dinner conversation

the earth tilts into evening

I can hold you forever--

in arms, in eyes 

in a solemn ministry of love

my mouth is a vow 

(all words are wow)

I know love like loneliness

like a rescue animal

diving through fog 

in your marrows of strength

the tenderness of words

the tenderness of wounds

for when you ask me questions

certainty lies--folded between

my hands like grace

_______________

Pic: Family dinner yesterday; a serious conversation about cartoons. 

respairing

Honestly? I think I'm wary about 2022; I was way more sanguine about respair last year. 

Nu had some friends over to celebrate NYE at home; At went out with friends; Big A and I noshed while the puppies went between pets in the rumpus room (Nu and friends) to naps with Mama and Dada. Also: We pro-conned and discussed a job offer which would take take Big A to another state. 

We were supposed to do a whole family dinner tonight, but At's car ran into a curb and there's a weather advisory, so it'll be tomorrow (hopefully). I'm grateful everyone is okay-ish even while I will myself not to be superstitious about new year's day.

I'll carry myself into this next year 
conveniently mad
you know I've done what I could 

Happy New Year! Happy wishes!

2022, please

don't open and return these to me

we can be civil--here, take my hand 

shake it, I mean

don't like... coddle or confiscate it

__________________________

Poems from January 1 over the years: 

new year  

once more 

often 

nodes 

Jan 1st 

I took my kids to yoga today 

______________________________

Pic: The soapstone sculpture LB and TB gave us for Christmas. It looks like a very loving couple, and I think that was their point. (It also makes me blush a little with its intense intimacy.)

the writing on the trees

night always comes to inherit earth
light follows faraway--hopefully

from emerald to ash the borer hies 

pressing leaf into shadow

tearing through wood with a reason

writing hieroglyphs in hunger

seeming a cousin to cave scribbles

as madness is all to madness 

would you go on a walk with me

through seasons of damage

we can bless the falling of pillars

whittled from feral feasts

recorded on stoic skin and bones

etched into fasting flesh

for every time we've been reduced 

by some primitive scrawl of loss 

___________________________

Pic: I had to step across this tree trunk, which lay in my path in Baker Woods. And it looked like there were some primitive cave-painting-type etchings on it. A Google image search taught me that this is what damage from an emerald ash borer looks like.

abecedarian for 2021

                           OR

Anyway, innocence is a thing I overcome

By becoming a small offering of silence, 

Certain so many things never end at all.  

Destiny--these paths forking to multiply

Erupts into our endings and beginnings

Frames all the lessons I just won't heed

Unfolding in tedious, untidy symmetry

morning lesson

For L W-B 

the city is seated here... erratic 

along our teacher chatter

waving in delight

we find ourselves amidst magic

winterberries so ripe they 

must surely hurt--inside

alert and hidden and still as panic

one bird ruby as berries

another dun as boughs

play by themselves like... music

to complete the morning 

to see us whole

trance

it's like breezes open my mouth
to pour in salted happiness

but how well do I know myself?

sleep (do not) want to sleep

so tonight becomes a cartwheel 

of love on sliding sands

the glow of my amma, dad, uncle, 

aunt, and sister at a bonfire

the rap of waves half a world away

in harmony with my heartbeat

and here's me waiting for something 

wild    to wish me goodnight

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

Pic: Picture of sunrise on the beach (Bay of Bengal) from a trip mom, dad, and Chelli took to visit VM and AA. 

in sight

the blizzard blooms 
in afternoon sun 

windows burn

but not the tree-line 

held in my mouth
like t e e t h  

unraveling the bridges
they can reach 

like breath

answering the songs

of late at night

dog choirs

we cannot yet speak of  

how meaning carries

across    species

I begin to see in silence 

how I understand

no thing

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

Pic: Surprise snow overnight--on cue for Nu's first day of Christmas break. 

Notes: We're rethinking traveling between Christmas and New Year to see grandparents. And there are rumors that school may be online in the new year. (And yes, someone forgot to bring summer's pillows in again.)

friends,

be careful with your worship
for in love souls grow
missions shining

they'll just... catch your heart 
you'll watch them take it 

and you'll do nothing 

there are sighs in our history

the wet edges of my face

icy yet blazing

becoming... tender accounts 
starry with sentinels
and yes, shining

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