Anger is the natural response to injustice.
Margaret O’Connor, PhD
Luminous women suffer rejection
of revolution as they challenge
fathers, husbands, male bosses,
patriarchal law firm partners
and military officers attuned to domination.
Courageous women refuse
marching orders for rows and columns,
eject “obey” from marriage vows,
willingly witness and declare identity.
So alive, women assault
gauntlets of authority, tabus and mores,
ignore pointless rules and ludicrous legislation,
create bedlam among expectations.
Refuse consent. Broadcast names
of those deaf to our, “No.”
Authority of “we’ve always done it this way”
sentences us to wailing our grievances at mirrors,
shrieking in echo chambers. Ghosts,
we serve on the stairs of time for crimes
of audacious behavior and wonder. —
What’s to be done?
Increase the volume of our keening.
Sequester silence; it doesn’t belong.
Take to the streets bearing pieces
of Amazon cardboard sharpied with wisdom.
Don inflateables, show up at ballot boxes.
Create new routes.
We do not deserve anonymity.
imagine a world where the only hunger is for more,
where no little hands stretch for molding scraps.
Imagine a peace that is never disturbed by war,
where children are safe sitting in parents laps.
Imagine a time where the only cries are first breath,
each child born entering a world that cares they live.
Imagine this all, for I cannot bear the death.
Imagine it, for I have no more grief to give.
For Clementine, Born Feb. 19
To N. Scott Momaday’s “The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee”
May you shine as bright as a star in the dark cold of a February night
May you stand as firm as a granite boulder left by an ancient glacier
May you swim fierce currents with the agility of an otter
May you sing as joyfully as the first robin of spring
May you taste the sweetness of fruit fresh from the branch
May you hear the comfort of rain on the rooftop while lying snug in your bed
May every month bring you the biggest brightest moon of your life
May every year bring you the most bountiful harvest of your life
May every lifetime bring you the fullness of the oceans
May you live in good relationship to the earth
May you live in good relationship to the gods
May you live in good relationship to all that is beautiful
The day was clean, neither ordinary nor tragic.
I saw
you,
stilled by your tall grass lying.
What kind of lover would I be if
I did not yearn to sit beside you,
and rest awhile?
Open a white-picket hymnal to find fate
using his orneriness
to baptize us.
If the water’s warm, we can slip off our suits and
reclaim the nakedness of innocence.
My willingness to believe
in the healing that comes from cold jelly
sandwiches with too much peanut butter
is a testament to the America
I will fight to discover.
It was her lips, he thought, the way spit flew across their pinkness made him squirm.
The 50-year-old divorcée is not a debut performance,
though it may seem so to those who missed the first run.
Really she’s a revival:
the 19-year-old sub-adult
now on the big stage.
She dances barefoot
talks to strangers
calls her whiskey on the rocks
plans life by the season and band tour dates
Who made her believe there was a better version?
And guess what?
The bills still get paid, the kids still get loved, the toilet still gets scrubbed
and the laughing! (“too loud”)
and the dreaming! (“too wild”)
They fill the cavernous silences left when the life-let-go
went.
She wasn’t prepared for the role at 19
for the breath-catching urgency of this fleeting and irresistible life
But now!
Now
she’s singing second chances like song lyrics,
feeling the noise and color like fireworks,
holding tight to nothing but
what she can hold in her own two hands
Improvisation (“Yes! and…”)
is knowing that we never know
what we can be.
6/4/26
Today
I took a walk and saw
fallen branches
on the ground,
brittle and matted mixtures
of brown leaves, yellow grasses
ceramic pots with mummified stalks
slumped in their lifeless gestures
making macabre garden sculptures
only traces of what once was
All these things did not survive
the deep lake of winter
Now that ice and snow are gone
Spring breezes rock the new growth
and my eyes are drawn upward
In my peripheral vision
I catch what appears to be gold leaf
fluttering on the frames of happiness
I feel from seeing the boughs swaying
plump with rain water
laughing at the sky
The matador gave the dandelion the right of way
But it was a trap
And waited and waited and had a cup of tea
And had his cape pressed too.
The medicine man showed up in his station wagon
Administered the dandelion amphetamines, espresso beans,
Pep talks and ephedrine,
A poem about God carrying people on the beach in pamphlet form
And after 3 more weeks the dandelion crept through
Glorious in its mane of stars
And the matador grabbed his sword and cape
And tiptoed across the asphalt
To maintain the element of surprise
But before he could raise the blade
The groundskeeper erased the dandelion with his turbo mower
Novelty balls dangling from its rear bumper.
In the springtime of my life, I shall cry
Crawl, walk, and run, gravity I defy
Nourishment from my mother and father
Sapling budding new though lacking flower
In the summer of my life, I shall run
I’m living free and loud and bold and fun
A lover’s touch feels like a fantasy
Leaves vibrant green across my canopy
In the autumn of my life, I shall toil
Parent and mentor, the youth I enfoil
Tomes for mind’s embrace is my newfound fire
Leaves brandish orange, roots deep, trunk like a spire
In the winter of my life, I shall sigh
Keeping my loved ones close to say goodbye
What comes next even scholars do not know
Limbs bare, bark rough, leaves fallen down below
In life we grow, ebb and flow
Constantly we are shifting
Seasons undulate with tide
Forever we are drifting
There’s order to this chaos
Through the madness, look and see
Everything will recycle
Akin to the mighty tree
Springtime comes back round again
We’re growing everyday
We bud and bloom and blossom
New life we shall display
I know the world hasn’t ended
yet but people’s eyes are greyed
over. Necks scaffolded.
And the whole country is a hill
that’s actually a glacier.
And I feel it rocking as molecules
shiver with warmth, calf
off with miniscule Cs 2 octaves
up. The seasons keep going
unsurely, like I don’t know if I can
do it, mommy, I’m scared.
Still there are red leaves and icicles.
Cloned lambs. Slaughterhouses.
Gemini overview. Dronestrikes.
And I’m still trying not to hear
my mother’s war-stricken voice
in my love’s mouth.
I have never needed to know
if I will live again. I want to worship
this place. I am awake as
I can be in the second
womb.
What a blessing.
All my childhood protagonists
had red hair, too. A princess
who saves everything by dousing
red eyes.
June is a kind month. Still there is June.
