Oh

Realize

Not making connections

Not perceiving

Until all has past

And the heart leaps at understanding

Maybe too late

Maybe just in time

the end

 

Endings and Beginnings

Every day something ends and something begins

Recommitments to duty, health, work

Respect the end, earn the beginning

Each ending a permission to begin

Projects begin in the middle of other projects on-going

School ends classes begin

Things end with nothing to replace

Java

 

Coffee

Glorious sacred morning ritual

Energizer

Black gold with one lump

Swirling clouds

Rat poison

Go juice

Java

Joe

The elixir of life

Fuel for the day

First thing routine

Afternoon break

Married to donuts, cookies, and all things sweet

The best part of my day

FOG

 

My brain

Like my office

Scattered, unkempt

Chaotic

Pieces of glorious projects jumbled about

With a path in the middle

Your Love

 

The pink sky announcing the rising sun

Such is your love

The blazing light that warms the earth

Such is your love

The growing tree, strong and green

Such is your love

The clear, clean moon shining through the fog

Such is your love

Forever

In the Company of Gentlemen

The wind calls you, but you won’t listen.

Dogwood petals brush across the street like wisps of snow, but you won’t remember.

Block it out. Stash the notes where no one will find them, not even you. Forget it ever happened. Close up your heart again.

The wind is calling. Its strength pulls memories from your mind and blows them away.

I won’t forget. But reminding you is fruitless.

I am a child to you, a fickle female to laugh at when you are in the company of gentlemen.

Because of your heartlessness I will remind you until the day I die. I will admit my feelings to no one but myself.

This is my revenge.

This is my curse.

This is my obsession.

You

You’re the secret stash of chocolate in the back of my file drawer

You’re the novel under my pillow

You’re the secret room in my mind I go to when I need space and quiet

You’re the muse that lives under my desk

You are love

lost

Today I got my license back

The sender said, “I’m kind.”

Enclosed inside the envelop

Was guilt supreme, sublime

“You’re very lucky, too, my Dear

That I was not a crook

I could have snagged identity

And left you in the brook”

But in my pocket are my keys

And license and a book

I wonder who’s this person on

The license that they took?

daffodil

 

Daffodil beauty

Heads bobbing yellow orange white

Spring’s announcement

The Classics

I eat my peas with honey

I’ve done so all my life

It makes the peas taste funny

But it keeps them on the knife

-

One night I saw a upon the stair

A little man that wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

Oh, how I wish he’d go away

can you add any?

alone

 

Alone

The leaves clap in the wind, creating faces moving, dancing, laughing

In the woods

Everything

 Scientists don’t know everything

Cardinals don’t always pair off, but stay in families year after year

Woodpeckers don’t just eat bugs off trees, but lots to hang on the side of feeders, choosing the best the sparrows have to offer

Dogs are faithful, even when abandoned, even until death

Cats create self-sufficient communities, packs roaming individually in spring and fall, sharing knowledge of food sources, killing moles and leaving them, eating mice and robins, showing other cats the way, warning strangers and waiting for them to prove themselves worthy

Landscapes change yearly, strong trees die unexpectedly without reason, water creates its own paths even though paths have been made for it through much study, rocks move, trees are stronger than rock, rock is stronger than dirt, water trumps all

Nothing replaces daily observation

Diary

 

Keeping a diary

Once thought as a weakness

A haven for foolish, girly romance

Now honored as a discipline journal

A castle for motherly, ancient wisdom, insight,

A legacy

inside

Easter

Photo fail

Egg hunt wonder

Look how many

Bags of plenty

Good eats, specialties

Good talk, poke, and tease

Games and laughs and rewrapping our lives

Pictures only in my mind

Too in the moment to step out and capture

Family memories

Stored inside

blue

 

Blue

Piece of sky

Flying by

bluebird

Dance

 

If your son was a bull rider

Would you go watch him ride

If your daughter was a prostitute

Would you give her a place to hide

If your husband was unfaithful

Would you give him another chance

If your mom sold you for money

Would you take her to dance

What if I said I loved you

Dark

 

I turn out the light

And look out at the night

It’s Hard

 

When we tell ourselves we can’t

Our world gets smaller

As we do this over and over

The walls grow taller

And the doors bolt

We can still leave

We can still move the walls back

It will take work, but there will be joy

We don’t have a choice, t will only get harder

Down

 

A Good Man Down

Believed a lie

Went too far

Now he’ll die

Might be me

But God

The Painted Pig

Painted pig for Everly

Eats spare bills and loose change

Looks like a super hero’s side kick

Might fall and break, but I will fix it

Might gather dust and be forgotten, but I will still remember it

Then when it is found again, I hope it brings good memories

An answer to “I wonder where this came from?”

The curse of knowing things

Like Mozart’s variations on “Ah vous dirai-je Maman” is used in Castle S2E2

Like woodpeckers love cracked corn from a bird feeder

Or the grass in the beautifully manicured lawns of the rich is very weak

People don’t want to hear useless shards of knowing

Like the difference between the howl of a coyote and the cry of a wolf

Or the most beautiful sunsets are viewed in Arizona

Or the seed I bought probably won’t sprout because of what was done to it

Like the jackalopes at Texas Roadhouse use bunnies instead of jack rabbits which are actually hares

Or art imitates life, but rarely the other way around, and then to the detriment of those who practice it

Or there’s at least five ways to do a thing and you have more choices than you know

No one wants to know what I know, especially in the middle of a news cast spitting erroneous information, or at a concert whispered mistakes, or a long trip reading signs

Now you know I know things, but they don’t know I know.

You know?

April

 

Flowers

Giving

Taking

Remembering

 Savoring9

Pressing

Drying

Saving

Art-ing

Eating

Leaving

Planting

Harvesting

Secret language of life universal

Caught

 

Caught between youth and age

I watch my children trimmed and bearing fruit

I watch my mother fight dormancy, bearing the sweet fruit of experience, passing it along

To me

To my children

To my grandchildren

An eternal flow of good things

Buck

 

A glimpse of movement in the silent trees. 

A buck materializes in front of me.

I freeze. 

He considers me. 

I’m reluctant to move. 

He is so beautiful, power filled grace, muscles tense.

He stomps, intimidating, warning. 

Adrenalin hits my chest.

I stand my ground, mesmerized, hyper-focused.

Bird song muffled. Trees blurred.

Statuesque, majestic, owning the velvet path beneath him. I am in his woods. He allows me to exist, my walking staff a weak defense.

He huffs, sudden, loud. 

Fear reverberates in my chest. 

He turns and evaporates, leaving only his tracks.

Vibrations suspends me in a sacred moment.

Gramma's

 

“We’re almost there.” 

Something new always happens at Gramma’s.

Pulling in past cement driveway sentinels. 

“Oh! You’re here!” says the sweet voice.

Scrambling out of the car into Gramma hugs.

Exploring the Christmas tree growing beside the strong stone house built by Grandpa, the back yard searching for animals at the cold bonfire, birds singing. 

Then up the stairs to the fresh bread aroma of the kitchen.

Finally free, following the lush carpet garden path searching for butterflies, dragonflies, baby birds, grass snakes, the fragrant wild flower field.

There, in shoulder-high weeds, daisies, grassy tufts, she finds a new beetle.

Sacred

 

Coming back from my evening walk in the woods I paused to seek the animal who scurried into the brush.

Above, the oak branches shredded the slanted auburn sunlight, its trunk ancient strength.

Chirps, songs, and calls joined the crisp breeze as burgundy leaves clapped.

Filling my lungs with pumpkin spiced air I closed my eyes inhaling the sharp musty breeze, old leaves mingled with the last green autumn grass.

The sacred space tingled. My heart slowed to listen.

This place chose me, and I come to escape, pray, meditate.

If you can’t find me, this is where I’ll be.

Flight

 

Trip to Minnesota. 

Terrifying turbulence. 

First flight. Mostly silence.

I don’t recognize the relatives who pick me up. 

I’ve only seen photos of this college where they drop me off. I don’t know anyone.

I find my room. Maybe I can find myself. 

I talk to nice people quick and clean. 

Heart empty. Compass gone.

I follow the crowd remembering my mom saying, “Go have an adventure,” shopping, restaurants, movies, swimming pool, desert rain perfume, Inca dove calls, mountains, sunsets, saguaros, scorpions, palm trees, rattle snakes, roadrunners, hot breezes, cold air conditioning.

Turbulence ebbs as my arid soul steels.

Bike

 

Excited, I rode the new two-wheel bike. 

I kept falling off. 

I begged a turn on the old red tricycle my brother rode. 

He said, “no.” 

He rode by himself.

A few years later, I rode my new big red Schwinn. 

My brother rode his new blue one. 

I hated my girl bike with the swoop for the skirt I’d never wear. 

I wanted the strong pole in the middle like his.

One day we had a race. 

He swerved into me when I tried to pass. 

Tires locked and we went down.

Now I ride by myself.

two

 

Two witnesses lied

And got fried

You

 

You were born on this day

And I played the fool for you

Then, when I realized what I had done

I left

And now you’re the fool, creating imaginary bonds where there are none, dreaming of going back in time and wasting the present at the expense of the future

Every April 1 I remember and forget

Celebrating Poetry Month - April 1

 

April 1

“There is no April fools at the newspaper,” he said. This normally laid-back publisher was stern.

This new boundary in an office of shifting boundaries was welcome.

I hate practical jokes.

They hurt.

They steal trust.

They lead to emptiness, anger, leaving…

 

I guess that rule no longer exists.