Watching the sunset
with some dog
I want no words
for the clown at the carnival.
you, eyes swollen
like a cauldron.
I love it screaming.
Reveal
I open my watercolor tin,
wet the paper, push blues, pinks,
purples through an open circle.
I move the stencil’s circle shape,
over here, over there, no thinking,
laying down brushloads of colors
over and over - quickly.
Over and over I push color
through the circle’s opening.
Deep red, watered blue, push through.
No thinking, keep it moving. Free.
The structure of the stencil releases
me. No thinking – doing.
Color over color see what comes.
A reverse archeologist
laying things down to find what's there.
Girls
Green paint in our hair, your favorite color.
Some of the slats, still wet stick together, some open to the green lawn, summer sky.
Our friendship in its greening, its roots two seasons deep.
Who will we love, we ask, green shutters stripe our faces with sunlight.
Who will be your green, who will be my quiet umber?
Ring of Rings
Glass cases set in symmetry
along the center aisle, a promenade
points of light, sparking from velvet–
nested gems and metals.
Underfoot are small black tiles
octagons within the squares of white,
decades-softened, often tread.
The aisle ends and to the right
a whirr within, a waft of solder.
At the bench of oak and iron,
needle nose and emery mandels.
Brushes tangle, burr sets fight
with hammers, bezels and crystal faces,
the jeweler’s workings of magnified worlds.
There he sat between semesters,
before the war, before the jungle
my father’s hands his watchful eye
balanced time, sized the bands
marked the movements, ticks and tocks.
At the counter timid faces, wondrous eyes
beheld the bands of platinum promise,
signet swirls and chains of gold.
His settings held their celebrations,
gems of weight and implication.
A ring of rings, a circle of circles
Tinkling vestige of artisan time
my passage of ring sizes, three, seven, eight
I finger them now, I number my life
I count as a rosary, his ring of rings.
My Personal Moon
In darkness on the deck above the pond
half moon rising East beyond the woods. Black
barrel of the telescope between us. Cold
metal shining mirrors in the night.
Half moon rising East beyond the woods. Black
silhouettes of cedar, hemlock, spruce. Cold
metal shining mirrors in the night.
Our breath puffs signals, silent silver– blue
Silhouettes of hemlock, birch and spruce. Cold
climbing moon, our prey, the evening’s quarry.
Our breath puffs signals, silent silver– blue.
By turns we tilt and calibrate the crystal.
Climbing moon, our prey, the evening’s quarry
Belief suspended, time and distance fuse
By turns we tilt and calibrate the crystal
A moon we’ve never seen and never knew
Belief suspended, time and distance fuse
The seas in dark relief, seductive craters
A moon we’ve never seen and never knew
The sun prevails as moonlight’s white illusion
The seas in dark relief, seductive craters
Magnificence beyond imagined scope
The sun prevails as moonlight’s white illusion
A halo forms a hidden cloud of vapor
Magnificence beyond imagined scope
Against the blue black slowly moving sky
A halo forms a hidden cloud of vapor
Eyes closed we gather dark and light within
Against the blue black slowly moving sky
Distances are years and light is time
Eyes closed we gather night and day within
In darkness on the deck above the pond
The Shore
From the screened porch she watches the setting sun,
hears the black-shoed footfall of her grandmother
in the kitchen. Outside voices returning from a beach
day – a perfect beach day. She lies on the sofa,
exhales to resist the insistent throb of the wound,
longs to sleep under a strawberry moon.
The wall opposite is striped with light of the moon.
Shutter slats angled to deny a bleaching sun,
direct the day’s heat and light upon the wound.
She repositions her head in the lap of her grandmother,
sun-burned back bristling against the nap of the sofa.
Tomorrow’s rain will raise boats and sink hopes for the beach.
Immobile, she plumps her belly as a whale on the beach,
exhales (resist!) and inspects her thumb’s half-moon,
glances at her bandaged foot propped on the arm of the sofa.
Faded photos on the wall, unknown uncles, sisters, mother, son.
early faces, tattered times and places of her grandmother
clans of others, lost inside her never-healing wound.
A trove of broken beer glass carved the girl’s wound
Revlon-red toenails circling pools of blood-red beach.
Lifted, life–guarded home like a tottering grandmother
who, once, young, balanced life and death beneath the moon,
who covered hollowed blinking eyes too soon exposed to sun,
who now brings soup and watches soap operas from her sofa,
who hums unknown tunes to make a bed of the sofa
for this child of her child, this balm for her wound,
a sometimes solace from the memory of the sun-
drenched day, waiting in the bay, turned away from the beach
floating in the night, wrenched from the light of a hunter’s moon
to be chosen by the child of her child to be grandmother.
How many languages, how many tongues of the grandmothers.
What ships have they sailed to reach their scratchy sofa?
Hum me your histories by the light of a silvery moon.
Our bonds remain beyond my scar and your scarless wound.
Our bonds remain with those who look beyond or toward a beach
who may one day be inside, safely striped in light from moon and sun.
The rose moon rises full, repairs its slivered wound.
Her grandmother lays a nodding head to rest on the sofa.
She finds her beach sandals, limps quietly, awaits the rising sun.
A sestina Inspired by Kim Noriega and Sestina by Elizabeth Bishop
A Man Walks Into A Sandbar
Reefer–smoking boy scouts
slide into matinees. Mad reels
of pointy breasted sweater girls
with tightly curled hair.
The children sing a satire song.
Rebel. Against? What have you got?
Into the streets. A loose, mad, roiling scene.
Who cares enough now to step off the curb
and knock off a man’s hat?
Hurricanes in Florida.
Try to defy, insert flap A, bolt the bed.
Assemble a generic life and move,
move and keep moving as a tongue.
Patter kills the soul. Death by small talk.
No matter. Genuflect and make book.
The last glacier.
Fish full of mercury, mercy me.
Mushrooms scream, power wears lapel flags,
the swag of sandbagged solutions.
Sharks on the shoreline seek seals.
The smoke is from the west.
Marvin sits down, orders a silver bullet.
I wanna holler, throw up both my hands.
Sing for sisters a song in minor.
Dance for brothers behind barbed wire.
Trees sing lullabies in every language.
Open Carry
The classroom door is open.
Sweaters, yellow, red and blue
Form a color wheel of children,
spellbound
on the bright blue storytime rug.
Strobe lights flash. Open–
toed stilletos and leopard brogues
move in rhythm.
The dance line surges forward.
A young man calls to his husband,
"Save the last dance for me."
Two aisle seats are open.
Rows of glowing profiles
reflect exploding colors off the screen.
Fingers filled with popcorn,
others holding only someone’s
hand in the darkness.
The ancient ark is open.
In dove gray suits they chant the Saturday Sh’ma .
Ancient Ancient Ancient Ancient
Holy Holy Holy Holy
In the temple voices rise,
and then they fall.
Men in dark ties open
meetings called to order
at polished boardroom tables.
They set their sights
on politicians.
Deemed essential, gun shops open.
Record-breaking sales report across the land.
In the boardroom,
celebratory rounds
of whiskey shots.
From the Series Open Carry
From the Series Open Carry
March 1943
This poem is part of my series Letters from Home, written in the voice of my mother. She read Shakespeare voraciously, was an anglophile, and so I chose the sonnet form for her.
I would no sooner think of you and war
Than would I dip my hand in scalding water.
My hand alone will hold our son or daughter
Joined with yours, three months, no more,
To mother’s wry surprise, though held at bay
For you, beloved and by her adored.
So soon my tethered heart become unmoored
By my own hand, the dock line tossed your way.
Alive, my foolish heart became sincere,
Nights on the porch, no swinging with the band.
To you I turned the cards and showed my hand.
My love, I cannot write my smothered fear.
In truth my hours are the war and you.
Be safe, my love, where you are I am too.
From the series Letters from Home
MEDITATION
The sea bottom is still.
Legs folded beneath me,
I sit on my heels,
settle into the ocean floor
like the fuselage of a missing plane
or treasure chest of Spanish coins
off Cape Verde.
I seem to sway, but it is only strands
of my hair waving towards shards
of light above, where noise
and thoughts tumble
into waves rolling
to some faraway shore.
Eyes closed, I breathe easily.
I am still.
From My Porch on a Summer Night
New Mexico wraps me
each shoulder slides into its embrace.
My legs are India's river
heavy with souls, lighted with fire.
My neck is the circle's center
the ocean's rising, the sound of Tanzania's birds.
Hawks sprawl within arms reach
their wings weave a homespun blanket
Over my body.
POETRY
This poem was inspired by the first time I had friends come to my porch during the first summer of the pandemic. It was such a healing experience.
MEDICINE WOMAN.
Nobody sees a flower, really; it is so small. We haven't time, and
to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time. – Georgia O'Keeffe.
She walks head bowed, loose morning hair, dark,
against her moss green dress.
Her silhouette disappears and reappears
amid the caramel grasses, topaz Autumn tassels.
Sun begins to warm her back.
Along a deer path toward the river, pale
green stalks of Joe Pye weed bloom.
Deep purple stems cradle small mauve clusters,
vanilla rising to welcome butterflies.
Left at turtle stone.
Past the stack of blackened railroad ties, barefoot,
heel-toe one heel-toe two heel-toe three . . . .
Her foot finds rosette leaves hugging the ground.
Bending she receives the broad-leafed offering of Plantago Major,
its velvet underside an old friend.
Lips unmoving, will you help me, she listens.
Fingers find the raised veins deftly.
Grateful, holding the flower stalk harmless,
she gathers leaves at every seventh plant,
To heal, to soothe, to cool, to calm.
* * * * *
Heel to toe, I walk my screened porch, stained
wood planks, to calibrate safety, measure distance.
I slide wicker chairs from intimate circle to six, eight, thirteen
feet apart, place pillows, fingering the embroidered backs.
I sweep the floor.
Of course we'd spoken, four months of words.
Once taken for granted, now taken to heart:
Will you visit?
My silence is gratitude, their laughter, healing.
Evening light softens my friends' full faces, golden.