Transitions
next to the snow shovel not yet gone
to summer in the garage
seedings in pots on the porch
eagerly turn to the evening sun
next to the snow shovel not yet gone
to summer in the garage
seedings in pots on the porch
eagerly turn to the evening sun
thin cry
carried forward
by nothing but need
no arc
but vibration—
a thread pulled
across absence
sound shaped
to resemble presence
no body
but the form
a body would take
if it answered
if it meant
to be heard
the field listens
without echo
the sky
already writing back
in silence
I suppose we are lucky
before the storm hits my father
will return home and sleep
and wake again and again
for as many years at God gives us
because to die is the most mundane
of crosses to bear
what will I do with this wild morning
this precious birdsong and the warmth
of a voice that still answers when I call
Partly because you weaponize the language
of counseling, e.g. when we saw a therapist
after your divorce, he said that no one
can make you mad, that being mad
is a choice. So for decades, you’d push
my buttons, then say “Who makes you mad?”
which pissed me off, if you want to know the truth,
which I know you don’t, which in a nutshell
is why I don’t want to go to counseling with you.
Another counselor taught you the word triangulation,
distorted in your mind, where my sisters and I
comparing notes consisted of triangulation rather
than an antidote to it, and when my son told you
to go through me or my wife if you want to say something
to him, you said Nope, I don’t do triangles.
Also because of the pastor who washed his hands of us
and called counseling us a waste of his time
because you seemed determined to thwart solutions
and prolong problems, all that attention seeking
and drama. And because of the time the whole family
went to counseling and I gave you a list of my boundaries
to sign and respect, and you filibustered, refused to sign the list,
and didn’t respect the boundaries. Look, it’s because
you’ve had decades to work on yourself and haven’t.
Most of all I suppose it’s because you treat counselors
the way a quarterback treats blockers. Oops, sorry
about the sports metaphor. I mean you expect counselors
to do your work for you, to agree with everything you say,
and you discard them if they don’t. Case in point:
when I was sixteen, after you found a rum bottle
in my room, you pulled me out of History class
and dragged me to the Youth Services Bureau
where two social workers agreed with me when I said
that sometimes you were in my face talking nonsense
to start a fight, and at such times, a good idea
would be to take a timeout and head to opposite sides
of the house. When they sided with me on that one point,
You ran out of the room and down two flights of stairs,
said you were going to kill yourself, got into your shitty
Chevette, and peeled out of their gravel parking spot.
One social worker wrote down your license plate number
and the other looked me in the eye and said Whatever
happens, I want you to know it’s not your fault. Whatever.
I returned her look and asked for a ride to tennis practice
and said my racquet was in the backseat of your shitty Chevette.
I knew that this made me look heartless, but I didn’t have the words
to explain that about once a week you would say you were going
to kill yourself, but then you’d come home an hour or two later
with a car full of groceries, whistling.
Manalive‘s
You must eat it whole and hot,
open your mouth, crunch through
bone and sinew to get at the marrow.
There is no time for carving and plating –
this is a messy affair, hasty
and dripping with grease and bitter herbs.
You must eat it whole and hot
let the meat settle into your belly
let your body absorb what it will.
And when you’re all finished, when you
have been passed over and spared
the sorrow of another’s sin,
you will sort through what is left –
the pieces you can’t hold wet before you –
and you will pick up a pen,
a pillar of fire that leads you home.
Coming in from Grampa, I
Said: “He gets to have a
Good time too just like you or me
“He’s just old and tired and likes to talk
Like Tedesco Castelnovo
Said he did it just so
He could keep on being human
“Tole’ me: ‘Really devotion is
All that matters at this age.
Devote youself to anything at all
Small nor meaningless don’t matter neither
” ‘ Devotion practiced in reverence, in slow motion
Over a period of time
A routine, a ritual act will
Stand up to examination
” ‘ Close the gate, feed the chickens.
Step on the gas, lick the plate
Say a prayer, cut the grass.’
Then he said to me: ‘Here’s a little ditty,
” ‘ Hog fat on the wagon wheel makes it slick
Silicone on blades or gears makes them slide
Butter basted turkey breast begs appreciation
Avacados,beans and peas are also good and fat.
” ‘ See, I’m on a no fat diet.’
Just likes to talk, But devotion
Like his takes a bit of sacrifice, a putting down of arms
So you learn that too.”
Quietly cruising the Crooked Tree lagoon
our delighted guide spots an agami heron, so rare
the eBird app instantly tags it as questionable.
Two tones of iridescent blue, crimson splash
on her chest, a few dazzling white feathers curving
from her crown. Our resplendent long shot.
She runs her fingers
Through blistered hair
Naked in the foam of
An original point of view
Wisdom from living
An unfiltered life of
Sleeping in the sand
Track marks penetrate
The holy land as daylight
Enfolds itself
Midnight over her shoulders
Sitting at your feet like
A moon beam, a shadow
Of a garden
She is clean from everything
She has seen or felt pushed
Against home walls
She doesn’t have to look
anywhere, it’s all right in
Front of her in blood and guts
Tendered elbows holding
God’s tools for the sacrifice
She moans like a child at
The sight of happiness
The soul and the
Body remember a
Tortured love refuses
To satisfy the
Morrison like angel
Pauses of heaven in
Her voice
When she moans
I moan, too
