Posts for 2020 (page 73)

You’d never fail to
laugh away high school hardships
as we walked those haunted halls
in tandem, shiny pennies slipped
tight in our loafers.

Your dreams of being an architect 
shattered by your mom.
“Girls  can only be nurses or teachers.”
she ranted. You tore up your
carefully crafted blueprints.

We went our separate paths
until you asked me to be a 
bridesmaid at your nuptials.
I had to decline. It was finals
week at college.

Years later you were assigned
as my brother’s nurse. He faced
possible amputation of his
right foot. You pulled him
through. That foot survived.

Back home on a visit…my baby girl
in the grocery cart, your mom 
approached and poured out your 
suicidal ending with painstaking
details. Shock and horror filled my
cart. I wanted to muffle her words
from my baby’s ears.

i failed you.
Sorry too late.

She is like a magpie
attracted to shiny things,
a bit of foil, a lost coin,
a white button burst
from someone’s shirt.
She collects first,
sorts later:
then the light
in her eyes.

Somehow the art emerges,
the idea at the end.

smooth night water
gives way to morning stir
ripples form
as the day’s heat emerges  

blue heron
floats down from sky
wings spread wide
swoosh up
soft, gentle landing  

silent footsteps
ankle deep water
keen eyes
breakfast intent
stalker’s pace
statue’s pose
lightning-fast snap  

shiny minnow hangs from long beak
heron throws back neck and head
fish flies up
beak opens
catches fish in flight
gulp of satisfaction  

careful footsteps
lake mud barely stirs
eyes lock on minnow
jolt of beak, success  

heron flies across to nest
ripples cover lake surface
breeze picks up
morning light opens

From the very beginning,
You put me at the center of the universe
I was the star,
And you spun in orbit

I feel their grit inside my bones.
I keep quiet when they tell me to,
and do my work in secret. 
Hard women built the edges of me. 
I see their jaws in pictures. 
Teeth set. Face of grief.
Hands on the plough,
Eyes straight ahead,
Babies in pockets and hanging on skirts. 
Hard women built the edges of me. 
Their graves on hills cast shadows
longer than the living
at the end of the day. 
At the end of the day,
let me stand, Lord God,
in those shadows.
Straight up to the edges 
made
by hard women. 

There’s a buzzard following me
carrion curiosity
with hungry eyes watching
its awkward scrooge-like perching

Strange purpose the buzzard has
flying from dead tree to dead tree
its body lopsided and heavy
there’s this surreal sound

Have you ever watched a buzzard fly
in its heavy, unsteady, graceless way
just before taking flight
it makes a wet blanket sound

Up the road a ways
watching me from dead trees
I’m pretty sure it lives in the abandoned trailer
there’s a buzzard with a curious eye

make –

maintain groups
determine need, issue commands.

examples are very common,
use make with any language.

In fact, make is not limited to programs.

use it to describe any task where some
must be updated automatically
whenever others change.

To use make, you must write a makefile
that describes the relationships

Once a suitable makefile exists,
each time you change, this simple command:
make
suffices to perform all necessary recompilations.

Print information. The information says
which are being considered,
which are being compared,
which actually need to be remade,
which rules are applied—everything interesting
about how make decides what to do.

Ignore all errors.

Continue as much as possible after an error,
then execute as usual or as otherwise specified.

Eliminate use of the built-in implicit rules.

Touch them without really changing them.

This is used to pretend
that the commands were done,
in order to fool
future invocations of make.

Information about the disposition of each target is printed
plus a notice
that there is no warranty.

Pretend that the target has just been modified.
this shows you what would happen.

it is almost the same as a touch,
except that the modification is only in the
imagination of make.

See the chapter “Problems and Bugs”
—
Found poem (erasure) from the Linux Man Pages. Original text at:
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/make.1.html
This manual page contributed by Dennis Morse of Stanford University. Further updates contributed by Mike Frysinger. It has been reworked by Roland McGrath. Maintained by Paul Smith.

On her final day as your babysitter,
Clotine took it upon herself to transform
our first apartment’s few appliances.

I remember as though I were standing
at that sink two decades ago, how she made
the faucet gleam and the stove shine.

Yesterday you discovered a pushbroom,
swept the garage, organized its contents,
and repurposed items I never knew we owned.

You bend your six-foot frame to inspect
the buds and shoots you coax out of our yard.
Each day you water and weed and admire.

You charm your cat, that fur ball
who snores softly on your chest,
with a selection of kibbles and catnip.

After Sunday dinner, you surprise us
with a zoom call with your sister, witness
to your birth twenty-four years ago.

As a present, you recite a favorite poem
by heart. Bring cookies back from the store.
Compliment me on a well-balanced meal.

You say you’re proud of me. Rightly so,
your sister once warned me against flattery.
I have been rendered to a beautiful shine.

Pine Mountain Cemetery XX
      The Stolen Yucca

My Yuccas up and died. How any plant
That tough could just quit is a wonder.
Higher up on my mountain there are more.

Wonder if it is a sin to dig up cemetery
Flowers? Probably, but I am going anyway.
I won’t take all, just a start, I promise.

These are not on daddy’s grave, but
They should be, he loved them so. Sudie’s
Kin planted them fifty year or more ago.

Kids will mostly do what their folks set down,
And I can still see my mother dig wildflowers to
Move close where she could have them ‘round.

A botanist would yell at us for sure. Nature
Plants where things grow best they say. Not
Cemetery flowers they crave the chance to dance.

Shading all those so long gone gets tiresome.
They might say give us laughter, kids running,
Beer cans thrown our way, ashes from a fire.

Ah, but I digress and make excuses for my theft.
Next time I’m up, I’ll return the trillium declining
In that stolen bed. Will that make amends, I hope?

Looking into the mirror what do we see,
Scars, oil, carters, pimples, acne
Ugliness,
What we don’t see the truth in ourselves,
The truth that we are beautiful,
The scars, the acne,
They make us who we are,
They make us unique,
That uniqueness makes us beautiful,
We are beautiful,
We are unique,
We may not see it in ourselves,
But there is always someone out there for us,
Someone who will show us the extent of our beauty,
Because the truth is,
We are beautiful