaned in to whisper the repeated message and saw
Tiny bugs scaling strands of hair
Like cars on a multi-layered expressway loop
At rush hour—I even made eye contact
With one; it bared its fangs at me.
From that moment on, “telephone” involved standing
At opposite ends of the yard and screaming
The message at one another.
That all but ended our “telephone” days.
I worried about their pet cockatiel,
Worried it would nibble itself down
To vein-streaked pink skin and then
To nothing at all, though I had to chuckle
At the absurdity of such a thought—
It didn’t even have hair.
Those Vipers!
Cringeworthy at best.
Proud and arrogant.
Yet limp in purpose,
hollow in worth.
Protecting their pedestal,
while stealing wages.
With fragile pride and shaken ego,
those sadistic creatures laugh
at your frustration.
Shooting daggers with their eyes,
daring anyone to speak.
Disagreement draws blood.
Challenging one is a sacrifice.
Even a glance may earn
your immediate removal.
Truth hurts, but in this case:
Totally unacceptable.
The errors are multiplying.
Their actions go unpunished.
No weight of consequence.
Holding the power to cripple.
Excuses trickle down foul streams.
Justice doesn’t live here.
This is Judgement’s nest.
Crooked thieves and tainted results.
Diamonds lose their shine,
as cowards gain the reward.
A false lesson, carved in dirt:
When faced with disagreement,
ignore it, silence it, shut it down.
If truth draws discomfort,
rewrite it and demand respect.
A generation, washed in lies.
Crumbling at the seams.
Willfully blind to the rot
coiled in their roots.
Positive change occurs when
you understand this:
Clashing minds sharpen clarity.
Respect is earned, not bought.
Problem solving begins with
the willingness to learn.
To understand.
Instead, we are groomed to obey
the collared joker’s parade.
Truth suffocates.
Authority abused.
The thirst for control is
quenched by draining
the sacred waters of integrity.
Packing up my office?
Mid-afternoon intercom
the AP needs ‘all able bodied
staff’ to meet in the front lobby
to move these desks
of all dimensions and composition
into the cafeteria, like by this morning, y’all.
Demolition starts yesterday.
