What I recall most
about the moment
you became a rabbi
?
The diamond ring
.

The sunlight
that entered the synagogue
to pray
instead married
the gem upon your finger
.

United
,
their brilliance
flashed messages
about the sanctuary
which were these
:

I
!
I was a woman only
.
Now I am woman
,
a rabbi
,
a changer
,
a wife
,
and soon to be a mother
.
You seemed not to notice
the statements you made
.
Robed in black
,
your eyes fixed
upon your mentor
,
your slender fingers
gripping the sleeves
of his robe
.
He rested his hands
upon your shoulders
,
speaking words meant
for your ears alone
,
only the Torahs
in the open ark
to witness the secrets he shared
.

A leather band
A train
Gold trim
A tiny button
With one push, the sound of the engine
It travels in its little circle
My mother’s wrist watch

I’d sit and watch
I’d fall into deep sleeps
In closets
In nooks

A story about discomfort
A flash that’s as unsettling
As the sudden horn of the
CSX rails

I’m partial to rocks
Something to hold
Hands always in a fist
Even while  sleeping

Dirt falls from this  brain of mine
And it rattles out
All the notions
That I could have taken
If I was able to stand and see
What I couldn’t understand
When I was a kid

If only the adult me
Could take their hand

Stacked still, inside one another,
in vintage drawer, they rest
after decades of pressing
out perfect biscuits, day-after-day
dusted white, with all-purpose flour,
then scrubbed clean, dried before rust
could set in, only to wake to same
routine just like she did, donning her
red-white-checked apron, considering
the steady measure of her day, of children,
of granddaughter. She pressed
with hands that wore thin, making
lives rise high, happy, purpose-full
with near exact measurement
of her time-proven recipe.

Red Ford EXP first car
                                Bridge at Midway College first kiss
Valhalla first home

                        Thankfully

Not my last car
                           Definitely – not my last kiss
Nor my last home

                        Memories

            I will always have them

Girllll… ain’t you heard?
Heard what?
That gal down that street gone run an got herself knocked up.
Say WHAT!

Chile yes, and guess who the deddy be!
Who?? 
Yo sista’s fiance!
You lyin’, nawl not so…

I didn’t want to tell you, cuz I knew you wouldna believed me.
Why should I believe you?
Why shouldn’t you?
Cuz all you do is GOSSIP!

* an acrostic written for day 100 of the Stafford poem-a-day challenge.

On a day begun in sleepy routine, do
Not worry how high your bread rises.
Every loaf like every minute
Hunts and finds its rightness, its
Unfamiliar beauty. And surely
No one should say this is a
Day like any other. Its bells
Ring a tune you will never
Ever hear again. Hold it to your heart,
Deem it right to linger, unlid its singing.

For summer solstice, I suggest 
my favorite kiss-off:
Go kick rocks. 

So 
Go on.
Git now!
Get out of town! 
Leave the earbuds. 
Leave the damned phone!
Go 
all the way to the river’s edge
then down to where the dry spell has uncovered a bed.

sun-dried mud-crusted just waiting for you to 

kick rocks 

Nudge some over with a foot.

Bend by the water willow 
and reach into the river
to turn some rocks over with your fingers.

Pluck a few for the cup of your hand.
Thumb off algae and
let the river trickle away grit to reveal

limestone sandstone black bits of shale
shale tiny geode sandstone limestone

Choose one
a puzzle piece, it fits
cool and smooth
it kisses your palm,
breathes
stay,
rest 

After summer solstice, mind skips troposphere,
wanders stratosphere where planes soar, leaps
up to exosphere—like it, I contract & expand
with the flares of time, the curling lazuli
& shooting blond of solar storms, & the slim
ribbons of stellar streams.

All around me silence peals in waves of nothing
a tin-tin-na-bu-la-tion tin-tin-na-bu-la-tion
like the copper cattail chimes
as they wave by our pond
in a rare June wind.

Far under my feet
sun sets in the narrow band
of a honey-&-pink horizon, preens
before evanescing below maple & redbud
where katydids purl with sliding wings & leaf bodies.

From now until the thinning ends of September,
I weed in mornings, water in evenings, mind
drifting up to afternoons—through the pane of blue
peppered with clouds & shot through with glints
of gold, a glaze of heat on blade & leaf & bloom
& brow—up to stellar nurseries,

where novas brighten into being,
forget-me-nots bursting,
then bending over
bog with faces
of sky.

I am learning to love myself

In the arms of trees