Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

Friday, April 18, 2025

he stands there

he stands there as if
 the most popular boy in pre-K 
the other kids clustered around
exclaiming at his new clothes
           that's my old T-shirt said one
           my old rain boots said another
           those pants will make you itch
          ask me how I know, said the wag 
he stands there dull
the shape of shame in his mouth
pushing up the smile that wants 
to droop, thinking up a comeback  
           in years to come he'll be bemused
           that his kids aim to shop vintage
           and give clothes away seasonally
           that his wife wants to thrift... and
he stands there, still
when she invites him to come 
lifted like a ship in a calm harbor
surprised he finds welcome in this
_________________
Pic: A magnolia tree in full bloom. (On a walk with L.)

Sunday, April 13, 2025

a checklist for the seasons: speech & passage, change & endurance


 the diagnosis is that its only nostalgia
the prescription is just talk
so I try twice a day to mimic my elders
misinterpreting decades

to all these openly yawning windows  
and wait patiently
as words fall into them... no one gets hurt
while beating time

although I thought of money as paperwork
all these years, I find
they're artificial leaves falling sullenly
no matter the season

so there's no need to hold me or name me 
I write to you against all odds
and wonder how we don't cry all the time
sometimes, I am so proud of us
-----------------------------
Pic: StephLove asked what the Muppets-themed seder was like. There was an enactment of the Passover story in one of the M's currently empty raised gardening beds with puppets. It featured Kermit as Moses, a Pirate as the Pharaoh and children had paper bags to throw locusts, lice, and pestilence when their cues came up. It was an inspired production and so much fun! And the weather was just perfect for all of it. 

Thursday, April 10, 2025

(Mis)interpretations

* Central Michigan University, about 20 minutes north of us, discovered during a random check that several of their international students had their visas revoked and thus their legal residency terminated without notifications to the university or the students. I don't think this is what "Land of the Free" means.

Ms. Rachel, the YouTube toddler entertainer, who has been compared to Mr. Rogers, shared UN reports of malnourished children in Gaza and started fundraising for Save the Children... and is being accused of being Hamas with calls for the Attorney General to investigate her for "anti-semitism." That term keeps being used incorrectly. Opposition to Israel is not anti-semitism, as Peter Beinart said recently

*Nu's class was scheduled to take a senior trip to the zoo today. All week long, in anticipation, we've been pretending that we understood "going to the zoo" to mean that Nu was going to be a zoo exhibit. Our jokes are really old over here. 

Pic: Nu's pic of the tiger at the zoo. Once upon a time, William Blake's "Tyger, Tyger burning bright" might have looped through my head. These days, I more likely to remember the six-year-old's poem so bright and clear it just cannot be misinterpreted: 

"The tiger

He destroyed his cage

Yes

YES

The tiger is out"

Tuesday, April 08, 2025

a day in the park

although most days dawn familiar
today from this bench I can hear 
children sing the songs they know 
about love and loss they don't know 

amidst laughter--these are the petty 
triumphs I want, the amiable teasing
practice for adulthood or adolescence 
while song comes in lashes of breath

in skeins of sound, spinning a cocoon 
around pain, placing it gently into trees 
that are beginning... to open their hands 
so I can put my heart at the quiet mercy 

of these top-20 tunes, feel the light lift
at the horizon of each child's laughter
imagining even their chatter as prayers
as promises of continuous tomorrows
________________________

Pic: From yesterday's walk east along The Red Cedar. The paths are flooded; I snuck around a few parking lots to bypass the submerged sections.

Sunday, April 06, 2025

when I let go

I seek rest while my words 
continue to work like 
beautiful outlaws
          for although I am meant to go
          I know no one has died 
          of being tired 
look--objectification in the mirror
is closer than it appears
and yet I find
          I've started to imagine myself
          as someone with holes
          in my hands 
___________________
Pic: L and I made a trip to our Daffodil Hill and it seems like the daffs are a bit early this year? (When I searched "daffodil hill, all of my other posts were from the last week of April.)

Tuesday, April 01, 2025

if you are my friend

let's keep going, let's get to the grandeur
let's come back, let's touch absences 
to one another
our next hours wait patiently as the present
life can be a cold war sometimes
its firings accidental 
our lives recognizable as burning pages
opening in flame before curling
sullenly into ash
let us finally acknowledge our condition 
know we are holding our breath-- 
to avoid inhaling smoke
____________
Pic: The Red Cedar in Spring (yay) thaw. Sprigs of forsythia (yay, Spring) in the corner of the frame.

Friday, March 28, 2025

don't let the one with the coconuts tell the story

Three traders set out, board the boat,
eager and dreaming of success
each with a sack of their wares
upright in the restless breeze
by their feet

it is a completely ordinary journey
their chat common, dealing 
in bargains and markets... 
until the storm bursts
until the boat floods 

Uppulu
Aiiyo! I've lost everything
weeps the trader whose sack was full of salt...
as all the salt slips away in rivulets 
of milky wetness beneath their feet
and the sack empties into nothing

Poppulu
Aiiyo! I've lost everything
weeps the trader whose sack was full of lentils...
though really, some lentils are soaked through
puffy as flowers ready for the pot this evening
but the rest may survive to sell after an airing

Koppulu 
Aiiyo! I've lost everything
weeps the trader whose sack was full of coconuts...
though the coconuts look fresh as children just bathed 
What? Say the others. No, you haven't lost anything!
Your coconuts look like they got a free wash. Shut up.
____________________
Note: From a story my ayah told me in Telugu to illustrate how the well-to-do love to complain about their misfortune even when it doesn't really compare or isn't really a misfortune. (I wonder now if there was something that prompted it--like if she'd had some argument with my parents who would have seemed well-to-do to her.) I came up with the retort to the coconut trader and the subheadings (salt, lentils, coconuts in Telugu) because they so neatly nearly rhyme. And I gender neutralized the characters without losing the plot.
______________________
Pic: The beautiful spring view from RS's window at book club today. There was more resistance talk and organizing than book discussion, which was ok with me. Especially since I'd read You Think It, I'll Say It literally years ago and forgotten many of its finer details.

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

like an open window

today I go on into
this leftover world 
with its great gifts 
of unfastened earth
and lightened tasks 
                                walking altogether
                                talking to myself 
                                and my gods--as if
                                anyone else would
                                even be listening--
waiting for beauty
opening like a fire 
connection a flash
the moments of 
understanding like
                                the peace that passes 
                                in the long silent times
                                of waiting as my heart
                                circles red the sounds 
                                of recovery and rises 
________________________________
Pic: This love. I get to handle this level of mopey, smitten affection for hours every day. Mostly from Max. Huck (further down) is a bit more sophisticated about it. 

Friday, March 21, 2025

that it's only a doorway, that I'm only a door

So I go bravely before memory
pet my parents so gently
and secretly check 
that they breathe

the day begins or it does not
I can no longer joyride
on his shoulders or
straddle her hip

I fly them in on my thoughts
my rictus of yearning 
like a formal exit 
finding a soul

to write them everywhere 
like graffiti, follow
them everywhere 
like a ghost

______________
Note: There was a period in childhood where I was terrified my parents would die in their sleep. (They were perfectly healthy; everyone's parents in books were always dying though.) I would usually check their breath from the doorway of their bedroom. But my mom says she's woken up to me standing by her bed. (I might have died if I woke up to find someone staring down at me.)
____________________
Pic: Nu and I loved this puzzle we found at the bookstore, and we loved that someone had already put all the pieces together!
Oh, and Happy World Poetry Day!

Sunday, March 16, 2025

a very short journey to Varanasi

when  the priest  says it's time to wed
the groom declares he must leave now
he will go on a pilgrimage to Varanasi 
where  he yearns to become a scholar 

the  bride's brother  hurries after  him
with an umbrella, a brass pot of water
come back, he pleads, marry my sister
he waves the umbrella over the groom

who  is already dressed for a wedding
he  carefully washes  the  groom's feet 
with turmeric water from the brass pot 
in which marigold and rose petals float 

to soften his pleas, his clear entreaties...
the groom eagerly agrees, then presents 
his brother-in-law-to-be with a gold ring 
the wedding carries on as it was meant to
_____________________________________

Note: In South Indian Hindu wedding ceremonies there is a part called the Kasi Yatra (Pilgrimage to Kasi-Varanasi) which is such a little piece of theater. The groom declares that he's decided to continue being a bachelor student-scholar and takes a little ceremonial walk pretending to take off to the scholarly city Varanasi while the bride's brother is despatched to beg him to return to the wedding. They say it is to mark the passage of the groom from the state of bachelorhood to that of a householder. But it seems like a lot of drama. Haha. The groom is expected to give his brother-in-law-to-be a precious ring to reward him. My uncle still wears the ring my father gave him.

Thursday, March 06, 2025

in this version of myself

words break open into smiles
as they escape my mouth 
even as the sun breaks 
through clouds

every day it seems I put aside 
the language of survival
and will myself to find
life's uncut joy 

though my hands seem empty
I know in this version they 
cast to light and return
ready for the fight 
__________________
Pic: The sky as I headed home this evening: it's light out, the skies are blue, there are puffy white clouds. I didn't need a rainbow for my heart to leap up. 

Wednesday, March 05, 2025

waiting to be discovered

I come back, back to myself
my ears lost in my hair
skin in hide and seek

while waiting for the rain
while making some tea
I am owed

after I leave I wait to arrive
an endless innovation 
of grief, of joy 

loneliness is only an ongoing
connection with time
strange at its best

I learn how to speak to myself 
in courageous tenderness
and enact rest
________________________
Pic: The kandi bracelet Nu made me and Tiggy-Winkle (after Beatrix Potter) the fidget hedgehog KPB crocheted for me. Aren't they amazing? They look like they could be friends and live together!

Monday, March 03, 2025

Pre-birthday!

Mondays aren't teaching days, so I had a soft reentry to the second half of the term. I got class preps in early, and worked on some reviews for a while. Then the heating tech came by to fix our broken heater. I forgot to mention we didn't have heat over the weekend--thankfully, the hot water was still working and I got by with sweaters and puppies.

Big A and I took off for a hike in Sleepy Hollow State Park, I've wanted to go back with him ever since I went with work friends last month. He downloaded the six-mile loop trail, but I wanted to go around the island too, as it's really picturesque, and then we got lost for a bit--so it ended up being more like eight miles. 

At one point, Big A pointed at a plastic tube and looked at me very meaningfully, and I didn't know what he meant--like was he mad that someone had dropped their chapstick? Turned out it was a shotgun casing. I'd never seen one in my life before. We found a bunch more further down the trail, but didn't meet any hunters.

Birthday cards and a garden catalog (Spring is coming!) were in the mail and we got Subway for dinner as a treat. Online birthday greetings are beginning to trickle in (my school friend's big sis in New Zealand is always the first one to wish me), I've had birthday calls with my sister and my uncle, my birthday fundraiser is over halfway there (I set a bigger goal than usual, fingers crossed), I'm on my way! Yay! 

Pic:Lake Ovid behind me. Sleepy Hollow State Park.

Thursday, February 27, 2025

and in the end


 in all the noises that swallow our silence
the wind sweet from yesterday's baking
let's take an slow inventory of the body 
over the sore fingers, the ache of prayer 
as the snow bends us into old women 

& mouths sprout puffs of baby laughter 
until we pull the noise from our heads
those star-bellied, wind-bitten skies
and we are gentle loving the people
who can love each other at the end
_________________________
Pic: Outside. Thawing.

Saturday, February 22, 2025

a love song / love cakes /surrounded by love

a love song
the hero in my heart feels right at home 
cheering for me, and asking to stay
I'm waiting...  for answers 

and searching for things I haven't lost
beloved, you whisper to me of love
how I can find it in myself 
__________________
I made Persian Love Cake last week from this recipe, and made it again this week with a few tweaks. I added pistachios and rose petals in the cake batter too, made a topping rather than a glaze, liberally increased the amount of sugar, rose water, and almond flour, used moulds rather than a pan, and so on to a point where it's now a different thing altogether.

I took a batch to with me to Troy when I went to visit my (actually my sister's) old school friend. I had to remind myself not to treat her like she was 15--she has an 18-year-old herself now. I took Big A's car in case I got lost because my car is all battery and I didn't want to be lost and without battery power. (And I did get lost once. Briefly.) I felt surrounded by love all day from Big A filling up his gas tank before he came home from work this morning to SQ sending me home with six boxes of food.

Pic: Love cakes cooling before being boxed up.

Monday, February 17, 2025

fallout shelter breakout

there must be someplace where life takes place
outside the snarl and rattle of tyranny 
and everything else just waits

life could just be... beautiful even if useless 
longing could maybe be merely distance 
growing wordless, not mindless 

but my teen just doesn't yet know what happens  
to the Emmett Till Monument... doesn't even
know what they've done to Stonewall 

it feels like we've hardly caught up with history 
while events range--like mountain peaks
just absurd in scale and spilling over

so here we go again searching for surest shelter 
after gasping out how we'll never return 
just... going back and forth like that  
_____________________________
Pic: Serendipitously, a shelter I spied at Sleepy Hollow Park yesterday. 

Sunday, February 16, 2025

a stranger sonnet

I let the ecologue in my head be interrupted
for it is also right there and alright
ready to wait for these letters 
that make all these words
that then go on to make
so many meanings
and things

watch how
it is wayward
and a bit word weary 
and yet bright as a ribbon
tossed up, a road trip through 
options: what is / what we wanted /
how we find our way as we brake for beauty
_________________________________
Pic: A hike in Sleepy Hollow State Park with work friends (none of whom I'd ever hiked with before). Also four new-to-me doggos. Would repeat. In the proverbial heartbeat.

Friday, February 14, 2025

the drumming in the wilderness

by the time this day ends 
I've  run  out  of  prayers
but  I've  made  an  altar

there is also indifference
its easy caress like a hook
escaping edicts, their edits
dim redactions--it's official
it's artificial--how we are all 
desperate as gossips--telling 
and listening at the same time
__________________
Pic: Store-bought chocolate cheesecake bites, store-bought valentine's day picks; assemblage 100% me. Max still doesn't know chocolate Valentine's Day treats are not for him--it's a good thing there are other treats he can have. Several long meetings today, but I somehow managed to power shop for our Post-Valentine's potluck tomorrow. We've already had some cancelations from long-distance friends due to the winter storm though... I think local friends will still be able to make it. Let's see. 

Sunday, February 09, 2025

desire is difficult to diagram

if you called my name but I was already gone
I'm sorry
oh, you never quite felt like you could call me--
I'm sorry
will there be a happily ever after... a crying game
I don't know
I know the incandescent knowledge of nearness
I do know 
the history of desire, its statement of purpose 
is to know 
without looking, the beaconing of new pleasure
we failed
to see our souls were rotating towards danger
we fail
each other unraveling faster than imagination 
we wait
circling for directions, feral breath on fur, lying
in wait
__________________________________

Pic: The hand-made dish I found at the thrift yesterday ($2:73!); I nestled some hyacinths, rosemary,  baby aloe, and moss together in it. I think tiny daffodils (when I can get some) would look particularly nice because of the yellow flower in the center. I wonder who made this, whom they gave it to, and why it ended up at the thrift store.

Thursday, February 06, 2025

pre-fight hype song

armed with the sindoor of sunrise 
smeared over my morning 
even the soft grey skies feel holy 
as the ash of vibhuti

today it doesn't seem to matter 
that the thing 
we made of history has caught me
I try hope, I try anger

it seems I'll try anything, everything 
in this tumbling world
accidents, things constellate my past
hope peoples my future

my muscles and brain are flexed 
with the good fight 
I use my imagination to succeed 
...or survive 

_______________________________________
Pic: Snow, trees, and the squirrel we call Kylo Ren because of his black garb. 

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People have probably been at protests and marches today, but it was commencement today at school, so that's where I was. I'm so inor...