as for myself

I've sunk narcissus bulbs

into dark, stony places 

                                                 pushing them down into dirt

                                                 hoping they'll rise...

my random presents to myself

mirroring blessing

                                                  as the weeks arrive, curving

                                                  into Christmas

I yearn for their spiky baroque

their green resilience

                                                  to lift color into the cold air

                                                  rustling me to worship 

for a fragrance--so like flames  

to rescue me from winter

from a distance

hope is heavy
her mouth is pulled out of shape 
with worry

          she thinks
          bruises are the sharp edge of love  
          in skin's own ink

but in the water

she floats, weighs nothing at all

it anchors her 

          to meaning

          she can break down in answers

          then drink it in 

storyteller

I wake wanting to be

inside the side 
you are on                  to step outside my body 

                                   threading through

                                   discarded stories                your departures guiding me

                                                                               through volcanic swirls

                                                                               so swaha / shanti

                                    I'm ready to swallow fire 
                                    unwrap smoke shapes
                                    hold revelation

when you nod, mouth "now"

I'll know how right away

to rehearse my life 

long way home

the poem is like a conscience

the poem could be a boner 

            like a sun moving in raindrops 

            its rainbow fires everywhere

but the halves of a lonely day

will just not come out equal

            you know, I know... I'm trying

             to walk us all the way back

but you pirouette like a planet

pledge I'm a continent adrift

I know these things

the snap of the wind

       like wings in the air

sunrise like a bindi

       in the swirling city

the poems thinning

       with use and age

how trees tremble

       with each breath

why desire runs

       direct as locusts

returning to me 

       in folds of fear

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

Note: It was already an introspective, introverted day. Then I saw Tamir Rice's photo in a commemorative piece... our world doesn't make sense.

second guessing

I remembered what 

it was like

                                to want something

                                then make it

after the beginning                  

before the end                         

                                 before the beginning

                                 after the end

to face carrying on                   

in this space                             

                                  between sympathy

                                  and responsibility

until we have enough              

will we know...                    

                                   when and then what

                                   is enough?

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

Pic: Sunrise with snow puppies

"under the trees in Autumn"

I walked out of the house into this weird estrangement of weather...  as though into someones's pointlessly strange story...

I love the hopeful green against the snow. It reminds me of disagreeing with Wallace Stevens' in "The Motive for Metaphor"

You like it under the trees in Autumn,
because everything is half dead.

Try it the opposite way, I want to tell Stevens...

we're all still so alive...

bokeh

saving the world in radiant rectangles

becoming a grid of gardens

...a genealogy of beauty

 

stars cast no shadows--in our world--

Love. There's no telling what 

they do in theirs

Pic: Red Cedar River; in the snowstorm with L yesterday.

translation

I've been dreaming:
of three mosquitoes 
bouncing on a page

Oh sad, sleepy brain!
Did you just envision
"musketeers" wrong?

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

Pic: Dreamy visual courtesy Ziibiwing Center trip with my capstone students. 

Note: Did my brain not want to use "MUSKeteers" because of the Twitter implosion?

"(i carry it in my heart)"

I used to carry you 

on my shoulders

or on my hip

these days I send

a funny tweet

a loving text

should you emoji 

something...

anything

I'll know that you're 

fine or okay

and alive

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

Pic: I wasn't the only one surprised by snow today.

Note: e.e.cummings poem

in the summer of this hot November

we might be like those flowers 
who fall asleep and then

fall apart into seeds

our heartbeats almost habit 

not so much choice--

more like a chore

are you loving the summer 
of this hot November

(I know I'm not)

believe me when I tell you

I've searched for hope

and well... I have

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

Pic: Koi at the Radiology Gardens yesterday--a very warm day in November.

Note: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/07/cop27-climate-change-report-us/ 

when you are here

I wonder about the machinery of birds

how love feathers my arms like fur

thoughts alight and leave like moths

when my cry answers your cry

The anxious outline of the day fades

falling asleep like a shadow at noon

some half-remembered song echoes

then my why answers your why

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

Pic: Yard work with Scout and an airborne Huck.

an all too soon song

soon your own wholeness

enters the broken day

soon enough wishes swirl out

without boundaries

soon the longing for something

you can't yet recall

all too soon the frantic journeys

of the world

you will ask if at anytime soon

we untangle life 

Yes, friend, yes! Soon, soon, soon

... just as soon as... 

Pic: Baker Woods with L. Most trees are bare. 

I am not questioning

why the scribbles on my tongue

the message in your hand

lie briefly warring

you know it, and now, I know it

how we pin these colors

to our chests

where they flap like alive things

startling us--for we'd forgotten

we're never alone  

even in these gold-shouldered woods

when our souls are like tiny ghosts

slowing       unstoppable

Pic: Sanford Woods, MSU (on Sunday)
 

the general forecast

maybe ten thousand feet above us 

clouds are tonguing other clouds

stories are being built

way down here, I track every one

of your expressions, use them

to read my fortune 

soon a roving satellite will learn 

when your smile dawns, I can

ask you about/for anything 

Pic: Red Cedar, MSU
 

there is no deadline

I started a letter when I was nine years old
then I began adding pictures of skies
wondering what to say

I've now moved to a place knit with passions

and second chances and curious panics

happy in some ways

my letter unfinished: words run down, hidden

like heartbeat or birds far from home 

I've stayed unwritten

in the place I asked for

one day, I thought I saw 

you--back in life, though

not in mine

                     I followed you through

                     streets--you had errands

                     but no home

                                                         now I make a boat for you

                                                         clean it of sadness and

                                                         stock it with food 

                                                lay in strong thoughts

                                                and soft words and 

                                                welcome shores

                     if there is a way, maybe

                     this is it, you'll lift like

                     a tide, finding love

until it sets me free too

so I too can live--

as I already do

as I ought to

I rustle into place 
holding the scene together 
whispering steps and trips 
 
the beast of my heart
beats: and here's eye contact

across our space and species 

what is it that hardens

me embarrassingly into love 

sings-drums-rings-hums hello 

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

Pic and note: A moment I shared with some deer on our street.  

fall meditation

trees stand as they did in my childhood
home: tall... bending for me

our stance an interchange

I named them as I did the sky before me

worshipping them as constancy

and also transformation 

now I look to sky and trees in imagining

knowing them from memory

loving them as prophecy

my patience both placental and personal 

a foundation sturdy with roots

from another century

_________________________________________

Pic: While coming back from watching Ponniyin Selvan with AS. 

blessed ordinary

every now and then something I've seen

thousands of times surprises me--

like blue skies, clouds

then it's as if I dreamed this stuff up

I'm so electrified I hardly know 

where to begin

now that it's all here in front of me 

unbelievable, extraordinary,

eternal like salvation

suspended like a noisy happiness

I'm tripping as if I can give--

of myself to the miracle

_____________

Pic: Skyscape as EM drove us home. I'm back and delighted to be alone for another day in a blissfully clean and quiet home.