in a sweet November

daylight savings time equals
the sky flying the colors 
of the trans flag

I do not even have to slog for 
its full throated support 
of possibility

instead I learn how to just be

how to just breathe

and conjugate joy

___________________

Pic: The sky at school bus drop-off yesterday. 

a token

squirrels leap off falling branches

why not just be happy again

                 life is one thing and then another

                 building like a good paragraph

the world still tilts, I slide to you 

even as the last word is spoken 

_____________

Pic: At and I were in matching pants when we met up for Nu's play yesterday.

"Am I dead?"

Am I dead? Are you taking me to the cemetery?" 
The child asked as she was rescued 
from the debris of her home.

No, darling... you are alive and beautiful 
you are like the the moon herself.
Said the rescuer. 

_____________

Continents away I shake from the horror of this moment... and the beauty and tenderness of it. 

I spent most of the day outside... gardening rather aggressively... pulling things out, raking, mulching. I became so much a part of the landscape these deer didn't even notice me at first.

Pic: Hello from near and deer.

as I lay me down

in a land of too many addresses
I am always a visitor

in a time of too many goodbyes

I am always afraid 

sleep is my immense leap into time,

into self-addressed prayer 

in the small hours, who is not alone
my self-portrait asks 

_________

Note: I think I need another stanza or two here, but I'm going to go to sleep :). It's so, so, so late (past 4:00 am) and I have to leave at 7:00 to get to an 8:00 am meeting, so even without helping Nu with getting to school, my margin of sleep is running perilously low. This is my "self-addressed prayer" and the panicky calculus of my remaining waking minutes...

Pic: Sanford Woods in passing earlier this week.

can you hear me now?

(for Scout)

I used to whisper to you 

in Telugu

              so you'd know how love sounds   

              in all my languages

                                     saying yes, only yes, 

                                     so it falls like love

                                     yes to all tenderness

                                     which I... become 

              there's still the same world  

              with my changed life  

and somehow eternity 

seems an enemy

_____________________________

Pic: The salad Big A made to go with our tiny pizzas was so good! Shaved artichokes, fennel, grapefruit, and avocado in a lemon-dijon dressing. I don't think I've eaten a raw artichoke before? We decided marinated beans, more parmesan, and ground pepper would be good add-ons for next time. Nu won't be home for dinner this week because of the school play, and it's giving us a taste of how it might feel to be empty-nesters. Pretty cool, actually!

When I picked Nu up, they were holding hands with another theater kid and skipping all the way down the car line. It was adorable. This is so different from the faintly agoraphobic child of last year, and I'm so grateful.

small talk

the hours whisper: hurry, hurry 

deep in the day, as we wade in 

the news rippling like a rumor

in the safe normal of the world

what songs can we follow now

across borders certain to harm 

their traceless calm an unreality

their scenery silent... and empty

the willful trails worn into time 

still show in between... the wars

everyone wants the good stories 

of better worlds no one has seen

____________________________

Scott Long, a fellow at the Human Rights Program at Harvard, has uploaded his entire (1700+ volume) library on Israel-Palestine to the cloud. The link is here.  I was horrified midday that many of the Gazan accounts I had been following were now silent; no internet, no landlines, a complete communications blackout. 

Pic: Still at the conference; here's a little station that says "Give Solace Take Solace" and a ton of PostIts with messages on them. Mine is the blue note that says "Be Curious, Be Furious."

forever takes forever

This is the place. This is the place.

the leaves are turning
yet the hinge at my neck refuses
to unhook our gazes
you simply remember rainbows 
echoes edging the rain 

and pause to wonder if this poem 

will be reply or elegy 

_______________________

Pic: An overcast sky, but the fall colors were simply brilliant in Bellaire. (From our weekend trip.) 

here we go

Although it has stayed mostly green where we are, I can see the colors turning every day on my commute north to work. I listened to chants in Sanskrit in the car and it was pleasant and peaceful and gave me some time to enjoy the poetic beauty of the slokas and puzzle out the agglutinative meanings of words I don't know (my favorite this week is samudra-tanayaya-- body like an ocean).

I am excited to finish the 1001 meetings scheduled for today and then take off with the fam for Big A's birthday weekend. 

I couldn't find any places on the water that would allow us to bring Huck and Max, so KB kindly offered up her parents' place on Torch Lake. The plan is to get everyone a light dinner, pack a backpack each, pick up At after his shift... and go!

Pic: A glimpse of the Red Cedar north of us from CC.

seen and felt

I'm moved by all the people all across the world protesting the ongoing war in the middle east and especially by the thousands of young people chanting "not in my name." The protests put into action the Rabbi Tarfon quote that has helped me in times of crushing weltschmerzen: "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief... You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it." 

The two main constituencies in the U.S. organizing for a ceasefire right now are (1) Palestinians whose families are under attack in Gaza and (2) progressive American Jews, some of whom lost family in the Hamas attack. This is an incredible coalition that gives me hope.

And this snippet from Marwan Makhoul I have been seeing everywhere is simultaneously insight and benediction. The text reads: "In order for me to write/poetry that's not political/I must listen to the birds/and in order to hear the birds/the war planes must be silent."

May it be so.

in a critical condition

Ivy clings like memories even when all the tenses fall wrong

I keep looking over my shoulder for the children are slower and left behind 

I tried to bring them bandages and medicine but find only their cinders in the air  

I fall, then my face falls, my sight falls away, and

then my mask falls

I've answered grief as loud as I can but how could I be louder than my disbelief

I sweep up my footprints in the dust, my imprints in the sand, and let my fingerprints burn

I have mourned the dead; I am mourning the dead; I will always be mourning the dead.

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

Pic: Ivy wall with L.

for I don't know where I am

the day will happen soon enough
the shout of the sun 
the hit of to-dos 

how I will climb up the afternoon
then slide down
to dinner 

the hours search with serrated teeth 

to stitch time up

into context

sleep is a circadian memento mori  

yet I step to it

stirring

its shadows frantic, lurking in gaps

but once its here

its here

Pic: Huck and Max, tails aflutter.  (Cuddle time!)

the hang of it

I will myself to remember the contour

of this beast with no beginnings

this longing even when all is given 
even when nothing is desired

I really have no reason to remember 

the safe, ordinary history of today 

cautious happiness, habitual beauty 

its precious and explicit luck

I taste the escaped words, their notions 

of emptiness and openings  

in the release of the first silver raindrop

its receipt splattering in the dirt

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

Pic: CC's view of The Red Cedar from her canoe. All of the feelings for the beauty of this day and the heartbreak of the news...

somebody's news

the rain's reckless embroidery
brackish, gradual as my grief 
               the paralysis of its apologies
               natural as my sorriest excuse

I start another broken journey
into the wholeness of today

               forever is fevers of longing
               and fierce bruises growling 
your hypothesis of heavens 
a harbor dangerous as hope 

____________________________

I'm grateful for fall break, the change of pace, and being able to take a break from the news today. 

After I took Nu to the school bus + Max and Huckie out to potty, I crept back into bed to read for hours. It felt glorious. Big A popped in after his meeting to marvel that I was still abed at eight and to check if I was sick. (I'm not!)

After a short rainy walk, a shorter weight session, and a very long soak, I stopped by the bookstore. I had a gift certificate from my birthday and more money on it than I remembered and got some extra stuff for Nu's birthday. 

Later, while texting, I discovered that At had the day off too, so we hung out to chat in person and got haircuts and pedicures. The stylist at the Supercuts was a bit mystified by the way my hair looked (I had cut my own hair the night before the semester started), but I admitted nothing. Also, it had been so long since I had a pedicure, that I didn't know there's now a "shellac" option where you can put your shoes right away with nary a smudge! How long has this been going on?!

Pic: Waterlilies and koi at Radiology Gardens.

nocturne

when I slip into a canoe 

to call it sleep--no one

has questions to ask

                              I deceive myself  

anxiety is my specialty 

every rock a pinnacle

every ripple a cataract  

                              I deserve myself 

            I like to say I'm flowing

            but I'm falling... falling 

            so... slowly you can't tell

_________________________

The radio was the perfect soundtrack today, playing "Friday I'm in Love" (what a perfect villanelle!) just as I got into the car to come home after a long day of meetings. (EC and I have the rest of the FYS project mapped out; tied up some delightful student consults on projects; a student emergency where DD magically showed up to help renewed my gratitude that her office is just two doors away from mine.) Then the radio played "Nothing Compares" and the Prince-Sinead-Scout sorrow was overwhelming. "All the flowers that you planted /In the backyard/All died when you went away" will never fail to squeeze a sob out out of me. I blame this song--poor Big A said something innocuous in the course of a conversation around 2 am, and I had a full-on sobbing interlude. Okay.

Onward... I want to thank Mel at Stirrup Queens for the shoutout in her 985th blog roundup! The last three times I made it to the roundup, it brought good luck in the form of emails notifying me that poems had been accepted for publication in other places. This time--alas--I did not have any submissions out. Perhaps I should work on getting some out over the upcoming long weekend.

Pic: It feels like our first perfect fall day, and I got out--between meetings--for a walk-and-talk on the bike path with AK.

sleep.less.

my voice scatters on the floor

my eyes want even more 

I'm still here... I think

the hours are many and small 

I crawl... to whichever hour 

will take all of me 

____________

Pic: Almost time to say goodbye to this flower bed. 

It is told

I cast stones, follow them down
with my eye
everyone loves a happy ending 

                                                        a memory of my father, hand raised

                                                        to give me 

                                                        a high five or a hug or a wave hello 

the child irrevocably lost somewhere 

although only 

in books and movies and video games 

                                                       doesn't everyone love a good story?
                                                       even when 
                                                       it runs off inexplicably like water?

frequently, I too have taken to a bed 

planting crops

in the soft dust of worlds being born

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

Day: I didn't leave home today. I attended UU online, graded online for hours, read for hours, gardened and walked in the yard for hours, Nu met friends for dinner and was gone for hours, and then R stopped by to give me a massage--for one hour. I think that was the high point of my day. Spent some time being miffed with Big A, and that was the low point. (Raced through Jessamine Chan's School for Good Mothers and now am deep into Zadie Smith's The Fraud.)

Pic: Max and Huck at sunset yesterday. Golden hour; golden babies.

company song*

the glasses fall
they bleed their wine 
our stories agree
on paths of memory

we're at last call 

see banter and comfort 

touch everyone

and as we're nearly done 

I thank you, all

you aimed for music 

told the song

of where we may belong 

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

*Note: A ditty Nu helped me make as we put away last night's party. 

Pic: A handsome frog sunning himself at our pond. No kisses or crown needed.

an unfolding

I have been dreaming of people
invisible mountains I exhaled 

into existing

twisting, quickening and though 

short-lived as grass, are seeds 

spiraling in space

are tendrils--of time and desire

opening and expanding

nodding, knowing

a  presence  here to make up for

an absence there, everywhere

the whims of distance 

I... wonder at the un-being before, 

after--the gasp of busy-ness now

marks how life slips by 

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

Note: I did not expect when I started writing that in writing about the space we occupy, I would slip into--and invoke--ideas of galaxies. I think some of this came from dreaming last night--vividly--of people who were important for a season but I may never see again. And I miss Scout so much... my irrational search for him certainly spans every interpretation of "heavens."

Pic: I found this perfect and early autumnal tree in the grocery store parking lot!

"Eventually everything happens"*

 on TV ads                                                       on TV shows

death is always a side effect                            death is always a side effect 

of every medication                                        in every condition of life

                                                

I might as well spin worlds like cocoons

shortcuts are the milestones

the void is the vision 

and I may have grown out of summer

I may have finally grown up

in a leap of breath

I say my name like it's a memory

eventually everything happens

eventually it is time

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

* I took the title from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "eventually everything happens..." But I can't find the full quote right now. I'm not at my best and might be doing quite badly... I wonder if people can tell. Like I left the trunk of my car open in the parking lot until a colleague friend texted me, didn't hear back (I was in class), and just decided to shut it for me. I keep leaving my phone/bag/laptop in classrooms and people kindly bring them to me. I win, as I was telling SD, at "the spaciness" right now. 

inexhaustible

dizzy with composition
but otherwise ordinary

                                         the body buds 
                                        just like a fist

history may recede or 

burst--busy with horror
                                       how could I trust

                                       its cold epilogue

to welcome me like kin
or to drag my silences in