field notes

I wear echoes

ragged through the city

when we talk

I talk only of childhood

I dream we dig

as if we know this earth 

and can't say why 

I wait to be turned back

they're all saying 

that leaving is necessary

they don't know 

I will never say goodbye 

_________

Pic: Red Cedar yesterday with Big A. At the start of our walk, it was tough getting my taped-up right foot into my sneaker. That made A say we should go to Urgent Care instead of on a walk, but I really needed a walk for my wellbeing. If my foot's broken, it has already been broken for over ten days, so what would another day matter anyway?

the lay of the land

like another woman
but for a very different reason

I tell you to lie back and think of England

you should go to sleep

I really have to go to sleep 
I have an early morning class, I have an early morning meeting, I have to wake up super early

so leave me be 
and just go to sleep
lie back think of England

that'll be terrifically bland 

and boring enough to be soporific 

think of Charles, I say. Think of Queen Elizabeth, think of Queen Elizabeth's purse

empty friend

try not to touch

this narrow secret

where turning informer

I learn the limits

of contagious history

the cold, lucid account

that decides if you

are calling for someone 

or just... crying  for them 

_____________________

Pic: Max and Huck eye the treat jar and contemplate ringing the bell for service.

the assumptive world

the year will go back

the earth will give back

this moment becomes a hinge

here an inner sense

and there an inner view 

begins between our worlds

I imagine us in sunlight

imagine us all in a fuller life

beautiful for longer than eyes can see

______

Pic: Baker Woods with L.

a physic of sisterhood

the swift traffic of anger and rage

the slow wheels of despair

hope breaking like time 

in a song

my childhood watches carefully 

as  your  cruelties turn into 

a street that forgot where

it was going

how you are writing your story 

for a small woman although

I know no small women--

am more than one

_________

Pic: Full moon last week (when I started this poem).

an echo without a wall

here, speak  to  Amma

my sister offers, holding 

out  the hair dryer to me

I gently receive the device

lift aside the strands of hair

caught in its grill, delicately

I set the roaring  machine

to my ear  where it  begins 

to angrily melt my earrings

at first I can't hear my mother

--speak a little louder--I beg

even as I feel bad for asking

as  she  sounds so, so  tired 

and  now she's  complaining

about how she forgot to bring 

any money with her

don't you remember this moment?

we are kneeling

at a cliff's edge

      in prayer 

      or defeat

rocks enthroned

trees congregate

      benumbed

      or tranquil

there you are born

dropping headfirst

      like a diver

      into life

your body, landscape

your cries a chorus

      all longing

      and love

__________

Pic: E.M.'s post-dinner pic of Max and Huck.

I will always be writing this poem

it may take years and years 
to tell me the world

but I am stubborn 

I am shocked in sections

to realize my mother 

open as a shadow 

in the middle of this life

I find myself lying

flat, face down 

following how my anger

gets lost late at night  

in family elegy

remembering two months

fractured from the hard symmetry of days

from the moment I open my eyes

 aware of every treachery of light

of going away, of disappearing

on rivers of might have been 

and can never will be again 

I beg mercy of shadows 

who, too, will flee 

from me 

_____

Pic: A full moon tonight.

prospectus

the yellow bruise of the morning 

is where I list wonders aloud

& I can't pick myself up

from bending silences

and lock on air

I dare any unknown to find me 

I draw maps to where I am

ghosts already know me

falling through the sky 

all breath only sighs

Pic: Max and Huck are surprised in the guest room.

I wrote about her a lot

...and it felt nice to share the quirky things she used to via the poems.

I wondered if it would make me sad, but it made me happy to see other people smiling and enjoying her quirks too. 

A reading from the Sing Anthology as part of the Chippewa Valley Writing Festival. 

the big ones

"If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones." 1984 George Orwell

we're united in the day and earth

is dreaming

do whatever it is you want to do 

be quick 

even if your train of thought goes

off track

you're just supposed to know how

"stay calm"

seasons fade in Sunday's sunlight 

so what

even our shifting stars and stories

are no use

I understand what you hold on for 

--dear life

but the question is what we do 

what do we do

when so many of us haven't

died yet

____________

Pic: Ducks making ripples on The Red Cedar.

fugue

the road home winds slow 

my bicycle is nodding 

doors open drowsily

why must I tell this story 

                      the edges hesitate
                      tomorrow is unstated
                      but sure to arrive early 

_____________________________

Pic: I thought these were slugs on my hellebores, but they're teeny, tiny frogs--each one the size of a pea! The wonders I continue to discover, sometimes even in my own backyard, amaze me.

being a refrain

another day needs assembly 

even as the season begins

its theater again 

again the thousand mouths  

agape in hungry joy 

and song

singing like leaves crackling 

of the ache I've carried 

since I was 15

perhaps I should still be 15 

second guessing every

possibility: if, what if

as if in an infinity mirror until 

an appropriate darkness

descends like kindness

_______________

Pic: Huck needed to be carried part of the way by Big A on our long, hot Sparty walk. Max is a bit jealous. 

impossible: summer whimsy

the measure of summer 

weightless--not empty

every thing a miracle 

each of us kindred 

perhaps I could tell you 

about a time mornings 

brought frosted grass 

and me to my knees

how a rustle in the trees--

in the distance moves

us another week into

stalling and to fall 

lit as I am with longings

only waiting cures me 

I tell you one thing 

let me tell you all

___________________________

Pic: Buzzards (?) overhead as I walked into campus today. They were perched on the Eddy Building and took off as I walked alongside.

some media prompts and thoughts

Nu showed me this one: Google search "let's with mama" and click on the images tab. You'll get a bunch of cute pictures of animal mamas and babies doing cute, cuddly things together. Toddler Nu used to love "Mama and Baby" toys and pictures and I'm tickled to see that fondness made it to adulthood. 

We saw Weapons last week, and I've decided that I DO NOT LIKE it. There is a thread of ableism and ageism there I resent. IYKYK.

I am sad that And Just like That is going away. It wasn't a particularly good show, although it wasn't as terrible as this review makes it out to be, and I was mostly watching it out of nostalgia. And--after years of calling it "And so it Goes" and "That's What She Said"--I had just learned to say the name of the show right too. 

Saved the best for last. This spoken word piece by Sam Browne called "Guts" uses "dead babies" as anaphora and is heartbreaking, real, and amazing.

Pic: The koi pond at Radiology Gardens. Walk with L. 

going back where I came from

I could  lose  myself 

in much lonelier ways 

wandering on between 

no and now and nowhere

but then you tell me to go 

back where I came from 

I understand your animus

curled tight like my fist  

but I pretend confusion

& enact comic indecision:

all the way back to heaven
or just up my mom's vagina?

________________________________

Pic: Baker Woods looking magnificent. Walk with L.

a song to follow

I  know it can't  be summer forever

these anonymous days will end soon 

and though today I talk of happiness

tomorrow we will plan a resistance 

with 

voices 

eyes 

hands

the breeze 

lifting 

us like joy 

(or dismay)

the world is so loud with trouble 

and yet we feel almost immortal 

spreading like rumors, we wade in

knowing there's still time to be taken 

________________________________

Pic: It's almost as if it will stay summer forever... I'm so grateful for sunshiny light, for things growing madly, and for bird visitors. And yet, the news out in the world continues to be so dire...

1/2 happy news, sadness 1/2 suicide, genocide (C.W.)

Huck's bloodwork came back within the normal range! I was so nervous to pick up the call from the vet, but it was ok in the end. 

(Scout and Huck had been taking monthly pills--one for flea and tick protection and another for heartworm prevention for years. Max, however, hates meds and Huck learned his bad behavior and had started spitting out meds too. We've now switched to a yearly injection for heartworm and monthly application for flea/tick--you apply the liquid along the spine and it absorbs into their systems, apparently. Huckie was probably exposed in that little gap of two weeks between spitting out her meds and the new prescription. Kids! Sigh.)

I continue to be sad. I continue to do the things that need doing. We finished up dorm shopping for Nu today. They said a few things that felt dismissive and instead of just taking it in stride as one does, I sort of shut down and feel like I ruined their day. I wish I could redo today. 

I wish I could redo a lot of stuff, actually. A "fresh start," as my kids loved to say.

Pic: A blue heron in the Red Cedar River from my walk yesterday.

________________________________

for after all, I came without my body

for SLE, 1996-2025, Seattle

I keep going back in the darkness

to stand on the bridge together

a bit too close... for comfort 

not too proud to tell you

I'm afraid, I can't swim

your laughter is silent 

as if the seagulls 

made off with it 

your troubled hand 

squeezes mine hard 

messages the sadness--

of our long stories, short lives  

and you tell me not to be scared

it's such a long way down, you say

it'll be over before we know it--I see

in a moment--how to be free of my body 

______________________________________

Note: I have a lot of conversations with SLE in my head now that I can't have them with her. After she broke up with At, I wanted to reach out, but decided to wait a few weeks because I didn't want to seem disloyal to At. Then she was gone before those weeks were up. I wonder what it might have been like if we'd talked. 

Also, four people in Gaza have told me in the last couple of days that they cannot find any food to buy even with donations--I fear that they are also slipping away.

I keep the yesterdays

for  the sake of  this photo 

every moment is surrender 

for I am eager and take too

many--yet each avid echo

                                         remains and ruins

                                         edits and evades 

                                        all capture while

                                        I,  a wakeful and

                                        fading hunter 

unbearably full of bravado 

persist--if only I could focus 

on edging meaning with light

I'd see how visions can return

                                        in the breaks

                                        from seeing--

                                        stitching up 

                                        our aging nows 

                                       and aching forevers  

_______________

Pic: Yes, I did take way too many photos of the sunset yesterday.