chatter

the length of our conversation tells in years 
origins of jokes, quarrels, and empathy

reflecting back, blinking back

the image of us making our way into a future

it's a test--and if you ask me, of course 

I'll tell--I'll tell you everything

-------------------------------------------

A day remarkable for the amount of work and the number of things I got off the pending to-do lists. 

It was also the day of our Ganesha Search. I had to work on Ganesh Chaturthi, which was last week, so today the kids and I did the annual tour of all the Ganeshas in the house (several in each room) to clean and decorate with kumkum and kalanchoe. The kalanchoe isn't traditional, but fit some of the tiny Ganeshas perfectly. 

Also a day when we had some tough conversations with two different roofers--none of our work-arounds will actually... work and it's going to cost many times what we'd anticipated or saved for. UGH.  

And then a spectacular late-afternoon breakdown when Big A used the "D word" and the "C word" to describe and discuss Scout's sudden hobbling slowness and lethargy. The kids asked tentatively over dinner what it had been about and were naturally very dispirited... so Big A began clowning. 

Pic: Radiology Gardens from this weekend. I love their reflection pool.

classroom

amidst the dusty chalk of discussion

our figures gesture like talk 

ache with attachment

there is teaching in the (back)ground
find it in the sprawling grassroots 

reaching up from dispute

the walking cure

(for K.B.)

We haven't seen each other in weeks

we're to go on a walk

I expected a ladylike turn on campus

but here you are 

in sneakers, leading an active puppy 

so we end up 

wending our way to Luce Road where

we remember

how our current high schoolers were tiny

preschoolers

whose peanut allergies then seemed 

to riddle absence--

are now surviving, becoming new people

with "hot dates"

imagining themselves un-endangered 

have new names 

in today's succulence, there is rain

but also umbrellas

there are mosquito bites that bead 

my arms like biceps 

words hang between us like roots

seeking new growth

you guide each signal that tumbles out 

kindly, grace-fully

we're filling out equations of sympathy 

on each side  

even in all that happens to interrupt us

because somehow

it seems, you believe in my goodness

as I trust in yours--

oh, how are we such miracles, friend--

finding us in this world

Pic: KB, W, and bike-path friends in Alma.

sonnet on a commute

the road is a ribbon feeding on itself 

a dream snake

the car is an empty room but for me

the sun glares back 

sultry beyond windows and stealthy  

in the soupy day

I'm wondering if radios will play on 

at the end of the world

as I watch my future burning like fuel 

past lonely road kill

the road keeps coming, a stream of poison

being sucked out of me

my family knows my day from my absence

I pick up the distance and go 

farewell summer 2021

This summer had teeth like mosquitoes 
flush with hail and all-day rain

I wave goodbye to this 

all summer long, the heavy air settled

into my narrow body, caught me 

out of breath every time 

a decrescendo of repeat, mute, rewind

until my mind is white noise

my heart half silence

and my hands sail safely to my sides

opening, undone--bones plummet

in percussive emphasis

another day

why am I here bitten, forgotten 

arraigning a legacy of crazy

with remembrances

where my body and yours are

flattened by blank screens

and seen everywhere

why am I here, I wish you 

well, wish you could

just tell me

what will I not hear, this time--

more problems, every time--

no problem

I say--but there were always 

problems and prizes--

with surprises

I find myself falling

I have tried falling down
the way you used to 
whole flights at a time

it's impractical

how it now reminds me 

of my grandfather

atoning what he'd done

--it's typical

what you did for laughs

he did because 

he'd left mother crying

made invisible

all the mislaid expiations

in search of love

where we are, the border

of admissible 

Pic: I turned in some stuff in on... Submittable. Ha.

the opposite of down is really long

remind me to take a step back
take in the silver habit 
of a grey day

pacing love and dissent, weaving
every day the excitement 

of reunion  

days we laughed, we sometimes

wept--from stories we heard

around radios

life feels so small it's basically 

one tunnel--just one that 

runs forever

Pic and notes: Early morning walk with Big A, Huck, and Scout. Grey day--busy all the way through and no good news at home (roofer canceled, Covid rises) or abroad. We were almost devoured by mosquitoes. 

overhearing

reaching in the way of breath
souls out as though flying

starting as newness does

language bends us to light
tethered to our affections
pointed as our engines 

it's crowded in the big sky,

friends--we have: planes, 

birds, satellites, choices

when it's so hard to listen 

what shall we do, indeed

for our use... for our ease

Pic: Late summer garden

the present

1. 

Thirteen years of this same name 

with a few million different versions 

to use in love, jokes, threats, loving

2. 

When they decide for a new name

another parent tells me that a name 

is like a present, no one has to like it 

3. 

just because you gave it to them...

They know what's best for them, they

get to decide if they want a new name.

4. 

Then they do decide for a new name--

You know this name's unisex, right?

But--it still fits wrong, they say. So

5. 

when they decided for a new name, I

find I'm delighted to have an excuse 

to look at lists of baby names again

6. 

With their new name, we learned they

can ask teachers to use the new one

but can't officially change it at school--

7. 

that's another year with the same name

...but people ask us how to pronounce it

(because both names are from Sanskrit)

8. 

we're tricksters this first year with the new 

name: just tell them the old name is said

like the name you picked, I say. I'm loved

9. 

more in this first year with their new name 

it's like they spread their prayers like wings

these are small things, but they can fly now

10. 

When they decided on this new name, I...

was really relieved the new name began

kind of same way that their old one did--

11. 

so in this first year with the new name--

I can catch myself before I land wrong. 

Doesn't Elliot Page have a name like that?

12. 

I don't even remember--they're saying--

what it was, they're in the present; I'm 

rewarded with them happy in this year 

13. 

with just a new name

as time runs away

sometimes I speak of myself

in past tense, in third person

--I fall asleep, it's another day

I fall asleep and it's still today

life conveys me, an escalator
I ascend without any attempt 

I make meaning of everything

as time runs away, unmasking

all these unwitnessed narratives

and somedays will remind me 

of me, as I sift for obscurity

dowse for light... stay for me

Pic: T. J. Jarrett 

an answer

so what if scars seam 

my body, it holds 
together

wherever I feel untaught 

I risk transparence

today

you should know how 

defiance clears
my throat

why I quiet in the face

of an ongoing

spectacle

so well trained, when

blossoms happen,

I'm reborn

Pic: Phlox!

escape landscape

first: sun on high smiling down

then liquid, drenched in luster

leaves, trees, all this causality  

deciphering futures/scriptures

from beauty, I'm still interested 

to learn how to drift with light 

outside lies the anthropocene 

like moths lusting for a glow   

here I'm only: oh's, aw's, noes

mouth heavier than ever before 

I go after words and find sounds:

songs of sobs, verses of laughter

Pic: Baker Woods this morning with L. 
(Not pictured: swampy-slippery paths, at least one spill, and swarms of mosquitoes.)

calibrations

 

I suppose, I suppose

it wasn't you who called me 
from the bottom of the stairs
it was my prayer

my god O my god

I cannot find my way home

as crows fly / as fish swim 

I might disappear 

here while learning

how to gerrymander choice

hung up on nomadic words 

whispering diaspora

Pic: At has been coordinating canvassing for the socialist candidates. I left him a note as the primaries were today...

our mother would hate this poem

I dreamed I was listening to my
parents' fight from decades ago 
when they were fighting always
and always passive-aggressively

my father sounding patient
my mother sounding smart

neither of them listening to each other...
from our room: my sister and I listened,
grading them--not on how right or wrong 
they were, but how not mean they were.

our mother lost our ratings
for our father lost the fights

afterwards, he wouldn't talk to her for days...
every time she happened to be in the room,
he'd be whistling or humming something 
to show how he didn't care and didn't hurt--

like at all--not even a little bit

even we kids didn't buy it

edit

I will not fail fall falter--
what is history but 

a storm that left 

us all bowed

although not forever long
I watch waves touch

shores and ships

--be calmed 

(I remember how old colonizers 

told us of monsters on maps

even--while wielding:

their sword-gun-pen)

_______

Pic: Flying home--skies never fail to fascinate me.

an ordinary happy

why not stay awake           

watch                                

today's felt blog post         

become                              

just yesterday's ghost        

to a moment, wonderful

right now

becoming extraordinary 

as memory

as witness, totem, story

-----------------------

Pic: Nu and At playing Super Smash Brothers, a game they acquired the weekend Big A and I were away in Seattle. They had so much fun pretending they were going to invite someone called "Smash" over to the house while I was gone, and I had so much fun pretending to be horrified by the idea. It was only later that I discovered that they didn't know I was pretending. "How did you even know it was a game?"--they asked. I don't know.

holiness

can we begin with how 

reduced to sweetness

lists run through

an abecedary 

of wonder

a longing 

to recite how

we return tender

to summer's thirsts

hearts giant with shining

like an old-fashioned riddle

I tally ego on the rosary of my body
count the worry beads of desire
sum my abacus of need

my small silence inside your eternity

my sky inside your horizon

is watching us recede

as I exchange thoughts for doubts

I wonder if you can hear them;

I think you'd concede 

that you pull me along, in undertow--

not caring for my suffering--

until you have me freed

unpronounceable

I have taken these photos

no one will be looking at  
I have repeated my sights
until emptied of meaning

each one special as a child:
emotions--a trembling skin 
old memories--pause at will, 

a flip-book I cannot control

I have buried the bad sounds,

you can't say them anymore

soon I will be lost, exploring,

then unravel love for myself

I can announce to strangers

that I survived, can say I am

renewed, though I still carry  

this ventriloquist's act of you