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the Muse is smiling her soft hands drift from my ears like petals falling The poems that follow were done for National Poetry Writing Month... a poem-a-day for the month of April.
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Juniper
I saw a small girl picking juniper berries among needled leaves and said there will be many more stings like that of the wasp you tried to pet there will be more wonder than that of the tiny rabbit you caught in brown grass there will be many goodbyes like the leaving of wild mice you grew and released. in all your days to come some may be lost but none will be wasted. these things I might have said aloud but she was too far to hear. turning from the child I saw an old woman picking chokecherries from a cankered tree her whispered words blew softly past too far to hear still I was strangely comforted. Pumpa
Pumpa had a pile of dirt beside the porch and yucca poking up rudely in his garden he slashed trails through wild cherries and dug little wells and big holes to cover with bedsprings Pumpa kept the big oak that fell in the hurricane of thirty eight set a plank across its sawed limbs to make a store selling rocks and good dirt he set a gas stove in the yard and told me he would build a house around it so he put a chair out there, too Pumpa made a swing behind the porch over lily of the valley spiders wove in it he told me the big black rock went all the way to China and if I knocked on it they would knock back he made a golf course of tunafish cans and plastic tulips Pumpa roasted potatoes in a plaid coffee can outside the shed and showed me mice dried in their traps roasted marshmallows in the coal stove baked brown sugar pies in tiny pans he made a whole room outside behind the shed with real furniture and enamel basins and gave tours of it Pumpa had ladyslippers and let us pick as many as we wanted he told long stories set in the landscape of the grimy painting over his iron cot until I fell asleep When I am very old I will be like Pumpa. Miss Marcy, Music Teacher
Miss Marcy wore aqua apricot and pepto-bismol pink suits and clicky shoes and always tucked a handkerchief under her watchband. Miss Marcy had black cat eyed glasses and lacquered red nails and mouth and layers of cosmetic skin and oddly yellow hair. I never saw her face. Miss Marcy made us read tiny dots on thin lines instead of singing a chorus of voices wasted all of us wondering at the pointless recitation of forgettable songs. Miss Marcy pointed right at me one day as our fingers smudged along the staff took my book with two disgusted fingers to display the tiny dog ear I had unknowingly rolled into the corner. Miss Marcy is long dead. Bog
The homestead fields protected now by a conservancy of garden clubs. The empty rail bed where a rusty spike among oak leaves was coveted treasure now cleared and well-marked with bits of paint historic markers ordered cobblestones keeping joggers neatly on the trail. The cattle pass built in stone below the tracks a long climb down and up for a strong child now a lovely bridge and nursery flowers history strangely silent as to why there might be such a structure at all across a flat pasture. Always oak had grown here they at least had not grown as old as I remembered them. I could not find the meadow bog though it lay clearly in my memory unchanged, hot and fragrant in summer heat and broken grasses oily sage of sweetfern baking in July past a spill of boulders once known as The Caves although there was no marker for them. Picking my way through pines and finding a depression on the deeply needled ground it occurred to me that I am old as these trees that never were in this meadow and the bog lay under my feet and over my reaching hands. The homestead fields protected now by a conservancy of garden clubs. Night in the Projects
Smoke tree inky silhouette splashed yellow against the garage in halide light freezing rain sparkles down under the glow porch swing creaks in disharmony with the wind chime cats converge on the azalea the fire hydrant proclaims sovereignty Virginia
Virginia sits by the open window silently blanketed. A robin sings frantically in hot twilight. the blonde across the street piles broken tables onto the hood and slams the car door backs hard planks clattering to the pavement a ponytailed girl in glitter sandals freezes Virginia sits by the open window silently blanketed. She remembers dancing in a green painted room. the blonde across the street explodes in cigarette smoke spins in fisted anger daring a laugh a window shade drops inviting ferocity she tosses the broken bits back onto the hood Virginia sits by the open window silently blanketed. She remembers a patent leather handbag. The blonde across the street says you gotta problem I gotta throw this all away cause you told I was gonna burn all this can't even make a goddamn campfire you gotta problem Virginia sits by the open window silently blanketed. She remembers her mother and spiced perfume. the blonde across the street climbs unsteadily into the car backs slow across the turnabout and stops at the dumpster spears splintered legs and shards of formica at the stain rusted metal Virginia sits by the open window silently blanketed. A robin sings frantically in hot twilight. SkyWatch April 2012
Jupiter dances feebly on twilight's apron to the West feet hot from the Sun The Moon scoops Venus at nightfall from the Southwest and holds her aloft Mars retrogrades in nautical twilight at the zenith running from the Lion's belly Saturn makes eyes with Spica at dawn in the West peering back at the Sun Mercury stretches furtively at Sunrise in the East trying not to be seen Spring
spring how tedious every year you promise and deliver promise and deliver drop a few calling cards before your curtain even parts tentative whistle of young cardinals piercing shiva of titmice in february then you break a few beaver dams float sticks down the slow river scatter bluets in patchy grass on the road turnout like a fall of hail and lasting just that long you breeze in like the first child to the christmas tree open all the packages and scatter the wrappings about tiny petals and gummy red maple flowers and mourning cloaks and just when you become so full of yourself leaves grown fat with your rain too many chickadees and deliquescent mushrooms overburdened by your own sticky abundance in hot disgust you pack your trilling into summer leaving her to set a heavy blanket over the mess and start all over replacing the bits you used up in a few short weeks setting it all right again and making sure that next year you again will get all the credit and each year despite your excess you make me grin when I think no one is looking Solid Ground
it's best to be outside on solid ground when it hits like a small earthquake that nevertheless might drop something on you if you're too close to canned goods in the pantry, say there's never any warning or palpable atmospheric pressure buildup or the stilling of birdsong or slight ache in the joints or even an intake of breath before it blows and you can't be in a state of disaster readiness or get too smug about your stock of bottled water and batteries and paraffin candles in jelly jars but sometimes there's a hint like an ominous shadow cutting across sun glaring in your face that brings sudden clarity to an unbalanced moment in time that stomach-pitting jerk when you see the falling rock is going to land right on the dog or the last bolt has just slipped the water main gate and even though you're on high ground and the wind is blowing sideways and you know your ears won't really be in the trajectory of the flying Banshee the instinct is flee or play dead or curl up tight but never bite or screech or even acknowledge because that would be met with puzzlement because there is no scientific theory or philosophic extrapolation or spiritual reassurance that might help explain the unforeseen and irrational implosion. Because it never did. Happen. No, it's best to be outside on solid ground. |
