next time

chants sink their laments
into my lungs

like a monk, time now slips  
me memories 

people and love and times 

away, unavailable   

I meet myself falling down 

now into stories

now is evening in the world

although inside 

the starry core of my body  

it says 2:00 am

who knows if I'm really early--

or simply very late 

what shall do with myself now

I have broken time 

____________

Pic: I add one snow-globe to my Christmas collection every year. This year, I found these adorable friends exchanging gifts and then I FOUND THE SAME FIGURES AS STUFFIES! I lamented not having tiny babies who would be delighted with this find, but Nu--very kindly--really stepped up their game. 😁🤗

fresh as a bruise

this sky hangs around
mouth wide open

I have given it 

silly thoughts,
snacks, the smutty 
aftertaste of our quarrel

the anchor of our caution 
as we figure out 

this overhang 
opening words 

from older words 

whose meanings are lost 

revival

For I've saved stones 

in so many pockets

converted prayers 

to slips of paper

leaning over the edge 

I pray for everyone
will even pray for 

every thing

though I gag on words

I deliver them like

pardons, where

they parade

 

tumbling my meaning

--these funambulists

conjuring fantasy

and salvation

for you say it matters

the wash of water
the hunt of love and desire 

a flush that sweeps us away

stars battle frost while

I tug my mouth into shapes

finding languages I have lost

so bravely and in beauty  

just singing... a beginning

imagining nothing to get there 

for you too may have / questions about this story

                                                                             

                                                                      the tongue a knife probing                                          

our mom didn't tell this story 

till she was safe home again

how traveling to Chennai 

in the rains--she said--they 

                            the cleft palate of memory 

couldn't tell which was river 

which was road... and then 

went skidding into a ditch...

thanks to the gods--she said--

                           the smile tucked up in secret

thanks to all the gods some

villagers were passing and

they were kind and pushed

our car back onto the road  

                            the lips nudged into detail

then softly: but... they said

some mean things in Tamil 

like uncle is a terrible driver 

who shouldn't have a big car 

                             the gummy words murderous

even more softly: aunty and I 

were in the car, so they said

look at those fatty gundechis

just sitting on their bottoms

                             the mouthful of arguments

But I still told uncle we should 

reward them, give some... thing?

But he said no, that wasn't fine 

they might ask for more next time

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

I know the generosity of Tamil people well. When I was pregnant with At, people would keep offering me food even if all they themselves were eating was a paper cone of sundal or peanuts. I am beyond horrified-ashamed-saddened that my family didn't offer anything--payment/a ride/money for coffee-tiffin to the people who may have saved their lives in the middle of a cyclone. (The cheeky, irreverent humor checks out too.)

leaving a small mark

forever, the lucky white lies
inside a neverending day
there are nervous words 
for most of this

I hear you saved me a plate

and become an avalanche 

crashing with applause

my mouth a riot 

praying for the day to soften 

nursing its rotten return--
what might not happen 
after I reread this

going on goings on

don't separate me from what I remember

for I sin against completion 

I say I want want so much from this life 

and yet I keep giving it away  

my mom said she found a college friend 

from forty years ago on Facebook

she's a bit proud and shy telling me how

because it's detective shit/stalking

my sister gamely practices a funny line 

from a cartoon only I have seen

we bounce it between us: "back to you"

laughter shimmers in our mouths 

in the richness of boredom I'm dissolving

into blessings, learning lessons

of normalcy, finding myself in some stories 

I've braided out of ordinariness

discord

for I serenaded the sun today

my mouth a tunnel

                       didn't think of Kapernick's knee

                      then Chauvin's knee

                                                 

for the wind refuses to be silent

as it flicks its tail

                        can't think of Kapernick's knee

                    then Chauvin's knee

         for the war becomes metaphor 

                            only when revolution is near

                             don't think of Kapernick's knee

                    then Chauvin's knee

         for this is a poem that kills poets 

        --whose ghosts live forever 

                            for it thinks of Kapernick's knee

                    then Chauvin's knee

                            

________________________________________

Pic: sunrise and tea on "fall-back" Sunday. 

I wore my hair in a braid and was clearly trying to juggle other strands here as well.

back story

ripples eddy me round like

an island, like a knot

greedy with fear

in this drift of a year I may
examine one reed then

inherit a whole river

I will no longer burn into 

everything--it holds me

back, turning

into the story of one bird

perched on my hand

forever telling me

I am here--yes, I am here

have been for so long

always singing 

in unknowing

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

some beginnings rush to broadcast

they rise up

in the way fear always sees love

and uses it up

although none of us is too empty for life

I hear

this tree saying: I'm only just a seed 

 hold me

a breath sighing: I want to be born 

end me

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

Pic: Nu as we set off down the driveway. All my outside time with Nu these days is in the dark--whether they are walks to the school bus or (here) getting ready to put the chickens to bed.

underneath it all

I know the gossip well enough

so as I fall asleep 

I know

every body could be these bodies

so... easy and insignificant

in their yearning

always welcome under blankets 

with whatever remains 

of love 

their kindness like the glance of 

streetlights in my childhood 

bedroom

where some other child might lie awake

amazed at how they cannot 

fall asleep

tight/rope

I like how fear shapes itself
the moment before thought 
startling inching shaking
me alive

In the throb of this time
so borderless and so big
bruising every impulse 
to be here

I have no plans to move

for history when undressed

is plain macabre 

I can recite everything I find

and lose myself  

in my stammered translation 

maps lose detail

some time leads to nowhere

poems get shorter

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

The Fall 2021 Jaggery issue went live today--I'd forgotten the pull quotes and had to scramble to get them done; I finished sending out the last of the NWSA mentoring emails; handed off SAWNET moderation to the October moderator; completed part one of the women's house orientation; started planning the honor society induction; finalized grades on the first paper; committee meetings; committee meetings; committee meetings; started a sabbatical review for a non college colleague; started tenure observations for a college colleague; picked up my laptop post repair. Dinner was leftovers.

disappearance

you know something/ I don't
the turn into spring, into fall 
a new war... an old messiah 
the budding preceding it all

I try to remind you of love 
in the face of opening loss
we know life keeps taking 

uprooting even... thoughts

the trip comes for us

(for L.B.)

by the time my thoughts arrive

helloes and hugs have played

our homophony

these trees nod their approval

and bird guardians sing 

of missing you, friend

Really, we could have climbed 

mountains today, survived 

whispered catastrophe

colonizing futures, monopolizing 

resolutions, our airy gestures 

perfect as finger-paintings

_______

Hike with L in Baker Woods after ages! I was catastrophizing, L was decoding and problem-solving. We mostly talked about changes to Big A's contract and how he may be working in Texas for a few months. I was actually so excited when he first told me because I have fond memories of visiting my Chelli in San Antonio, but soon realized he'd be going because it's a Covid hotspot right now... and...

placebo

the ceremony of each day grows hostile 
like a needle in my veins 
going under the shape of my resistance
and landscapes of hunger

I've been told to take each day at a time 
I abandon months in a gulp 
but the best minutes become sustenance
still so modest, but medicinal

swaha

clouds thick as suspended hopes
flame singing without words
where do we go from here
friend, there's only now

remember the last time we were 

here, you asked if I had always 

known about sacrifice--

it's how we survived 

this fire I built inside my head 

tenderly lifting all the love

and dread I have tended 

to replay, "let go"

moving to the future

my arms are crossed behind your back
my fingers are too
as though we're raising a stout hammer 
to a sickle moon

I can only watch through this rapid door 

the holiness of 

infancy, childhood, school's odd certitude

and uncertain youth 

your smile now a secret scroll of prophecy 

close to breaking

lashed in ritual errancy and exhortation to 

a city of last resort

and your keys to a kingdom of possibility

yet you share, sweet child--

as you unbar our door to swing open yours--

so warmly, a spare set

so it's universal

new nothings are of the highest order
metaphor is a dark mass of wire
feel the kiss of prepositions
--they're infinite

we inhale before the contented sigh
and embrace like we're a whole
orbit full of revelations,
even in rearview 

a little me

I suppose it's my job to be touched everyday
by offers of trust--gaudy and gauche 
these insights dawning
inexorable as day

I know how it settles into the bulk of today
teaching me to become yet an-other 
grownup as I already am
inaccurate as yesterday