This morning, I am an empty
coffee cup from Double Kwik
left on a graffitied picnic
table at the park
by the hardware store.
I am without lid
or lipstick print. There,
however, is evidence
down at the bottom
that I recently held
warmth that gave
someone else energy.
I tried to write today,
just like Mavis Beacon taught me.
Knuckles curled over asdfjkl;, my fingers at the ready,
but the keys refused to write anything of use.
I tried to write today,
just like Mary Oliver taught me.
I set my attention on high alert for something clever and true,
but nature withheld her cunning secrets.
I tried to write today,
just like Anne Lamott taught me.
How does one write five more poems before June’s end?
Bird by bird! Or is it word by word?
At any rate, I tried.
“You’re supposed to eat mushrooms
three times a week to prevent dementia.”
“But don’t you mean only specific mushrooms?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think it is.”
I was about to lead with a temptation to play out a summer song’s verse
but it’s not like that
no carefree joy nor blissful bikini-clad splashing through salt water beaches with barbeques and sandy feet
those feel like a memory of a story I once read
when the forecast comes in with a solid block of 90s and your job is to
maintain redo renovate install fix pluck cast weed pick make store trim clean wash
continue again
the weather is no matter
I am poised between worlds
of multiple travels. Waiting
for another plane, I count a few choices:
to go with my cousin Gary
to Indianapolis, first time away
from home (and every night
I saw my folks saying goodbye);
the trip to Detroit to start college
seminary, hands in pockets,
ready for them to leave so the goodbye
could be over. Not homesick then
only a future with so much to learn
(and unseen the rumblings of anxious
fears waiting to creep up the wet brick
walls of the pile of medieval memory
when new laws, supposed sanctions
of the sanctuary took their shape);
fear and yes again to shape your life
with contours swelled from with-
in, with Him;
And on into days which
clatter in succession, revealing and
concealing their small surprises,
clefts in the cliff of vocation and answer—
like the day I put on Laurie Anderson
singing “Strange Angels”:
Big changes are coming
Here they come
Here they come
and drove north to what I wanted
to be when I grew up–
freedom and flirting
and film and friends for life;
And now
I’m an old guy saying one more big change–
to live in the ancient cloister where
scholars sleep in three libraries and
root where my family sprung,
knowing I will strain daily
to sort the puzzle pieces of
language and life without
the picture on the lid
and pray an eternal
city will be kind.
Old school, he eschews
the modern metal versions
for slender sticks of willow or hazel,
not just any old found wood,
the branch has to speak to him,
prove it retains root memory,
a longing for that
from which it has been severed.
In this way, he and the rod are alike.
Sundays, seeing Miss Green in her finery,
her slender neck and ankle bones exposed,
he feels the sap begin to flow,
move through him like a coin
he’d once seen a magician pass
through a silk handkerchief.
Her voice is a shallow running creek,
soft, yet even her whispered hello
is a powerful cataract to his senses,
rounding his gruff, hard edges
and hammering him to the point
words vacate his brain,
forcing him to reach
for a Dixie Cup to hide behind.
The faint pulse of hidden water,
this he understands.
It’s the strong current
that flows unimpeded
when seeing Miss Green
that has left him adrift in his own skin,
as if his true heart’s mind
were a mystery, beyond divining.
Past day break
sky dense and dark
jewel weed about to burst
the sound of the world
exhaling through the tops of trees
elms, elders telling tales of woe
indigo buntings faint in the distance
only this, only this, only this
Buzz in ear
bugs in eye
life as invasive as honeysuckle vine
bumps amd bruises on locust bark
damp sweetness gathering all around
only this, only this
Bench of fallen maple
chittering of squirrel
bird song cacaphony
suddenly silent.
Rain: a delicious dripping cavort
only this
Play of leaves aloft
black-eyed susans on the ground
one red-eyed vireo
in some impatient voice
scratch of pen on pad on knee
