etude

1                                               2                                   3

                                        rain runs                            birdsong pushes               all that falls 

                                        like a chant                        music                                here and now

                                        in my head                         out of trees                        is dusk

                                                *                                        *                                       *

                                        making it through           the journey                       in our time:

                                        generations                      will remember                   singers die

                                        from knowing                  we outlive grief                 songs live 

________________________________________________________ 

Pic: Daffodil Hill with L last week. We thought we'd get rained out, but we made it. Daffodil Hill last year, also with L.  And the year before that (also with L). 

what we are built for

in the days when the kids were smaller
and my parents younger
and they lived here 
six months of the year
                                the only time I'd get mad at my dad
                               (my mom and I squabbled
                               every other week
                               or so)
                                                was when he'd look at my husband getting
                                                 ready for a training run
                                                 and declare he wasn't
                                                 "built for running."
                                                                                 my dad... my corporate bigwig dad
                                                                                 had two secretaries once, but now 

                                                                                 dutifully transcribed stories 

                                                                                 the grandkids dictated 

                                                                                                                       my dad who titled himself the president
                                                                                                                        of the fan club our sweetly narcissistic
                                                                                                                        toddler so desired...
                                                                                                                        that dad
was telling me my husband--who 
was spending hours running
every day--was unsuited
to running
                                But dad. I'd say--he's run marathons
                                what do you mean he isn't
                                built for running? And on 
                                and on we'd go.
                                                            my dad had had polio when he was five
                                                            his withered left leg still hurts, his
                                                            uneven legs (like these lines)

                                                            limp every step
                                                                                    but that dad didn't care how his body was built, he 

                                                                                    had "persevered" to become the captain 

                                                                                    of his school's soccer team and cricket

                                                                                    team and wrestled in college     

                                                                                                                        so it didn't make sense then, but now I think

                                                                                                                        he was saying my husband wasn't built

                                                                                                                        for running hours every day when

                                                                                                                        I needed help with our kids

Note: Inspired by Engie's post on Terry Fallis's Albatross.

promises, promises

time slopes

birdsong switches 

from call to answer
and just keeps climbing 

almost lost
in this range of joy

my heart unfurls itself 

and lifts up as an offering

___________________

Pic: I found this funny hybrid (red tail + black body) "fellow in the grass" between meetings and the department's farewell lunch for graduating seniors today. How bittersweet to say goodbye to these people... all these young people who have already done brilliant and difficult work, and are poised to do loving, amazing things in the world. 

in anticipation of spring gifts

somedays

everything radiates
porous with happiness

down to the scatter of stars

I work...

I walk for hours 

I was meant to be lost

here where everything roots

my body

unafraid of laughter 

and sculpted of scratches,

my heart a breathing furnace

in hours 

populous as cities

under every rock, I find life 

hundreds of hopes and longings

I yearn for the ones I haven't even met yet

__________

Pic: "A host of golden daffodils" at the Wharton Center, with EM yesterday.

because now is everything

our day loosens itself from 

a cocoon of cold 

step by step the earth opens

to push us beyond

sacred oblivion, for here lies 

a heathen hope 

this dance--survival or riddle 

whose time is come

in the surreal syntax of seasons

the ones you love

have heart-to-hearts, break hearts

uncatchable as rain

__________________

Pic: Geese on the Red Cedar... they're vicious when I meet them on the path, but so graceful in the water. The light was just lovely today.

[pause]

I have answers at the beginning, of spring 
as breezes lift my thoughts

restless with birdsong vicariously, leaving
imprints of desire in the air 

and shy things are whispering, in the hedge 
questions lost in their play

enclosed in the diamond of my legs, a book
for me to read now and again

while refrains fold and fade to close, I learn

to love myself, with your mind 

_________________
Pic: Eastbound along the Red Cedar on the new bike path. Big A in the distance. I simply had to stop to take a picture of those fluffy clouds in the open, blue sky. How beautiful is the every day, ordinary world..

the calling

some days everything is sacred
the name is the thing

on days Aaron said he had to  
"go run some errands"

our toddler thought he was saying
"go run some Aarons"

those were very Aaron things after all 

I think of how we all

could heed the call to run away, freely

doing things for ourselves

_________________

Pic: The Red Cedar on a bright and breezy day on a walk with Big A. Trees are beginning to visibly bud! We stopped midway through the walk to call in our sushi orders to pick up on the way home. It was very nice timing!

this darling of a day

I whisper a blessing into my cupped hands 
take frayed and afraid things for wings
be, begin, go

no one judges me for these strange noises

desperate like hopeful prayers, like fish 

the river receives 

my phone is far away and anyway, all 

I have to tell you, you already know

it's just as well

I've made a keepsake of this week forever 

I've saved myself from words that spring

are we there yet?

_____________________________

Pic: The Red Cedar on a glorious, brilliant-blue-sky day. Walk with Big A.

coincidence

if a mouth wails of never

do the lifted eyes count

to hold the world close 

to call it done... a day

crushed easily as a flower

we've said less this year

I catch the light, press 

in one more goodbye

had you remained forever

I could have loved more

yet owe thanks for our

time here ur-gently

coinciding

________________

Pic: Max frolicking. His rascally, trusting eyes and floppy ears are my favorite. This darling turned one today. This was also the week Scout took ill last year--he'd be gone in exactly a month. Somehow, it always feels like Scout arranged for me to meet Max. I know looking after Max and watching his antics lifted me from the depths of so much this last year. Love you, Maxie! I hope you enjoyed your banana and peanut butter pupcake, extra long walk, and the new squeaky toy you've already disemboweled.

Poetry Hour: Mosab Abu Toha

I tuned into the Mosab Abu Toha event for an hour or so during a convenient break between classes and meetings. 

It was an amazing outpouring of solidarity and poetry. He read from Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear and talked about the new sounds he could add to his titular poem.

Pic: A friend grabbed a screenshot of me in a tile right next to Toha's. Something to treasure.

Spring incantation

oh, these needles of rain 

the skies are full of surprises

my only choice of speech

is a quiet, topographical melody 

for I bring us to forsythia

and crocus, tulip, and daffodil

a readying redbud now, then

a promise of hellebore and more 

__________
Pic: A redbud getting ready by the Red Cedar.

visions

Pic: I prepped copies of poems to hand out at the Gaza panel on Monday. 

I felt so rich in poetry after I collated this collection to pass on to the organizers. 

I had visions of myself just standing in the hallway shoving poetry under classroom doors, putting them on bulletin boards,  and throwing fistfuls of paper into the air so it would rain poetry... like Regina George distributing copies from the "Burn Book" in Mean Girls, but more meaningful.

I hope I do a good job at the event on Monday. And I'm excited for Mosab Abu Toha's event on Tuesday--to which I have online tickets.

companion song

desire turning into decision 
at once terrifying, free
I am moved

into the path of turning knives
their rhythms familiar
I am here

afraid of turning the page
my mind un-scrolling

I am opened

like a hinge into the world

I've been here before--

I return once more

_____________________

Pic: Max and Huck, my writing companions, snoozing in the sunshine.

a private communion

I dream of tangerines
sweet with summer
how I will wait 

for the right moment  

to touch, peel them 

with reverence

their flesh like that

of a new beloved
still secret

our meeting--kisses 

sluicing nectarine 

in blessing 

________________________

Pic: Geese on the banks of the Red Cedar. I thought there was something very balletic about their pose...

scenic/cynic

When I leave this country of fog
my bags of salt fall into the river
carried away like tears

*
breezes blow out birthday candles
whistle through my aching head

lift thoughts like kites

*

every day I make my body stronger
it will build a city, knock out bullies

I dream as fast as I can 

_____________________

Pic: The Red Cedar behind L's house. L will be gone for a month, so we had an extra long walk-and-talk this week.

upcoming

"A book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside us." 

Kafka in a letter to Oskar Pollak 

As it happens: 

I have some books

I have at least two axes

I have the frozen sea

so I have all 3/3

*

the day is cloud-colored

my hair is in my eyes

I travel inside the love 

I have built for you

where it is windy

*

but this time tomorrow

Spring will be closer

these shoots coming up

groping their way into 

the air, would agree 

________________
Pic: Tulips (I think) coming up... Not my garden (I wish). From a quick walk to MSU this morning.

a koan noting nothing

look, I said to the sky
my yearning is born 
in the wrong time

these hands that held

books and babies 

now hold air 

even falling like beauty 

this light is silent

oh, cold god  

___________________

Notes: I like knowing "nothing" was pronounced "noting" in Elizabethan English. The "nothing" itself didn't come from emptiness but from a very long 12-hour (14 with the commute) work day.

Pic: The REDress Project by Jaime Black-Morsette at MSU. From my walk yesterday.

just killing time/filling the silence

mothers look away from me now
seconds abscond with sense 
in glissandos of angst

dreams pour out their sure poison 
I play it safe and then pretend 
--what? I don't understand

watching homes bloom in flame
and wart and scab into craters 

--I am an earnest surveyor

of everything left unsaid, noting
the news burns the day when 
it could be lit up with peace 

_____________________________

Note: Someday I will write a poem about Aaron Bushnell, but this is not it.

Pic: A mallard couple by themselves... they took to the water as we neared and I felt bad for disturbing their peace. Baker Woods Bog with L and T.

I am not alone

I live for the broad roofs

of wide skies lately
I'm thinking of making up 

my own cosmology

a sister sun, a mother moon
I'll urge on a webbing,

make belonging a whole world 
build like an animal

trusting one, another, and another 

where all of us are lost
--and it's okay and it's expected 

as everywhere is safe

kindness a patina to shine on  

the knots of this world

this goddamned beautiful world 

winding down slowly

surely, but still with so many

of those we love here...

still here, so I release to air

the ones who 

have been handfuls of sawdust

and ash

to live on as kin and stardust

everywhere 

_______________________________

Pic: Sunset today over the Maple on my way home. 

bleak week

I'm having a tough time this week. It's not that I can't go on... I am. But I keep feeling like I can't... On the surface, things look normal, but it feels like my sense of reality is being eroded--like the sandy shore slipping from under my feet in a dream yesterday. 

What's it all for if I can see the horror every day and am absolutely incapable of saving a single child? The amputations and caesareans without anesthesia, the firing at U.N. food distribution camps, the six-year-old calling emergency services trapped in a car full of her dead family... This is truly the stuff of horror.  And yet.... yet again... The U.S. has vetoed a ceasefire in Gaza for the third time. A ceasefire! 

BOL's cat who saw them through undergrad and grad school died and I want to be there to support them the way they supported me when Scout was dying... But also, it brought me back to that month of slowly losing Scout... the dread of every day. I'm surprised that it will be a whole year without my darling in just about two months.

Pic: E.D. Wilson's poem "My Phone is Full of Cute Cats and Dead Children."