Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Thursday, July 02, 2020
Saturday, April 25, 2020
The Low Road
Big A is cheating the puppies at play in this picture; I want the record to show that 😊. Also, despite a full day, it felt quite low. But also, I've been remembering Marge Piercy's poem, and plan to share it with the family tomorrow at dinner.
(In other news, birthday parties for KB and SS and a fougasse bake-along with PM and posse.)
(In other news, birthday parties for KB and SS and a fougasse bake-along with PM and posse.)
Monday, March 30, 2020
Pandemic, Spring
Across a tawny field that will be green
next week, a stand of maples, waving,
trunks spaced six feet or more apart
as if they’d heard the governor’s order.
next week, a stand of maples, waving,
trunks spaced six feet or more apart
as if they’d heard the governor’s order.
As if they, too, were keeping distance,
while in the earth an interplay of fine
roots and tiny fungi relays messages,
shares sustenance, keeps in touch.
while in the earth an interplay of fine
roots and tiny fungi relays messages,
shares sustenance, keeps in touch.
From here, their lacy crowns look bare,
spreading as they reach out toward a sky
delicately blue as a robin’s egg. Yet there
a thousand thousand leaf buds hold tight
spreading as they reach out toward a sky
delicately blue as a robin’s egg. Yet there
a thousand thousand leaf buds hold tight
ready to unfurl in jubilation. Till then
the trees hang on, deep-rooted, keeping
their distance, holding each other close.
the trees hang on, deep-rooted, keeping
their distance, holding each other close.
Linda Mills Woolsey 3/27/2020
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Almost
I am worried for my friend
whose young sister has passed away
and tomorrow is coming
and my friend is coming back
and I'm venting to Big A about how
death doesn't make any sense.
And I'm sitting by his feet in a darkened room
in the middle of the morning, because he's trying
to sleep before he works the E.R. tonight.
And he's stroking my ankles, telling me
that "everybody dies, every body dies--you
know we're walking with ghosts."
My skin prickles surprise, I want to hear it
again until it turns out what he had said was--
"you know that's how it goes..."
whose young sister has passed away
and tomorrow is coming
and my friend is coming back
and I'm venting to Big A about how
death doesn't make any sense.
And I'm sitting by his feet in a darkened room
in the middle of the morning, because he's trying
to sleep before he works the E.R. tonight.
And he's stroking my ankles, telling me
that "everybody dies, every body dies--you
know we're walking with ghosts."
My skin prickles surprise, I want to hear it
again until it turns out what he had said was--
"you know that's how it goes..."
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
The Beauty
I am two years ten months old,
beloved first-born: am told my face
is open as windows, my smiles gems
of happiness, when baby sister is born.
I remember being taken to visit
Amma and the wrinkly new baby
too in the hospital, in the morning, right
before I have to go to Mrs. Pinto's "school."
And I remember the chill of nerves
the clunky thump of suspense, feeling
so sneaking clever when--patting her tenderly,
I tell my parents: "Baby sister--Chelli Paapa--
is so, so beautiful; I don't want to go to school."
My ploy creeps on, it has lived many lives
it has floated past memory's borders,
the recall slowly fading.
When I retell it now, on this whole other continent,
my own kids chortle, roll their eyes, call me
"playa." My face is a window, is a mirror,
my face is a door that lets the lie in.
But my parents have told this story for decades,
in a haze of earnestness, claimed 'blessings
--love or beauty or children, or the hazy
necessity of whatever comes next.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Friday, December 27, 2019
Loving as a kind (of) argument
All our hellos call
to each other
and now our smiles
are missiles
silence is the
scent
touch--the rocket
we make
translating "I"
as "you too"
come, come, come
let's go
to each other
and now our smiles
are missiles
silence is the
scent
touch--the rocket
we make
translating "I"
as "you too"
come, come, come
let's go
Monday, December 09, 2019
Earshot
my mind--more a revolving door
lets me in, lets me out
every question, any song brings
anger, then I'm sad
there's no sun, and all light is
gentle. Alright--absent
I want, I want so much and yet--
take nothing... I take hold
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Friday, November 08, 2019
Sunday, November 03, 2019
Witness
my illiterate left hand startles
as I write my children again
Empty at last
opening fists
to make nests
singing the quiet like a top 20
ashes, wishes wafting off me
as I write my children again
Empty at last
opening fists
to make nests
singing the quiet like a top 20
ashes, wishes wafting off me
Friday, November 01, 2019
Catch
tickles start in my palm, aim for my pits
catch in my throat: I am open, I let
my shame (shame) show
here are bugs leaking from my breath
like starry maps from blind eyes. O
I have lost my fingerprints
I must just be falling asleep I must be
falling falling falling into depths
or deaths. I don't
know the presidents who visit in my
dreams on boats shaped like me,
wooden as my smile. I fight
I find my freedom with my fists and feet
the slick of water still gets me though
entanglement, undertow
-
Tuesday, October 08, 2019
Tableau
So I'm in a car. I'm in a car stopped at a traffic light.
On the block on which my son lives now. It's by the--
by the Starbucks redux, by the telephone pole, by the
old 7-11, the zebra crossing, the Asian buffet--And. At--
At the zebra crossing, a mom looks on fiercely as: her
skinny toddler drops her hand, and steps precisely--as if
at prom, then delays--to tiptoe the three steps--three steps
away to press the button--the button that will summon the
white walk-sign man. And then I think she says thank you.
That's it. Oh. NoNo. there's a baby too, who anchors the mom,
who had yielded attention for a moment, but is now bouncing--
bouncing, appealing, willing mom to look--look back. Willing
her to smile back. I imagine the baby is a girl; the toddler is a boy.
I'm not reading their signs, only feeling my past. And they're so
close, so I'm smiling and nodding my encouragement to the child,
the baby still bouncing in the pram, the mom. Nodding to myself--
It's that familiar. Memories buzz in the car's hum of silence. The
residuum of busy, sticky hands I've let go. Panic--a fog. The years
alertly sliding in--backlog. Stuck waiting for a sign--green--walk--
wait--ok fine--we're waiting--so incoherent with longing, still, life--
______________________
Ha. I've managed to sneak "At" And "NoNo" in there.
-
On the block on which my son lives now. It's by the--
by the Starbucks redux, by the telephone pole, by the
old 7-11, the zebra crossing, the Asian buffet--And. At--
At the zebra crossing, a mom looks on fiercely as: her
skinny toddler drops her hand, and steps precisely--as if
at prom, then delays--to tiptoe the three steps--three steps
away to press the button--the button that will summon the
white walk-sign man. And then I think she says thank you.
That's it. Oh. NoNo. there's a baby too, who anchors the mom,
who had yielded attention for a moment, but is now bouncing--
bouncing, appealing, willing mom to look--look back. Willing
her to smile back. I imagine the baby is a girl; the toddler is a boy.
I'm not reading their signs, only feeling my past. And they're so
close, so I'm smiling and nodding my encouragement to the child,
the baby still bouncing in the pram, the mom. Nodding to myself--
It's that familiar. Memories buzz in the car's hum of silence. The
residuum of busy, sticky hands I've let go. Panic--a fog. The years
alertly sliding in--backlog. Stuck waiting for a sign--green--walk--
wait--ok fine--we're waiting--so incoherent with longing, still, life--
______________________
Ha. I've managed to sneak "At" And "NoNo" in there.
-
Sunday, September 01, 2019
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Unclear Condition
Morning is manic fog
milky, vanishing, slipping
under cereal, hugs,
reminders, lists,
all the things
we must bring
they are literal--Driving
the littlest human
to school and...
you know what?
they say...
that may be frost
just ponds of them
hanging out in the fields
with horses, ducks
the littlest human watches
my face cautiously
for a trace of panic
Fog flaps in the wind.
like blankets, begins to
put this year to bed. I
wonder where the sun will be
this time, next year--
and will we be here
milky, vanishing, slipping
under cereal, hugs,
reminders, lists,
all the things
we must bring
they are literal--Driving
the littlest human
to school and...
you know what?
they say...
that may be frost
just ponds of them
hanging out in the fields
with horses, ducks
the littlest human watches
my face cautiously
for a trace of panic
Fog flaps in the wind.
like blankets, begins to
put this year to bed. I
wonder where the sun will be
this time, next year--
and will we be here
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Monday, August 05, 2019
Danusha Laméris: Small Kindnesses
Danusha Laméris: Small Kindnesses
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
_
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Nuclei
My heart pulses like a womb
mind races like a detective
mouth is full of seeds
and leftovers
A cardinal in a tree like a flag
I'm in tears nearby fleeing
the hardscrabble of lies
and kisses
What if the compass is my face
slowing the world with sighs
say flowers are our saints
fierce, fearsome.
------
Nu was cleaning out At's car (it cost him 5$$$), and I was keeping her company, walking the driveway with music and marveling at how green everything looks. At then went to see Chapo Trap House up in Traverse City with his friends.
-
mind races like a detective
mouth is full of seeds
and leftovers
A cardinal in a tree like a flag
I'm in tears nearby fleeing
the hardscrabble of lies
and kisses
What if the compass is my face
slowing the world with sighs
say flowers are our saints
fierce, fearsome.
------
Nu was cleaning out At's car (it cost him 5$$$), and I was keeping her company, walking the driveway with music and marveling at how green everything looks. At then went to see Chapo Trap House up in Traverse City with his friends.
-
Sunday, July 07, 2019
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