Bhiksha

"If you wanted, you could be there," 

I keep staring 

at the self I see
in these words

Knowing day will be done soon, gone

but not the work 

it came bearing 
in cupped hands: 

not an offering but an outstretched bowl

seeking alms

restoring me

ta-da / to-do

[Pic: Baby deer I spied out back this morning.]

feeling--recursive

I take the photos in this family
--every time I send one 
to you, sister

you demand to know where I am.
I'm behind the camera,
I travel back

with the sticky facts of tenderness.
What could ever replace  
you reminding me 

to burn like fire, like diamonds
the beloved coal of my body 
hybrid, haptic, whole

[Pic: An indoors kind of day; the kids have to delink settler colonialism and Catan for me every time.]

weather or not

Rain again today; lots of it! But we snuck some other stuff in there as well. 

Met up with DD and TD who are visiting Lansing after 15 months for a walk outside and a catch up. 

Pride Parade was rained out, but the kids and I went to Salus Center's open house and my gay babies got some merch to supplement the stuff they got at our in-home pre-Pride party yesterday. 

I made "leftover rice" for dinner (rice from Indian takeout; bean and corn salsa + tomato, cilantro, and onion salsa from our pre-Pride-party's "rainbow nachos;" veggie sausage, seasoned potatoes, frozen veggies, a pinch of garam masala, and a couple of teaspoons of ghee... voila).

Then the weather alert system started going off on the radio and our phones, and tornado sirens started up too, so we all trooped into the basement (Scout and Huck anxious, Big A needing to sleep before work) for an hour and half of weather-mandated family time 😅😂.

[Pic: We found this highly apropos duo of national flags outside Salus! My parents were so delighted by this photo 😇.]

 

"The Chicken Daddy"

"The Chicken Daddy" is Big A's name for Nu who spends inordinate amounts of time just doting on the six chicks they got with L. I love seeing how proud and patient they are with the cheepers. 

But they don't want to name any chicks yet because they "don't want to get too attached." That's too much reality for me.

The all-day and all-week rain has been unreal and disappointing. I'm nothing if not stubborn, however, so I've been sitting in the swing reading, drinking lemonades, and eating cherries anyway. 

Where's Mama?: A Story in Three Parts

 

if it wasn't already clear...

 

Jackie Sumell's "A Solitary Greenhouse" asks us to imagine a world without prisons. The link has better photos and text.

From a walk through Beal Gardens.

"and it was all yellow"

Nu and L welcomed their chicks who arrived by mail (in a bright yellow shipping box that matched Nu's rainboots perfectly). 

old school laughter

to sit down with strangers talking talking
talking, the sun stunning in its brilliance 

like our laughter, sounding like we never 

heard of hurt, happy as an escaped key

I start, you finish, then we restart again  

the sisters say: "quiet now, settle down"

they turn their backs, snort their grace

and then we're off on one more round... 

odd how though it's made only of sound

laughter never loses its meaning--or place

[Pic: Waterlilies at MSU Radiology Gardens]

Fathers' Day*

The kids and I called my dad last night (already Fathers' Day in India) while my sister was making him a "full English breakfast." Everyone was super excited and happy and talking over each other and couldn't hear very well. My dad legit couldn't hear us, I suspect 😞.

At and Nu took Big A brunch in bed and got him a couple of cans of the beer he likes and a very VSCO beer cozy. They said all they knew walking into the store was that the kind Big A likes had fish on the logo... they nailed it.

Pic: My one fancy nursery planter splurge didn't make it too long before it was colonized by a family of house sparrows in the most beautiful, mossy nest I've ever seen. But now the baby birds have flown and I am going to see if I can rejuvenate the planter.

* I'm going to punctuate it this way and not this.

I said

a letter seems only an island of sound 

till it has found bridges and isthmuses 

of words and meaning

we're at this crossing to talk some more--

soaring through side streets and alleys 

where we are all children

come back, connect, read me generously

correct, on this towpath of peace, release

my complaint--always me

[Pic: cobwebs-bridge-Red Cedar River]

shadow friends

When cousin P and I had a marathon chat last week, she lamented how all the people who were so amazing to us when we came to the U.S. as grad students: the kind, generous, progressive folks--who fed us, acclimated us, radicalized us--seem to have disappeared. 

Not true, I said--thinking of L--I walk with one of them almost everyday. 

[Pic: L and I being silly with our shadows in the Red Cedar on Farm Lane yesterday.]