April is National Poetry Month, and here at NHPR, we want to give you a chance to share your creativity with us. We’ll put some of your writing on the air and feature some on our website.

The past two years have posed unprecedented challenges and changes, and poetry can be an outlet for reflection. NHPR has selected four themes for four weeks in April and anyone in the Granite State is invited to submit their own poetry, or a poem by an author they admire, that touches on that week’s theme.

Each week, State Poet Laureate Alexandria Peary will join All Things Considered host Peter Biello to reflect on your work.

Submitting a poem is easy to do. Just email your poem, or a piece by a poet of your choice that relates to the theme, to voices@nhpr.org.

If you are 18 years or younger, please let us know when you send your poem to us.

We may not be able to include the entirety of your poem on air or online.

Our minds are infinite mechanisms with levers,

Buttons and switches that we cannot touch from the inside.

The switches are flipped, buttons pressed,

and levers pulled by the present moment,

made up of the wind and our motion on the earth.

Happenstance and circumstance, pull a giant lever

“Because I Heard You Say”

I walked out of my

my window the new red

I heard you, I feared

I know joy, Black joy!

not mute after all, and

the riot, quiet grief, quiet so well

the welled anger never spills.

is best” kept weapon against

death. The silent, the strong

riot, the loud death and

his name, say their names.

To hear America in echo,

Continues with me Gold is made

The circle unbroken Bonded together

And they soon will see Love creates

He then finds his love Forever encircled

The emptiest room Hands together

All that is left Bodies combine

He leaves you so soon Lovers forever

He grows up so fast Lives entwined

Raise him together Making another

The wind becomes me and you are nowhere to be seen.

I tell myself I cannot write this.

I’m in pain. To talk to you,

I must become you, feel you, be where you’ve been.

It’s a darkness like no other; all consuming, barren of life and light.

It’s a void that sucks my soul away, my heart away,

an empty husk of hurting hubris.

Stones are strapped to my ankles and I’m falling. I’m

Through a snowy bank of ice water, numbing my shadowy skin,

yet I feel more sunburnt than ever, and I can’t seem to grasp my fistfull of reality.

I’m blind and lonely, commanding a pirate ship

Through an endless desert earth.

I have to write something, or the waves of non-existence will surely catch up with me.

There’s a killer in my house,

Taking all of my possessions,

I can’t help but continue hiding in my dark closet as he takes the lives of my values one by one.

Sticky blood begins to leak through the doorway and wet my toes.

There’s calm exterior to my face,

A metaphorical spread of off brand cream cheese.

There’s a faceless void under my skin, crawling around,

eye bulging horrors, looking for a key, bargaining with each separate fake higher power to get out.

The door to my soul is locked too tight, and behind it lies a sea of magma.

Each word is a snowball to the face, and unlike the physics of real life, they start to pile up, until I’m so cold I feel frozen in time.

I feel like the very snow itself,

Each molecule of my body fighting this eternal conflict of an endless number of causes.

My spelling is deteriorating, and the cut on my index finger

Is making writing difficult and longer.

My mind is a mess.

How can I help you? Is that even possible?

If I told you it gets better,

And that freedom, peace, can eventually be achieved by all humans,

Would it take you off the roof outside the bathroom window?

What is life, you might ask;

What is the meaning of ALL of this? Why do we live, why do we die; What defines worth, and value, and love, and what’s left for me?

It’s these existential questions that I realize you want the answers to, and I don’t have any to supply you with.

I have questions of my own you know.

Why do you need purpose, meaning?

Who is the one with your name?

What does he value, what are his goals, his being?

You are HUMAN! Nobody takes that from you.

and painful, shameful; hating yourself out of the fear that if you didn’t,

Others would do it for you.

It was me who wanted to jump, me who didn’t care who I fell on.

Was it fate that we share that in common, because it brought me here?

I love you. Never, ever forget that. I care. I feel that despair.

I hug you, hold your hand, like our parents did for us so long ago.

As these snowflakes drift along and tap our ears,

They’ll introduce themselves and life is just a single jelly bean sweeter.

We’ll sell lemonade on the intersection of Pope Rd. and Strawberry Hill, and laugh as we get a customer every 2 hours.

(those cat charity’s are certainly worth it)

For what it's worth, I won’t rescue you now, and maybe one day you’ll see why. Maybe today.

I’m glad you never gave up.

There’s no meaning in life. Not yet,

perhaps not ever. But that’s our forte, right? Traversing this crazy meaningless life of ours, and maybe finding a value or two along the way.

I wrote this. You wrote this. We- wrote that.

Now forget it, the moment’s already gone.

“I won't let myself go to sleep”

because it's the slowest way I know

this not going to sleep and not

going to sleep this timeless

so little happens so constantly

here and after the day after one thing

small because this not sleeping is being

adrift a floating in silence

a turning between the boulders

piled with pines and bright

and behind the eyes where

shores are far in the distance

there is no counted hour

and minutes are flicked waves

as the moon feathers low over the bow

because I can't stop listening

for the sound of a mountain I can sense

hovering from the darkness the river

the rain an answer someone's

joy because I'm here I'm awake

because I don't want to miss more

love or more loneliness or the voices

that shed their deaths between

the islands of dreams because

not sleeping and still not sleeping soaks

my skull soft till its listening

is the same as bones

as waiting and not waiting because

sleep's a loon that hasn't risen yet

it is late and it's early and I'm alive

I fill with the boat of my body

hour in not going to sleep

the shape of the dark

fitting close against the hull perfectly

holding the outline of me

a light still on inside

because I want to hear it when the world

touches my door with both its wet palms

and leans with all its weight

welcome I am not asleep

is a simple, flat granite marker:

12-27-1912 to 1-18-1984.

I yank out the grass

as if it wants to grow over his footprints,

render what was of him

My father’s letters are scattered everywhere.

Not stashed in boxes. Not in random nooks

or tucked in keepsake albums,

but in the lists I make each day,

the shape of my feet,

the color of my eyes,

when I tighten my jaw,

and the way I tap my molars

like a metronome so I can keep my rhythm

when the song of life is complicated.

His tiny print and shaky hand

show up as I press harder

and don’t give up,

when I wait to speak,

and when I listen with my index finger resting on my lips.

Even with loss tapered over 35 years

when I do something well

I can hear him say,

“Atta girl!--I am so proud of you!

You can be proud of yourself.”

The words, like training wheels,

I walk in a neighborhood

his salt and his dreams,

and I read in my children

I miss the ocean the cold thing itself

that stretches careless & brimful its

Oh my ocean which breaks its teeth

roll the sand in me to sea-glass

make the gulls pick clean my shell. Mornings,

tides tear themselves dripping from the dark

the salt-washed dead of the night.

I pick up grave-robbed shell upon shell

and make stacks in my pockets. I love the ocean,

the empty-eyed bones of the waves

and they make my fingers numb with blood there where they

nick the skin of the sea.

like I wanted myself, or the bitten-off tops of waves

or something I have seen sink away

In that black kitchen in that lonely morning,

and I was very tired.

I am sorry I have carried the living

on like this down lots of nights, sidewalks

up down stairs, leaning on so many métro doors.

I haven’t the right and

I kick myself like a pebble down the weeks,

wake too gasping, break at the stem,

settle in the corners of bowls.

There were not enough words to start the day.

Sometimes, as I walk to get to the building for class

And the cold of winter sneaks below my winter coat

As I drive towards the hospital

Existing both inside and outside of my mind,

I think about how perfectly my head fits into the curve of your neck

Or how I never held hands before I met you

The layers of fingers overlapping at odd spaces

How I fit so perfectly in your silhouette

And sometimes I wake up at home

And the sun slides through my curtains and wakes me up too early

I feel some warmth that spreads from the center of my chest

And I know this has nothing to do with the

But with the knowledge that

When I return to you this evening, we will belong to each other

Child, I have been there,

out where your great grandmother

anchored forsythia to earth, where

clipped lawn gives way to coarse field,

where the grasses run wild, where

birds flit beyond calculation, and

one stalwart maple surveys the centuries.

calligraphic merge of soul and matter,

The ancients allowed this glimpse

and I dissolved into it.

I was nothing and all.

trees, grass, flowers, water, sky

the breath subtle, unmeasured, unending.

It can bring calm to your walk in the world;

it is all you will need

to go laughing into the dark.

Somewhere in this Great Belongingness is the Vitruvian Man of

da Vinci’s genius or worlds of Descartes or Euclid or Aristotle

or Vonnegut or Marie Curie’s first revelation of half-life

or the Etch-A-Sketch I had in 1967 or maybe the way

a Golden Orb Spider builds her dew-bright web

in August when the instars of Lubber Grasshoppers

emerge from the soil or the lattice of the Eifel Tower

or the fundamental arrangement of the elusive subatomic

or maybe the pattern of a CT scan or carbon nanotubes

anticipated by the first woven flax fiber or the way the internet

finds the route from me to you Across the Universe or the way

all are connected and divided by our apperceptions while still

striving for the unity we intuit is absolute and Somewhere.

The stars fade and burn with each turning

But it can feel like they determine who we are

But beneath the light we cast

we find the same fire within us all

In the luminosity of stars

This one reflected in the light of another

that makes you harness yourself like a horse to a plow,

drives you to work for hours to finish a job,

shouts in your ear, This time get it right!

The judge that shames you for making a wrong choice,

for not having enough money to buy that blue chevy,

for not being able to hold that yoga pose longer.

The doubt that keeps you tossing bedcovers till dawn,

rends you unable to tell him you don’t love him,

offers a mirror of you that isn’t you.

I tell you, kid, when you finally hold yourself

in your own arms, no matter your age,

when you swaddle yourself in a loving embrace,

rock to music in the cradle of your own bones,

when you finally recognize the miracle

What happens when "WE" turns into "I"?

It was "WE" that accomplished tasks of daily living

Then suddenly it became the obligation of "I".

Is it force of habit,

Is it hope verses reality,

When "WE" automatically falls into conversations with others?

Am I crazy to ask the other half of "WE"-

"How in hell did you do that?"

"Where could she/he put that confounded tool?"

Heading down the woods path

You stop,turn around, nonchalantly say "Come on, I'm all ready".

The answer is spelled out in silence-

Your inner voice reply's "Oh, I forgot".

Substituting "We" for "I" goes on and on

With serious bouts of separation and sadness

Glorious moments of spiritual togetherness

And glad relaxation found in excepting life's uneven coils.

Life flows on with a hint of sadness (that's only natural and expected)

"WE" binds our hearts together

Come home to the way the sunlight

softly enters the morning, where

birds light voices lift the hair of trees.

Come home to your feet walking

on rotten leaves, your mouth

Come home to the gentleness

of two-hundred-year old maple trees

changing from green to gold to red.

Come home to the killing frost

driving you inside to face your

troubles alone, the wood stove

Creaking and stretching, it's warm

“Said the Culvert to the Bridge”

Said the Culvert to the Bridge

You are no kin to me

You are but a narrow tube

And I am at least ten feet wide

But do we not ferry the same traffic

Asked the Culvert, span the same waters?

Perhaps, sniffed the Bridge, but for town funding

It’s the family name that matters.

There is a bridge in Brooklyn,

And one over the River Kwai

Somehow the “Golden Gate Culvert”

Just sounds so much … less.

It’s still a good morning,

Said the Culvert to the Bridge.

We carry the same travelers

And usher the same streams

But we bear such burdens differently

And dream very different dreams.

How can one NOT write poetry

When beholding a morning sky?

And surely heat in the house is a poem.

Isn't solving a math problem

Or finding common ground a poem?

It doesn't take a poet

Or a poet's point of view

But it only takes a little while

to walk a mile in someone's beat up worn out shoes

All belong to poems too.

and the wind and the sand,

such polyrhythms — this earthly agitation —

among the billion stars and stray planets

stretching out multitudes of light years, plowing

into the on-and-on emptiness, searchlighting.

How such a restless mess could pause

long enough to hammer out the blueprint of a cell,

then multiply it, add flagella, flippers, fins,

gills, lungs, the whole gamut of sensoria, is beyond me.

But I admire the unfailing desire to crawl out.

Above the sea, blustered about,

gannets circle and rise and arc across the sky,

fold in their wings and plummet —

bright white darts piercing the slate-green

roiling waves. Such a gorgeous,

As the child burns the village down

We embrace our own agendas

And our point fingers in the brightest directions

Maybe a child can’t find warmth

In a Colosseum of Tenements

She arrived one Tuesday in February

pushing through a fresh layer of newly fallen snow

a single fleck of purple caressed

by the warm-fingered rays of sunlight, stretching across the early morning sky.

as the wind continued swirling, spinning, circling

of the brave little blossom

waving hello to the snowflakes shimming past

I thought of stopping; I swear I did

but I was running late that day

my fingers clasped tight to car keys and shovel

So with sinking boots, I trudged on

Yes, I must confess my crime

- but what more can be said of the tiny purple crocus?

The world was not ready

for her message of spring.

“I’ll meet you at the ATM by the Food Court in 20 minutes.”

I am early. He never expects that (for good reason).

He has his back to me with his feet slightly apart –

entirely focused on the transaction.

I move in very quietly and slip my right foot between the two of his.

Startled, he whips his head around.

We both laugh / then a quick – we’re in public - kind of kiss /

and off to order food.

He’s talking earnestly with a friend of ours,

sitting on the couch with his back to me.

I walk up from behind without speaking, and place my hands on his shoulders,

Move them around in a light massage.

He’s still talking, but he reaches up with his right hand and touches mine.

We’re singing hymns in church. (Well I sing – sort of, but he never does.)

Raised a Catholic, he is still pretty formal in this environment.

Not a jeans and sweatshirt kind of guy, but perfectly fine that others are.

When the music has a nice beat, I delight in subtly hip checking him.

He raises an eyebrow and allows a hint of a smile.

That’s our daughter or our son everyone is complementing.

We look over the nearby heads and share a discreet look of pride.

Big Box Stores can be a lot of fun. First, I check the aisle (front and back.)

He’s the only one here, and he’s behind me.

So, I start to saunter in a pronounced sort of way.

I love the happy laugh that breaks up the monotony of a too long shopping trip.

We’re out in the car, a long stretch of road to enjoy.

He loves driving – especially in NH.

He casually moves his hand to rest on the shift lever.

Usually I notice and happily cover it with mine.

But if I don’t, after a minute or two, he says,

We are “mingling”. Not too big a crowd. 50 or 75 maybe.

Oh, with that angry looking man over there.

He catches my eye, when the fellow looks away, and rolls his eyes.

I’ll remember to ask him about it on the ride home.

I’m doing dishes. He’s putting up shelves. But he’s got his oldies music on.

A favorite song – “Brown Eyed Girl”.

He comes into the kitchen with his best dance moves…

And holds up his right-hand beckoning with his left.

I drop the dish cloth, dry my hands and move into his embrace.

My hands meet his at exactly the same spot they always have.

Our joy fills the kitchen for 2 or 3 songs,

but Dancing With the Stars is safe from us.

My hands still know exactly where they go

should my imagination take me by surprise.

A pit stop at Sully’s Grocery.

He runs in, I read a book in the car.

Here he comes, his head comes up,

he smiles at me – only me;

And – even after 42 years - sunlight floods my world.

I’m writing, but the word’s not quite right.

I scowl at my computer as he walks thru the room.

He stops, leans over me with his left hand on the desk

and his right hand on my shoulder.

I’m doing the dishes. He brings over a dirty cup for inclusion.

And he puts both arms around me and hugs me just above the waist.

And then he’s gone.

I miss his gait, and the sound of his keys.

It beams through stars from my house to yours,

this silent language, eternal asking

after you, how you are, how much you’ve

grown, a silent language like the tug

of an umbilical cord as it pulls

the placenta along with it out into the air

and the heartbeat, that noisy whoosh

now you can only hear when you

are held right against your mother’s chest.

Or mine, your grandmother’s.

For nine months your mother shared

my heartbeat. For nine months

you shared hers. Now your heartbeat

beats its own rhythms. Do you hear

my constant wish that you be well?

So tall you must be now, whippet smart.

Will you remember my songs, how

I sang to you when you lived

outside here in the air

we must all breath when we learn

to walk on our own.

Becca had just called to say Hi, and I, with basket in hand at the local market, paused to sign off while slowly approaching the waiting cashier.

“Fine. Doing just fine...” I replied to the nice young trainee at the register.

“They used to call my wife everyday; now they call me.”

Such simple words spoken to Carla, a regular acquaintance, longtime grocery bagger, trainer and Closer at the Shaw’s Supermarket.

Just words, but also a statement, a declaration of what has been lost:

The defining relationship of my life— precious, irreplaceable.

And Carla, a grandma herself with four sons, nods with affirmation for she knows I have daughters and then says, “At least you get the calls...”

Yes, I do. And I am grateful.

Before dawn when I hear the owl

somewhere in the dark line of trees

I wish to hold a lamp in the window

as a sign of life and welcome

where we each take our place

stirred from the ashes of night

revealing the light and the laughter

of what we call a home

all this on a good day.

We circle the patch first like bears

plundering for their sugar happiness

white minerals in our bones

red berries placed in your mouth

then the world becomes free of addiction,

of angry men standing wide

in doorways. Now my garden

is where lilac bushes, blue delphinium

wall us in with air and light unfolding.

Rough draft in my pocket

a forest of legs and feet

high step, the rocky path.

So much watching to do

before I reach a safe place.

a desire to be whole?

Next to you and next to her

My ashes will lay snugged in the center

Just as I did when I was 7

I laid In the middle to feel your protection

Just like I did when I was 13

Between the two of you to feel your concern for me

I crept at the edge of your bed at 21 and slept at your feet to feel your understanding for my mistakes

At 27, I reluctantly sat in the corner waiting for you to ask me to stay and you did until my tears dried and you told me it was time to go

I belong next to you as I was when you took your last breath. At 30, I layed by your side taking note of your body, the curve of your nose, the resemblance we share and I felt gratitude.

I belong next to her as I was when she was dying. In my 50's, I longed to lay with her but that could not be since Covid was the cause. Only a brief visit to tell her all she meant to me and in her final minutes, watching her through the monitor, I felt her peace.

I know where I belong.

I belong here in this moment, nestled in your arms as the morning light begins its journey.

I belong here in this moment, with you, contemplating the blue of the ocean as the afternoon sun languidly disappears

I belong here in this moment, walking hand in hand under the light of the moon as the soft breeze whispers in the night

My best friend has been

6 decades on the planet now,

Roaming its crust from explosive heights to dud prairie,

as her antique stove is

on the Chessboard kitchen floor.

Line the windows of a house

That was already old when she was born,

Some are beer bottles, all

By their carefully arranged proximity,

The light coming through enhanced,

As I am enhanced by her

Her garden enhanced a scrub lot

Into an oasis of mystery, her lace

She forms High art from

the disused and abandoned and

We are all her glass bottles,

And she is our hazy sunlight,

The wallflower of the sock hop,

All over my blue uniform

The keyboard on the stage full

Of those I thought were my people.

Then the weird chick in the dorm,

Later the evicted, the rejected, the fired,

By a husband of 20 years.

Now every room I walk into

Do I posses any particle of them?

Every room full of humans has

Which I usually manage to break.

So here I sit with my antianxiety bourbon,

Trying to adjudicate the importance

Of the red dreds across the table,

The moth wings at the bar,

The princess gown at the entry door.

I seem to be overdressed in my

I tried to artsy them up with

Maybe I need a hat.

Would my Petrarchan sonnet have sounded better with a hat?

A big one with feathers maybe?

I like that they can wear it.

I can tell them that, maybe

If I had a princess gown, I'd wear it,

I will try to trust it

“April among the stone walls”

Last year’s meadow recently unveiled,

having been pressed into flowing twists and locks

by a smother of the season’s snow, now

is awakened of fallow, yet

dried burdock as candlesticks upon the altar.

Rolling grass opens to tunnels underfoot–

for her smallest revelers, the field mice.

Above, the pine warbler, as a jewel.

rings a loud bell in the human heart

asking to belong here, to her.

Our arms, light as fascia

from the belly of a doe,

Some people belong to Kansas

Some writing songs under the stars

Some watching the sun rise and fall

Some wishing to go somewhere

Some regreting for ever left

At your own risk they say

You may never find a place like home

Anyway I hit the road

To the winding ways my heart belongs

“The World’s As It Is, So What’s My Problem?”

Fish swim wide rivers unaware they’re where

they can contemplate four conscious seconds

in one another trust to keep swimming.

They look me in the eye as they swim by.

“Don’t play hooky,” they seem to say to me.

“Come school with us on this meaningful day.”

Hoards of horses herd themselves in pastures

packed to the gills with rich, nutritious grass.

Harvest hillsides host herringboned hoof prints,

but I demure, preferring prejudice

against horses to responding to them.

Well-worn flyways facilitate bird flocks

who find themselves fascinating and sing,

they are the wind beneath each other’s wings

all the better not to trouble themselves

with the risks of individual flight.

“Fly with us! This weather is delightful!

Space abounds in our formation for you!

You already have what it takes to lead!”

Flowering plants fling themselves at me –

nothing is crazy like a plant in bloom

bemoaning the lack of a praise poet.

Slim mold slithers over and underground.

Tree roots almost touch to communicate

turning my backyard into one big brain

shared by a multitude of tree species –

imploring me to become one of them.

So how is it I am hesitating

to enchain myself in life as they do –

like all my wild brothers and sisters

who freely choose to accept who they are -

loving all sentient beings, sharing

every molecule of matter they need

with every other critter who needs it.

They plead with me to become one of them,

inviting me to join their ancient game

of staying faithful to keeping in touch.

Why do I find I ignore them so much

missing the chance to give and receive love?

I alone could answer if I listened

to what my heart is trying to tell me -

what I’m successfully resisting now.

Any moment I could change my approach

to how I wish to live my one, wild life.

It would take more courage than I feel now

to let go of my self-centered striving,

be more humble, give more than I receive.

All my relations say it is worthwhile

to become more aware of who we are,

and warn me I need to agree with them

if I intend to have much of a life

in the world as it actually is.

a verbal give and take.

Only for a brief period

When the sun begins to rise

A moment filled with hope

While birds begin their song,

“a tribute to those I have lost.”

Where there has been love -

Where there has been love --

Come to the lambing pen in February.

Come sit in the muck and the manure and the damp body of your mother. Sit. Feel her soak through your bones. Feel your bones soak through her. Smell the dank rich metallic smells of blood and s*** and mold and tenderness.

Soporific sheep chew and chew and chew the dried grasses of summer grinding sunlight rain and thunder into shiny new souls. Let the sun patch work its magic on your heart and the sleepy milk-sodden drunken lamb lips and stretchy brand new twins’ toes tickle your sadness away.

Heaven is no further than your presence.

He comes home from the garden with dirty sock lines

around his ankles, and fresh picked vegetables.

He comes home from the dump with other people’s

junk, and an old maple syrup bottle.

He comes home from the town forest with welted

bug bites on his face and neck, and a story to tell.

He comes home from Walker Pond with an air of

cool calmness, and a belly full or Richardson’s ice cream.

He comes home from summer wandering with fresh

scratches on his arms and legs, and a bucket of blackberries.

My husband comes home to me, with our beautiful and

imperfect love, and my heart is full.

“I Don’t Like Baseball, Just the Red Sox”

The long-suffering. Scrap and scruff. My dad and me in our Clemens shirts. Day games on KTJ, our neighbors on their front porch, popping cans as the hitters came home. Fenway, that centenarian: scores hung by hand, Citgo steeple, mouthy vendors’ grease-glossed sausages. All those full-price seats, no apology, bolted down behind pylons. Everyone singing Sweet Caroline, so good, so good, so good. Red Sox Nation, as if New England rose up: the Massholes and the mill towns and the Burlington hip indivisible. Though not my dad, who tired of the losing. Who bought a shirt from when Clemens was a Yankee. The Sox won four Series since he got it. I’m still for Boston, but I liked them better when they were bad. Every spring could be our season. Every fall, a coming spring.

as child of the machine

first at close of day

-the songs of birds, the peace,

Woman knows wonder in all

You were the simple presence

that pulled me- pulls me now;

For the promise of more yet

As I gaze through the grass

Past your wet mossy shore

I will rise at the dawn

A time at Swamp Beach.

What now - dead of winter, polar vortex,

No longer buoyed up by constant outrage

shock of tweets and lies? An unmoored,

toward the couch, binge watching legal

Red and silver Christmas ornaments, the size

in a neighbor’s trees. In front of the picket fence

holds a Biden-Harris 2020 sign. A placard stuck

in the dirty snow reads –

                   We are all in this together

Late March, still a deep snowpack,

weeks before my first vaccine shot.

I needed contact, connection - beast

or fowl - pillows no longer satisfied.

I wanted to clasp my arms around

something solid, an anchor. I’d read

about how trees communicate, form

I walked around the neighborhood

until I spotted a straight-trunked

maple behind an empty building.

Sheepish, I glanced over my shoulder,

my boots. I took off my gloves, ran

my hands over the rough bark, moved

in closer, gave way to need.

“SPRING RITUAL AT LANE VALLEY FARM”

When the sap finished its last dark run

and the frost heaves started to settle

My father has just finished his poached eggs.

Oscar was in our doorway blade shears in hand.

I knew then it was time for our sheep

to lose their winter coats.

Once a year he spreads out his denim tarp

and straddles the first ewe with her head between his knees.

He gracefully flips her on her back to shear her underbelly

then frees her to run off into the field

as my father patiently leads the last bleating Dorset to be shorn.

When it’s time for a break he stretches on his back

to rest his sturdy shoulders and neck.

The clouds all look like sheep in the sky.

Oscar scoops the fleece from his tarp and stuffs it in his burlap bags.

My favorite part of this ritual is when he breaks for lunch.

He pulls out a meatloaf sandwich wrapped in wax paper

has a sip of coffee from his thermos and checks his pocket watch.

When lunch is over he pulls out his false teeth,

giving me a toothless grin,

"No nicks and not a speck of blood."

“Snow Day on Mack Avenue”

First light reveals ten inches of snow - but at our driveway’s end there’s three feet of wet, heavy plow dump. Snow still flies fast, but I go out. It will be four feet or more if I delay. I’m not first to weather the storm on our one-block, dead-end, Mack Avenue. Chris, three houses up street, other side, inches a not-up-to-the-task snowblower into her snow dam, pulls back to avoid a stall, again and again. She pauses to give me a wave that says, ‘welcome to the club’. My shovel cuts small, heavy bites and pushes them where the city plow won’t return them to us later. Lisa, third house up on our side of the street, jogs by on her daily route, smiles, shakes her head – ‘here we go again’. On her return trip she nods to Chris, then stops at her own driveway. Jim comes out to join her and sends me an exaggerated shrug. Their son joins, a shoveling trio. Our new neighbor Jason, one house up, other side, comes out. He shouts me a ‘hello’. (Four days ago, a cold one, Jason, partner Jamie and I helped Jessica, next-door neighbor, pour diesel into an empty oil tank, bleed the fuel line, and restart her furnace, as Jamie played a how-to YouTube on her phone.) I catch myself beginning to enjoy today’s snow ballet, the neighborhood in concert renewing my energy. Jonathon, across the street, is out next and, as always, gives me the next two days’ forecasts - never good ones. Two houses down street, our side, Don’s snowblower revs up, followed by Richard’s four houses down, other side, lilting a bagpipe detuned drone duet. I’m drained by the time our drive’s end is cleared, so I leave the block party and the foot of snow in the rest of our driveway, to go inside for a coffee break. An hour later I head out again to finish, only to see that our drive is completely snow-blown clear. I know it was Mark, who has joined his son Jonathan across the street, now finishing their own driveway. When he throttles down I hail him ‘thank you’. ‘No problem!’ he shouts, ‘Happy to help. I’m just sorry I didn’t come out before you cleared that mess at the end of your driveway.’ I go back inside, feeling at home.

it felt so peaceful there

across the back of her hand

she must be lying on a transit path

beckon her to open her eyes

her stomach flips and groans

is too much to bear.

I wish for us a house

Built like the chambers of the heart

the gasp and sluice of doors

to let one another in.

I wrote this poem for my grandmother as she reached her mid 90s. She still lived on her own in a managed apartment complex and I had floated the idea by her to get a house where she could live in one part of it while we would live in the other. Ultimately she decided it wasn't a great idea because she said she would feel lonlier watching us come and go every day. Wanting to go with us and not being able to.

The poem has no form or meter. My writing isn't that accomplished. The poem itself means a lot to me because of who I wrote it for and the fact that the fear of being left behind, somehow not belonging even when family is closer, persists with age.

the sap in the tree

water wicked from the ground into cloud

your eye from the floor to the painting

to the ceiling and out the window to the sky

the sky to the edge of sky

and there to the last beacon of blue

and outward into blackness, spinning still

where north becomes south and south

to the noon of god

“Sea City Museum: first return after emigration” 

She thinks our son’s first word

I think it’s “Mum,”

the long vowel not nasal but prim.

When we left our borders

we made a new thing: my DNA

pioneering in her strange country.

But to him I can’t call her “Mommy.”

and a nation is a language

Petrol for gas, garden for yard,

pennies for cents: mine’s red-coated

So there are no words on the newsreel

where the peasant from Russia waves

the Stars and Stripes like mad

and with the other hand lifts high his baby —

they made it, she is going to be

a country, a language: he can’t speak.

“To Be My Soft Landing”

I set out early this morning in the Jeep, windows

down, air in my face, but fleeced to the chin and

buttoned, the wind across my forehead seemed

almost warm. It was a good ride, spring everywhere

flaunting itself, sun up, day young, and I young, too,

I believed. At Freeze’s Pond a pair of bald eagles nesting

there crossed over the dam to the road and led me

solo all the way to Mr. Mike’s Store, where they veered

right and disappeared to the lands where eagles disappear to.

I would have gone too if they had allowed it, high above

the trees, water dripping along on their draft, and gleaning

all parts of their knowledge. Like how to live on the wing

and not take too much. Like how to sit alone with contentment.

Or how to be young and then older, and then older still and

allowing that sequence to comfort me, to be my soft landing.

The scuttle and pop of greasy

ahead of me, air like soaking

I try not to get a blister

this time, the yard is a moon

-scape and I am piloting the rover

I must study every pockmark tuft

and hummock, the grass is

lush and thick under the maple tree

I have to mow it twice,

three times, I am anarchic

with my blades and I laugh

I cause, this tendency of mine to

stray from straight lines, to go

straight for what I have missed.

Motorcycles rev heads swivel as they

pass, a toad the size of my thumb tumbles

in front of my machine and I slow

A wooly bear gets caught in the blade

I run back and forth over it again

it will not die at first

I step on it, mass enough to feel the

crush beneath the ball of my foot

I know I will always have blood on me

Even after trying to scour smooth what

I have missed and leave

the path behind me wakeless and clean

how the ends justify the means

A flash of flax-blond hair

the girl in overalls, laughing

ferries apples from the sun-warm earth

beneath the arms of Seek-No-More,

the elder tree across the road.

the scent of fruit, ripe, blush-red

held in hands that barely reach across

the boundaries of fence and wall.

She feels the roughness of their tongues,

as apples bounce to earth

The child has grown and gone.

Barbed wire coils in rusted tangles

brambles and a crumbling wall where

now dressed in apple-blossom lace,

two earthbound daughters of that autumn

give testament to memory’s gauzy dreams

of afternoon, apple tree and girl.

The summer bells soon ring

Another sunny day and everything that it doth bring

Twirling swirling toward the ground

The trees are birthing seeds, see them flutter all around

It’s a race not won by all

The place where they land will determine how tall

Make it last, seasons pass quicker than you know

I’ve known beauty. The gleaning of magnolia,

its pussy willow buds opening to saucers

of fragrant palms of blossoms,

clapping hands with the balm

of warm May air, how a week ago

the ice froze in an arch over the creek

and water flowed beneath it,

How the daffodils wait to unfurl

its yellow tiny petals to decorate

the gray mornings. And what of

the hawk that chirruped and flew

above my dog Della's and my heads this morning,

circling, looking for a place to land.

She and I were kite and flyer,

She, drifting higher and higher,

begged for more line, or

I tried what I might,

standing alone in the field,

letting her go, or pulling her in,

to catch her—to get her head up again

never loving her so much

First you have to figure out

That your arms and legs are yours, which takes

At first they seem like

Then, you find that your hands

can cause Things to Move,

A wave of Your Arm causes

A Bell to ring or,

If the hand is fisted on a Thing,

After a while, there’s rolling

Over onto your belly, and

Head to look about you.

So you strain, reach toward them,

Belly still stuck to carpet, stretching,

To scoot a few inches.

Maybe you flail with your feet

As well as your hands,

It is your longing to be

Somewhere that you are not which

gets your Knees under you,

I haven't written a poem since high school

and I wasn't great at it then.

But I never really got past okay

and it was decades ago.

Anyway, it's just not one of the things I do.

I mean, we all have things we do.

that we're good enough at to keep doing and have as part of our lives

And I'm content with them.

I mean, they are what they are at this point.

At a certain point, you can't just

add more things that are your things that you do.

That are part of your life.

At a certain point they're just locked in.

You only get so many.

You get what you did when you were young enough to do it badly and have an excuse.

You can't just add to the list because you want to.

It doesn't work like that. People judge.

And anyway, what would be the point?

Why not start painting or playing basketball?

At this age? With this gut?

Sure, and when I'm done with those I can start playing piano and learning languages and dating.

I mean, no one gets everything--things are complicated.

You can't just pick them up 20 years after everyone else and expect...

Everyone gets what they get.

They get what they got good at when they were young enough to put themselves out there and we all get different stuff and that's okay.

And there are so many things I do have.

No reason to get greedy.

and then they think of something that would make them happy

and they try for it

and they screw it up.

And then where are they?

they're at least mostly content,

but they spend all their time pissed off about the one thing they don't have

and then they're not happy or content—they're just sad.

You play the game and you're opening yourself up to lose.

and, yeah, to win, I guess,

but, seriously, not bloody likely

If you're pretty sure it won't work, don't try it.

Yeah, I'm pretty damn sure that won't be happening

Nothing but time – when it is time –

can make the blueberries ripe, their skins

plush as lips, deeply filled with the colors

of bruise and breath and bliss.

Nothing can rush this, this slow swell

of growth, this lush and lavish splash

of fruit, this bloom and blush and burst.

You can’t feed it anything to speed its time –

nothing generosity or economy, hope or desire can do.

What softens them is all that, too, can soften you:

the length of days spun by the wheel of sun and moon

the same way one continuous thread becomes a cloth.

Like the reviving trees in spring, or astonished flowers

emerging from unfrozen ground, these blueberries

feed on light. Light is their cue and key, the same thing

that feeds me what I know and do not yet know but will.

Because I eat blueberries in midsummer, I like age,

the news it brings of things I’ve known well all along.

I like the questions it poses, and the slow

but sudden way it replies. All the while

I have been too busy to wait, I have been waiting

for this, and this, and this: each successive,

deliberate day. Through the wild plenty of time,

nature’s pace is a walk, a mild ramble

over mountainsides and fields. Who remembers berries

in November? I want to forget nothing, miss nothing,

but then – the trees fall away in windblown, broken strokes

and let in newer light, and there is still more to behold.

Now, all summer, we have been patient and excited,

almost a year since we climbed our home’s hills with our fingers

combing the green for its deep-sea blue. Here, the blueberries

will ripen in the third week of July, no sooner – not even

if cities are built in a day, or swords are beaten

into plowshares. There’s no hurry, no hurrying them.

And when they come, after the solstice, after the fireworks,

after all, I will roll each one in my hands,

name them, and count them each like blessings.

Then with my tongue I will parse and split and swallow them

so they enter the bloodstream all red and blue because now

August I would pick blueberries out front. They coined into the plastic cup as heated secrets. The crabapples bloomed in May, thousands of hands catching may be. I sat in their house under chimneys of sun. I loned all day, sometimes, with a book. It was good to be left. The color of it, blue and orange as the Citgo sign I told no one I loved. My room floor was thick and green to my knuckles. The full moon stage-whispered through my window, white as nothing, its trees agape. March, the month rides a fulcrum of cold. The sweater I bought in February smells fallow. You call me girl. If I go back and forth, you are here, but for now I’m plumb, blue and orange. In the mirror, stray hair quotes my face and I read for a moment, tracing the story around my mouth with only one finger.

“the catbird also speaks of spring”

dressed warmly against cold April wind

I’ve come to start my garden

but it’s begun without me—

I’m met by an exuberance of green

billow up under woven mulch

pop up through every rip

left all winter to hold things down

and where last year’s deaths

were dumped on the compost

a band of onions has sprung up,

robust tops ready to eat

“unbeliever, what is your north star?”

I calibrate the ticking of my pulse to the chime of the earth ringing

like a bell on winter nights. you believe in holy but I believe in haloed

moons that foretell a glaze of new snow. O, the unbearable beauty

of it all. the surprise of a hexagon is enough to bring me to my knees.

my own mother ebbs, confides that when she goes to sleep she wonders

if she will wake in the morning. I know I can’t keep her pressed between

the pages of this book like one of spring’s first violets. and I, now an eggless

woman, consider each sequential folding and unfolding of that moon,

set my breath to its sensible division of time and pray: ichi-go, ichi-e.

Snakes work hard to rub that old skin

trying to get free of it.

hugging our old skin tight.

How odd we must look

draped stubbornly over our shoulders.

If only we could shed that self

release our grip on dreams outgrown

“After My Brother’s Funeral”

It doesn’t matter that he did some things

I will remember that he

drove my family every Sunday

to visit mom’s parents.

(we didn’t have a car,

diminished. I have to forgive him too.

“Just getting dressed is work” he says.

I can only love him now.

in giving up the grudges,

“We get softer with age.”

I didn’t know she meant

At fifteen, you didn’t know why

you bought him, but you did.

Somehow how the small wooden carving,

cupped in your hand, spoke to you.

His stooped shoulders and back

rounded in shame whispered your name.

Did you recognize his story, feel his pain?

Did you think you could soothe him, save him?

Listen up—Forget the past; better yet, hide it

under a translucent scrim, so its lessons

Forget the small statue you bought

at the World’s Fair, forget the lifeless man

pulled in on himself, his nakedness calling.

You don’t need him anymore. I’m telling you,

dark is what brings out your light. Let go

the praise or shame. Honor the mystery

Say something, say anything. Stand upright

to your full height.Tell us what elements

Go ahead, light your own lamp,

lift the lantern high; on second thought,

choose something like a star.

Blow out the sanctuary votive you lit

for forgiveness. Like a nightingale, trill now

about the magic you’re ready to offer the world.

I’ve been in these woods seven days,

fed our fish twelve shrimp pellets,

filled two hummingbird feeders with red juice,

given our cat ten doses of pink medicine.

I’ve live-trapped twenty-eight field mice

with the Tin Cat trap you bought,

rescued our Brittany’s toy four times from the river,

seen one person, the gas man fixing the frig, in two days.

I’ve written thirteen poems,

five about your untimely death,

cleaned six cabinets to rid rodent remnants,

replaced one roll of toilet paper in the outhouse.

I am still waiting for one of you.

“What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up?”

Day after day, month after month I ask,

“Mirror on the wall, who’s tallest of all?”

like a certain famous philosopher,

contemplating it ‘til the cows came home

yet was five feet tall every time he checked,

I, too, no matter how often I look,

always come up short, though taller than him,

five foot six minus my shoes and socks

and any head gear I might choose to wear

to protect me from raw winter weather.

Like the annoying MAD Magazine girl

I ask the same question dozens of ways

every day until days turn into years.

How is it my Dad has been six foot one

and I’ve weighed in at five six since childhood?

Even my mother has been five foot nine

since the time she started at the laundry

more than a decade before she bore me

at about the same age that I am today.

It’s beginning to look like I won’t grow

any taller than I have already.

Time to take the Buddhist Ox by the horns

and ask myself why it’s important

that I become taller than I am now,

become curious about my obsession

instead of always giving in to it

every time it pops up, cultivate it

until it doesn’t have a hold on me

but is merely a curiosity –

maybe then I’ll see I’ve already grown

in wisdom, the only way that matters!

Held in a writer's hand

Love is every color in the world

I’m convinced the crocus has a secret

She doesn’t want to share

Why bother being the first to bloom

Blankets her still in frost and snow?

Does she ache in every bend

In every turn of her roots

As the bleakness of winter

And deep sediment cover her

In the likeness of comfort?

Does she gasp for breath

As the air and winged things

Whisper of changes to come

Only to realize her emergence

Is met with icy resistance?

I’ll hold her secret

For this vibrant pioneer needn’t be reminded

That in waiting for soft ground

“The tree remembers what the axe has forgotten”

The tree remembers what the axe self-deceives

It’s the wood that doesn’t ever lie

Washington forced to confess through his teeth

You don’t deserve tops, I’m keeping all the cherries

So throw blood until you meet your Carry, maybe it will be me

Women open doors it’s not a matter of locking

You obliterate bridges, always on the outside knocking

You’d chew your hand off to keep your finger from pointing

Back at yourself upon your ritual of moping

The tree gives, you only take

The tree lives, you only complain

You say a tree is just a tree

The tree has roots so deep you can’t conceive

By your own definition of value, the tree has worth

Your entire being is arbitrary

How does a feeling resolve?

You act like it’s a pill to be dissolved.

But my mouth is too dry, and that’s the problem.

Not that pill is too big and stupid to be swallowed.

Not that there’s an economic industry built on making the pill as large as possible, but small enough only a inconsequential amount of people choke to death during the attempt. The lawsuits already prepped and weighed against the profit.

No the problem is my palette, apparently…

Standing on a blade of grass

and gazing at the moon

I thought I understood my life

but it was way too soon

The wisdom of the universe

was lost on me that night

The things I thought I understood

were really not in sight

And now those years so far removed

are dwelling in my past

And what I knew I understood

has dawned on my at last

not the passive waiting of advent

but the skittish soft snowfall

on the lip of Winter

Over the cliff you know

and a bud has had

her first thought of unfurling.

“The Greening of Spring” 

When Winter’s White Season

melts into Mud Season’s

Nature patiently holds her breath throughout the dormancy,

as She prepares the stage for

and regales the landscape with:

Every imaginable shade of Green debuts

Plants now peek, poke and pop

covering the ground in Green.

Bushes burgeon, bloom, and burst

forth in a froth of Green.

Tall Trees turn out tender tendrils of Green

The brand-newness of New Green illuminates the landscape

lend contrast to New Greens

for the Baby Ballerinas who

Welcome all you Lovely Lively Greens!

The snow drops are up

Have we all survived this long winter?

Not just ice and cold and wind and snow

Two winters of worry and sickness and job loss,uncertainty

The weight of it all holding us back

And even here there is growth.

I have found time to pay attention.

I have listened to the wind sing across the mountain

I have spent quiet hours in the deep winter woods

I have watched the blue birds setting up this year’s home

My neighbors have checked in on me

I see heroes now in teachers and nurses

The balance of what matters has changed

The snow drops are back with their tiny white hats

and I am grateful to see them.

You know this stretch of nature demands ankle-down nudity to fully appreciate

You expose yourself willingly, knowing you don’t need your chainmail socks here.

The dry piles shift continually as you set your weight. With effort

you move forward despite slipping

This is the way. This

is what you came for.

You can’t help loving how jagged rocks tumbled for centuries to become

shattered, ground down to tiny pearls somehow more perfect as less.

No one remembers rough edges once they are gone.

The thankless, tedious work of tides.

Fluff the sand like a stone pillow to make room for the moon

and settle in to ponder the endless hellos ––

the flawless grit clinging to your sole.

Certain terrains of the psyche

As I took my daily walk today,

what was that place inside me

that opened up, that felt illumined?

I think that was joy of purpose.

When I was young the old were all the same

Infallible, remote, with different names.

My best friend’s ancient mom was twenty-five

At 40 what’s the point of life alive --

Life past 18 a brute and fickle flame.

My music teacher with her dusty fame

Was fount and vessel of her own acclaim.

Her mom slacks made me sad for thirty five

All ash and dust return from whence they came

We cycle in the gorgeous mortal game

A mad intoxication we derive

Communing with the sloping graveward dive

Like moths I watched careening to a flame

it comes of a sudden --

(only yesterday, wasn’t it)

a tree planted in your childhood

“Who Do What Has to be Done”

the pitcher cries for water to carry

And the person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy, “To Be of Use”

All these stone walls crisscrossing the woods

tell the hours of sweat, breaking earth into real

estate. Each weekend, my father’s shoulder blades shifted

gneiss slabs into earthforms, his banker’s back aching

with caretaking and a call to leave something elegant

When my kids enter their twenties,

may they dive into work to salvage a future—

against pipelines and redlines, fracking and trawling,

whatever threatens people, trees, bees, or seas,

seeding intertidal oyster reefs and mangrove swamps

to sieve the swelling, plasticene seas,

deeding ditches and hedgerows across suburbs

for moose and lynx, monarch and snake,

gleaning fields or boardrooms for food banks,

heaping peels and humanure, bioplastics and dogs***

into urban black vermiculture gold,

retrieving wood, stone and rare earths from abandoned coastal mansions,

water lapping at their calves,

to build shelter for climate refugees on inland hills,

or schools for girls in Sudan,

adopting one kiddo, if that—

reviving hankies so the boreal might respire,

designing pinwheel turbines or sleek solar film for the moonroofs

of electric cars, the headbands of bullet trains,

and the black wells of our phones,

synthesizing a psychedelic exit for those of us willing

to leave before our senescence burdens the next gen

rising each day to do

what our great-grandparents knew to do

and much of what they didn’t,

tending this plot as it turns.

“Not so Much Out of Any Love”

Not so much out of any love I could name,

only a habit of completion

of meals on trays, pillows puffed,

flannel poultices drenched in castor oil,

Not so much out of any love I noticed,

but the tidy dream of order. Spoons in slots,

placemats replaced. Soiled blankets rinsed

in spite of any love I could name. Not so

many, if any, memories of laughter

from simply being, high notes

of affection, desire’s droning undertone.

Not so much out of any understanding I could name,

do I find myself suddenly not so much

of you needing what suddenly,

I know without naming to give.

on the sidewalk of life

I foresee sharp and sinister hearts

striving to spread my wings

has seeped through the cracks

Where along this winding way

Did I fail and lose my moor’s

Only saving you for my sake

And not serving you for yours?

Why am I so desperate

To delay your dying breath—

When bleary-eyed you’re begging me

Oh, please just let me rest.

If I could train myself to listen

To your wish and not to mine—

If I could trust myself to faithfully

Pursue it line by line—

To help you find your closure

In whichever way you choose

And forge a lasting legacy

From this life you know you’ll lose.

For yourself and for your loved ones

As these precious moments pass

To be a comfort and a refuge

As you find your peace at last.

Or if torn this way by one

Who’s urging you to fight,

And that way by another

Who’s dying in your night,

Or tortured by your children

Estranged and out of sight

That you never set things right—

Then I’d help you steer your ship

Though the light-house flickers dim

Over cold and vicious waters

And through gales so grey and grim.

Surely never to abandon you

At this most sacred time

That you voice your verse so personal

I am not yet used

to these curves that bend

to these fearful elbows, disconnecting

from my sides to claim

a place at the table.

I am not yet used

I am not yet used to this voice,

only decibels louder than a whisper,

still hesitant but no longer begging,

it has a right to say.

I’ve been plucking pieces off my heart

to fill the space in others’ chests,

thought I could claim my place that way,

leave my mark, but it only

left my heart lacking, and I learned

to love the feel of shrinking. I think

this was where the starving started.

I came to crave the toxic need of

stunted men and called it love ‘cause

girl-toy/stand-in-mother/on-call therapist/sloppy backseat quickie

is still a step up from being useless.

I grounded myself in the use and abuse

and doubled my output of love

that you could never call me “ungrateful” again.

I am f**ing grateful.

I am grateful for the feel of gravel beneath my knees

‘cause at least it's softer than concrete,

I was grateful for the cheating and lying

‘cause at least I wasn’t being raped.

And when I told you, choking on my fear

that I was done being gaslit by that

living embodiment of narcissism you married,

I was so grateful for your half-assed apology

“Well, that hasn’t been my experience

but I’m sorry you feel that way,”

that I broke down crying in relief.

And I was grateful for the safety of knowing,

at least, you can’t threaten me through the phone.

When I flinch you dare to wonder

what kind of a daughter I am.

But what kind of a father are you when

a man I’ve never spoken to before

lifts me off the ground,

tells me he’s proud,

and in those thirty seconds makes me feel safer

and more loved than you’ve made me feel

At night, headlights come at me

like shooting stars, and I want to follow them,

use them to make the one wish

they are guaranteed to grant if I just…

There is a softness calling to me

from the darkness behind those stars,

a softness I am surely destined for, someday.

Someday, but not today, it would seem

I’m not done yet.

I’ve been molding myself around

others’ needs for so long I forgot

what my own shape was.

I’ve been living life

as a clenched fist for so long

I forgot I had a whole five fingers,

forgot that I am allowed to take

up more space than a tennis ball,

forgot that I am designed for more than

to beat any feelings of want or need

I forgot that I am equipped to reach,

to want, to hold, to feel, to cherish.

I am built to caress and be caressed, these hands

were made for greater things than

to carry the weight of a trauma you

haven't even begun to confess to yourself.

I may not understand my place in this universe,

I may not yet know who I am meant to become

before the stars take me back.

But I know for sure,

I will never shrink for you again.

Whatever I become in this world

I am going to be okay.

Last night just as the puffy ships

of somber clouds sailed by,

the sun spread razor blades of fire

across the same gray sky.

How is it we can keep our eyes

which change so fast and yet so slow

in plain, yet hidden sight

and not see them coming even so?

I am a tight fist in the frozen earth.

Un-noteworthy. Not as firm as a stone

nor of enduring value like a gem.

feathery breezes, trill of song,

snapping twig, and whisper of rain

which I dream of entering,

Now I follow a code to remain

As the cold soil grows buttery

and smells brown and green,

I will slowly burst, rise and morph.

curious in the thick dark dirt.

I stretch, moving to my limits,

to take what I need

and search for what I crave.

And then a bold blade of me

As the audience, hungry for color

my face will emerge, innocent,

the sap in the tree

water wicked from the ground into cloud

your eye from the floor to the painting

to the ceiling and out the window to the sky

the sky to the edge of sky

and there to the last beacon of blue

and outward into blackness, spinning still

where north becomes south and south

to the noon of god

God was revealed to me not when I sought answers,

but when I hid from the truth in a quest for oblivion.

Staring into the void, anticipating annihilation,

the Divine held me in Its gaze and wouldn’t let go.

Invisible in three dimensions but luminous in four,

the Divine secret is evident to anyone with eyes to see.

This world is not opaque, but translucent;

self and Other are not separate, but inseparable.

My prayer today is bound to a promise made long ago,

a promise to remember who I am, a promise to come home.

My prayer is a cry to be heard across the borders of time,

to when the sacred crossed over to the profane.

“It’s All a Blur”

I could see the edge of each one sharply.

The world unfolded and moved away from me in comforting concentric circles.

Yesterday held only a few important facts to be brought into the present.

(Where exactly was that ant hill I was watching?)

(Where is that blueberry bush?)

(Did the ice cream truck come before or after my sister’s nap?)

Around the age of 10 or 11, a definite haze began to appear around the edge of the days.

It was all still pretty clear in the center where I was.

But sometimes the circles moving outward hit something and bounced part way back.

Other people expected things from me.

I had to do some things on time, homework, set the table, vacuum on Saturday….

Tomorrow started to take up parts of today.

Yesterday now required at least a little bit of acknowledgement.

(So, when is the draft for the story due?)

(When do I have to tell them what I want to do for a science project?)

(Oops ! Did I tell my Mom about Betty’s party on Saturday?)

Sometimes – too often, in fact - the ants, the beads of water on plants in the morning, the

sunset, the butterflies, the moss on the rocks in the brook –

my sister had to chase these things alone now.

It kept changing. I didn’t notice, really. It was expected. I just got used to it.

But by the time I married, When I looked hard at the outside edge,…

I got a little dizzy. I think it was moving.

I’m not sure – you know, kind of the way it feels when you step on an escalator.

By now I was good at making lists.

Tomorrow was all over today.

Yesterday’s leftover list was there too.

In fact, most of the time, it was hard to find today at all.

My sister came to my wedding but our paths diverged.

After awhile there were 2 young children.

I am not sure what the edges of the day look like now.

I no longer peer that far out.

There are so many more sets of circles now. Mine, my husband’s, Marlayna’s and Joe’s.

I am still at the hub. But now, I juggle all these circles at once.

Tomorrow reaches much, much farther out as we plan our children’s futures.

Yesterday crowds me all the time with so many things “brought forward.”

But a wonderful gift appears. I find that when I step into a child’s circle – time slows down.

Way down. We color, and there is only right now, this picture, this crayon. Or we read a

book and there is only the lost puppy on the page and will he find his Mommy?

When I leave that warm, safe circle and catch the others I left spinning – it feels like when I

move into the passing lane and they are going just beyond my sense of comfort.

My sister and I talk on the phone about getting our kids to eat right, about birthday parties, and

of family traditions to be passed along.

As the children become pre-teens, my life has a new warning label – Do Not Look At The Edge!

The circles moving outward no longer have any definition.

Instead, I feel like I am inside a kaleidoscope.

I can tell the pace is positively Frenetic.

A daily planner has appeared and is a constant companion to my husband and I.

All the days have become of one type - YesterNowMorrow.

I look back sometimes over a week – and just marvel – to see all that has been accomplished.

To my husband and I, it seems like Divine Intervention is at play, or some would say magic,

or at the very least – the kind of luck that turns every red light green.

I miss the little children’s circles.

I know this cannot go on without recharging somewhere along the line.

My Sister and I now run the big family events and cover months of details in a day or two.

The kids become adults – no, I mean really adults –

with their own places to live and kids of their own.

I dare to look at the edge. Strangely, it is much closer in, and there is a kind of fog. But it is spinning.

No question about it. It is spinning real fast!!

But I realize I am not juggling other circles now.

Perhaps because of this, the center feels a little safer.

There are little children’s circles again to be reveled in.

In a very, very, harsh lesson – I have learned that tomorrow is only an illusion.

I let it crowd less and less of toady.

Yesterday still encroaches with reminders that there is a lot left over to do – if one chooses.

And I may, or I may not.

Perhaps I will watch a sunset. And rest assured, I will not look often at the edge.

My Sister and I have become guardians of the yesterdays.

Waiting is the thing that we all hate.

It's the thing that's hard to learn, whether you're young, old, or in the middle.

It's the thing that will define your trait.

Look around, see how these people slump and drag their feet,

They cheat their way through time

And because they skipped it

they've landed in this pit,

Waiting to get out of that pit.

Their wait defined their trait, yes,

But their trait was sad, plain, angry,

They walked around trying to rid of that dead weight,

But they're skipping their wait again,

“How Much More to Wait?”

I’m waiting to survive this night.

I’m waiting just to see the light.

I’m waiting to save someone’s life.

A way out, when will it arrive?

I wait for us to end this fight,

I wonder if I’ll be alright.

I realize things that mean the most

We lived in peace, now peace is lost.

I’m waiting to defeat this beast,

Who came to kill. There’s no more feast.

But how much longer can I wait?

My land is soaked with blood and hate.

I’m waiting, though I’m feeling scared,

For victory to be declared.

I’m waiting for this time to pass

When we’ll no longer hear the blasts,

When Mariupol would be free,

When folks would get a chance to flee.

There is no way to make amends.

I’m waiting for the war to end.

My baby sister to enter the world

My Dad to come home sober and happy to see us all

My Mum to take a deep breath, drop her cloth and play with us

It to be safe to tell the truth

It to be safe to breath without a mask

It to be safe to walk in the dark

Peace in Ukraine and Russia

Fearful folks to really see differences do not equal threat

Angry folks to feel the love around and in them

Apathetic folks to wake up and join the world

Believers to live their beliefs

Deniers to open their hearts

Defiers to listen and hear

Equanimity between the haves and have nots

Real change in society where NIMBY’s are non-existent

I am tired of waiting.

I think I will be that change I am waiting for

I think it is now…

Great? You may get less than sought.

tooling down a Virginia highway,

all of us in our early twenties,

Pulling up next to us

We young, albeit married girls,

to the restaurant parking lot.

They parked across from us

as we got out of my car.

incredulous, seeing for the first time

five, very pregnant young ladies!

Even as the shadows moved in dance over

buffalo grass, the trees danced in rough

satisfaction, the wind danced bitterly

in brittle chuffs, the rocks danced in

glacial slough, the yellow jackets danced

in fury or lust, the thorny waxleaves

danced in time to what was eaten

from them, the sand on the blacktop

danced to the gods that moved one

billion tiny perfect boulders, the purple

bulbs danced melancholy to the beat of

browning, the follicles danced to my

veins’ call underneath, I sat and waited

for you. But my legs are so tired.

“Until we reach the spring”

Does the winter steal your breath my love,

does the cold wind steal your breath,

or does the firelight calm you now,

Does the winter take your eyes my love,

does the darkness take your eyes,

or do the stars that fill the night,

bring wonder to the skies?

Does the winter leave you bare my love,

does the stark land leave you bare,

or do the wings of downy birds,

Does the winter call you far my love,

do you long to travel far,

or does our child’s tender laugh,

content you where you are?

Do you look into my heart my love,

does my heart a refuge bring,

and will it keep you comforted,

until we reach the spring?

If I drag my body

And give it to rest

Don’t you feel it?

I don’t feel it

I don’t feel it

My name isn’t mine when you say it

As I drag my toes

The dirt, I feel my

I think I feel it?

When I hear my voice

And it’s talking to you

for peace, light and love –

and settle over the world -

in every child’s angelic smile,

in every bird’s joyful song,

in every daffodil’s brilliant beauty –

in every sunray’s golden glow –

until peace, light and love

‘And this, too, shall pass’

Between now and the end

A bright and juicy flow,

black and blue and red,

A walk down the steep tree-lined driveway,

Arching grey-brown branches my destination.

Surrounded by vast country acreage,

A bountiful veiled forest in slumber.

Between frost and explosions of green,

A respite few days of ambiguous foliage direction.

Greeness imprisoned by winter. Yet to be unveiled.

Tender shoots nudge skyward. Freed by spring.

Red buds, lima bean snippets, coral-faded florets,

Fuzzy fronds of fiddlehead ferns begin their murmurings.

The camouflaged jewel still to be born.

Once at a distance is now within reach.

Bundle of boughs hoisted in arms.

Saplings in tow wrapped in wet towels,

Bare wood delivered with a hint of golden.

Released into water. Vessel of clear glass.

Upright with anticipation. Confident of arrival.

My mother awakens to brilliant burst.

Blaze of yellow. Beam of petals proud.

Don't yell at me, you'll be fine.

Some things take time, like

Winter to Spring, and a tall, tall Pine tree

It's been declared that patience is a virtue

And good things come to those who wait

Do you think the meek will want to inherit

What is left from the pickings on the plate

Lean pickin's on the plate

Like the phone to ring saying everyone's alright

Waiting on hair to grow, a loose tooth, a bad flu,

Like vintage cars, and fine wine

Saving up those nickels and dimes

Like leaving all the hurt behind

It's been declared that patience is a virtue

And good things come to those who wait

Do you think the meek will want to inherit

What is left from the pickings on the plate

Lean pickin's on the plate

Two pairs of mute swans

Floating on a steel gray lake

Family portraits track our eyes, like blue

pupils on peacock tails or needy moons

on dark water. What does not rule

We auctioned the Puritan line's remains—

apothecary jar of vanished cocaine,

spinning wheel still draped in fleecy vanes,

tintypes of our misshapen descent,

streamlining the nest egg toward a name

disbursed to strangers. Why can’t I pick through

strewn lovers to choose, now wisely, a mate?

I will collect chaff and spindrift

for spinsterhood —dwell a feathered relict,

That smell! That cool wind with vernal edge!

That chorus of finely-feathered friends returned!

My pores drink all this in again, for the first time.

Old Sol warms differently now, coaxing reborn flora

and fauna and feelings from winter’s vault.

Seasons may seem to move slowly but, I know,

from life’s tutelage, that I must engorge quickly

. . . being offered no second chance

at this place and time.

Too soon, it seems, summer’s prequel has shifted,

and I feel compelled to chase it—

my thirsty senses not yet quenched.

Perhaps, I might catch it slightly later,

as warmer weather reaches the mountains

Our target bird, the black-backed woodpecker

hides in the fog-laden woods

just beyond the high tension wires stretched

along Trudeau Road. Like sentinels, we stand

at the edge of the forest,

in silence, listening for the rat-a-tat-tat-tat

of the elusive bird. Snow dusts our shoulders,

we have seen crossbills, red and white

fed gray jays sunflower seeds. I long to be first

to spot the black-backed, keep

my binoculars pressed to my eyes, jump when I hear

the staccato sound of beak on tree, scan right,

left, up and down: nothing,

it was our leader playing the call on his iPhone.

He tricked me, but not the bird, who refuses

to play by our rules,

to reveal himself to this band of birders.

The call plays again, and again I startle.

and I have to concede it’s time to leave

though if I could see the black-backed,

I might stand for one more hour,

one more hour, just one more hour.

A solitary tree on the overlook trembles

Below her, the sea shakes in disbelief

Quarter size hail pounds her trunk

She drops back then careens forward

Holding her footing, she straightens

Pines call out in the distance

The tree’s red leaves glisten

Below her, the ocean shakes off discontent

Seawater draws back from the shore

Rainwater nourishes her deep roots

With clearing skies, she breathes in warmth

Families dine under her shadow

Seagulls mind the old familiar spot

Where he swayed by her side

Her sun kissed limbs reach up

The ocean shakes off discontent

Seawater draws back from the shore

The tree is caressed by dewdrops

Families dine under her shadow

Where he swayed by her side

The tree’s sun kissed limbs reach for the sky

Waiting for the poor to stop being hungry.

Waiting for the left behind to feel brought home.

Waiting for the depressed to taste happiness again.

Waiting for the lonely to feel loved even when alone.

Waiting for cruel people to stop hurting the ones who love them.

Waiting for people to be kinder and more generous to others.

Waiting for someone to always stand up to when they see a wrong.

Waiting for Putin to stop killing Ukrainians.

Waiting for Xi Jinping to stop eyeing Taiwan and crushing Uighurs.

Waiting for Mohammad Bin Salman to be less brutal.

Waiting for the world to start to cool down.

Waiting for poachers to stop killing elephants and rhinos for their tusks.

And I’m just getting started.

My wait list could go on for countless pages.

But I can’t ask you to wait for that.

Waiting for my father to love me.

Waiting for my mother to be grateful.

Waiting to make sure my children will be happy, more than happy enough.

Waiting for all the people I love to know how big that love is.

Waiting for the friends who didn’t show up to show up.

Waiting to find the love I haven’t found.

Waiting to feel like I’ve done the best despite my many errors.

So much I’m waiting for.

My heart tells me it’s okay to wait.

And without hope, there’s nothing.

I’ll hardly get anything I’m waiting for.

But I’ll keep dreaming and hoping.

What else to do - swim away into the darkness?

I’m not doing that.

A Ukrainian boy said on CNN last night said “Hope dies last.”

I’d rather wait with him.

the years advance upon me

like the night that frames

(i watched its dying splendor

who thought this thing called Time which

i free the captive Love i

like the night that frames

“An Impatient Walker in April Woods”

Lone owl calls, no answers

Do you know the loons are back

already echoing through sun paths

I’m not ready yet to take it in

I’m still with snow—

last night’s surprise by April’s moon

Later, I’ll cut a few

to bring inside here where it’s warm

where I’m watching snow-lace vanish—

trying to hold on to how it felt

to touch your shoulders that last time

so thin under your winter sweater.

The furniture was about to explode last night. I watched it try, heard splinters that reached the

curl moon. Then today it breathed. You can see it, too, if your eyes are in love.

There’s no money – there’s even less give. Your street, lava cooled. It was leading here, it did, so straight the crows took note. Now. A raven lands and plucks at an open egg, blue as intent. The raven wants to tell me. There’s still a nest up there.

The farthest nerve of you is still me. The idea of my body changes; I see it planing into yours, a pine smoothed for a whole cabin. The hearth is the width of your chest. I open and feed it. In its light I see the brown of my black dog’s fur. I was afraid of the gaping week but no more. You are here, in the door, wearing blue.

It doesn’t strike you all at once,

especially if you knew it was coming.

It’s the after-effect that gets you down,

the thoughts of what you forgot to ask

and what it is you failed to say.

It’s too late today.

Here they come, the words retained.

You’d been waiting for the time to talk,

to squawk, to stalk, to pray, complain.

Then grief slid in. It’s here to stay.

You cant push it away.

Like gentle clouds on rainy days

tears arrive in little drops, then floods.

Let them flow until they fill

the empty space around your heart.

Now it’s time for grief and mourning,

The sign says Don’t Drive off Road.

The salt flats follow the highway

the open road, the white line,

tempting us to pull over

Mocking us the inland seagulls circle overhead;

great white egrets stand in puddles

of salt brine; feasting on

Don’t Park on Sand.

The sign goes unheeded as cars dot the Utah flats,

littered like carcasses of curiosity,

stuck deep in white dung,

pointing to the debris. Chuckling.

A deaf man with a hint of wanderlust,

printer’s union card in his pocket,

his focus is on the white line ahead;

he is moving our family from Indiana

He takes heed of the sign RxR Crossing,

stops the car, signs to us in ASL

that he will wait until it is safe

for the distant hoof beats,

or the vibration of an oncoming train.

“The Yoga Teacher at My Feet”

draws a line between my smallest toe

Twigs entwine behind thin skin.

She presses my big toe

If I lift my ankle, just the inner,

let the large take root ––

breath might flutter up my trunk.

Inside the dream a cry shuddered the day all day.

I kept hearing the cry of the day was a horse.

The run of the year was the horse pounding

unhindered, the horse’s mane, triumphant in its wind.

The clamor of hordes, one horse, heaving,

its flanks lathered, its teeth bared.

In wind, even in no wind, the horse whinnying

over the bowed heads, cantering into the humbled world.

The horse, nothing but land and the length

of the seasons flying. I knew the horse meant

the horse I knew, the horse of childhood,

and of death, and of the loping life between them.

As a child it was my bedroom:

cuddled up, waiting for sleep

the breeze through my summer screen

for many years; breathing hard and

but breathing didn’t stop.

Combine the breath with sitting:

meditation. Another way to find

Going “deep within” affirms connection.

It shouldn’t really, yet it does.

Not every time, of course,

even as it breaks upon the shore.

I sit alone, and know for sure

And know for sure that

She lies down, her back end in the road

forepaws in the snowy yard.

Her coat no longer shiny,

her muscled flanks now thin.

I cannot tell if she is grieving or dying.

Of course, both are true.

She is alone, the last dog

without betas. One by one

out her breath, shrink her walks,

I wait with her on a shore

until we are only heard

when someone picks up a remnant,

and listens for the echoes in the conch.

Transformation is the rest marks in music,

the breath of all sound.

Transformation is a waiting unaware.

It is the opposite of a race.

When we practice a task

over and over and over again

we learn it when it clicks into place

only after we sleep on it.

Rested, we absorb the work

of everlasting tender care that emerges

when we engage and invest and

stop to experience the power of a moment.

The earth bursts forth in flower

as all life breathes within

the glorious glow of change.

“The Internet Has Left Us”

The internet has left us

and my wife is furious.

She can not order our vegetables.

She can not get those emails from her mother

that get under her skin

but still seem to be about love.

She can not, she tells me, do anything.

for fixing the Internet. I do not like

this job, as if we'd run out of air

and I have to blow it all back in,

the gills and belly of a giant fish

that has landed on our house.

without the Internet. I like

Hush—can you hear all these mermaids

how much they like it here,

how much they want to decorate

They flit round me, shining.

How does one make love

to a woman with a tail?

I want to swim: to go

where there are no nets and no sea.

Or if there is sea

let there be so much it’s invisible

and holding its breath. Like me.

The retired surround the pool,

Sit visored and sun-glassed at the bar

Or trip and fall on quaint, uneven sidewalks.

A falcon rides the hot, steel air,

Searching palms for baby iguanas

Or hens with chicks that wander through the crowds.

We live like other animals,

Not weighing what awaits us,

Until at last one fierce disaster strikes:

Too late and unprepared for,

At best just small craft warnings.

At the start of the Caribbean

And the true end of the road,

I sit with the other comedians,

Whose Eucharist is cash and cigarettes,

Who sip rum-punches, dark and strong;

For the torches to be lit.

Scar tissue tough as steel,

the Indian pipes of icicles

up out of the soil, alive

someone else’s strong hands

the pine cones that festoon

the pathway after strong winds—

and there have been so many—

tines of the rake as

comfrey root. Hours and hours

spent cutting back the comfrey

at the root to clear

to shoulder all the love

I’m still sending to you.

It knows right where to go.

with great horned owlets in tree hollows,

the black bear sow suckling her cubs in a rocky den,

red osier buds on stems that poke up through snow.

Crusty drifts melt and spread across

March’s brown fields with ribbons of green,

creating rivulets that run down into ditches,

brooks rushing on to the river below.

Purple violets, spring beauties, bell worts,

Dutchman’s britches, red-dog trillium

push up through last year’s leaves

on April’s south-facing forest slopes.

In swamps, the tight buds of red maple

bluets appear in wintered-brown grass,

leaf buds open on backyard lilacs.

Under a hemlock in woods near the farm

a doe lies waiting for the birth of her fawn.

The pent, pent, pent mating calls of woodcock

rise above the old cow pasture.

Now, from the farm below in today’s dawning,

I hear bleating of ewes and their newborn lambs,

I know that the birthing,

the resurrection of life, has truly come.

Fat Panza’s eyes itch and water.

waddling toward more open air,

Hang You Up The Most.’

Between the mounting dancing pyre

and the sodden beer gardens,

like flocks of dark birds.

The hovering sky becomes a mirror

Tomorrow is the Easter rain.

Remember the days when all we had to worry about was whether our

Or whether we were at the right gate?

Or whether the plane was late…..?

When a sneeze was a breeze,

And not an encounter with Fate.

Remember the days ,when to hug a friend

Was not the sorry end

But the start of a carefree date.

Before our world was turned upside down?

More is less, and less is more.

Down is up, and up is down

Will we ever get out of town? The days are long, The weeks grow longer. And we must try To get thru stronger, Mankind’s seen worse But not by much, Oh how I long for life’s gentler touch.

Your guess is as good as mine.

Maybe it will all be fine.

I’ll just sit here and watch the snow,

Too risky to be on the go.

Don’t complain, got lots of food,

Anyway it won’t do any goooood.

Hope is all we got, for

Because things didn’t go the other way they couldn’t,

I went on, narrowly freed from having to concede.

All night, every night: peace only dreaming. This way,

looking back, at least I could see it had always been

like mornings used to be, hooded and brimming with bees.

Maybe you’ll decide it was the fault of memory’s

infernal tunnels: someone’s, surely, or all of them. Because

it will probably turn out to have been, also, like the loons,

how they would dip like needles piercing and,

just after I’d give up hope of them ever rising, rise

impossibly far from where my hopes had been.

They tell me love the snow

now iron-hard on both sides

rattled by a breeze, love

But the season I prefer

When the waters to low – round the bend you know—that tree in the river, at the washed out bank—It came down with the slide—may have lost it’s roots—but a sand bars stopping it---got turtles on it’s knees—If it rains tomorrow it might go free. Fell down the cliff—got stuck on the lips of the shallows--- didn’t rain enough that time—guess I’m just part of the scene—stuck on the bed with cat tails growing on my head—gonna be an island—I suppose to catch depree—could have been a camp fire—but the old man has fallen on me—we can’t let go—we died to be free.

Waiting for the love to return,

Waiting for the love to return,

shedding water on grateful earth.

I am only these mountains,

carved from light and shadow.

If I close my eyes will the wonder still be there If I dream too much

will the magic disappear The bell that I hear, does it toll for me or you Is there any way to know?

Does the thread of life weave a pattern of reason Have I been too long

away or strayed too far to know Is there hidden in this fine design a lighted path to guide me Is there any way to know?

I would like to find a place where no shadows form a shade Where no bell tolls, where real dreams exist and never fade Then, when I close my eyes, will the wonder still be there?

Yes, there is a way to know.

The urgency of moving water -

This is where he stops.

By a man named Henry Ford -

A pandemic humour sweeps his land

My grandfather still as pallor.

Through eyes that cannot blink

The drops (I recall) like tears,

Israel, my grandfather, his brain held hostage -

Squeezing my hand on Saturday mornings

With the urgency of a famished tortoise

“Tell him,” I am instructed, my father egging me on.

The punch lines always the same:

The Moyle’s three fingers with which to complete his duties…

And my hands, twitching, like fish freshly hooked,

Placed gingerly in sickened palms.

Paper-skin pulled tight over brittle bones.

Like cellophane holding up clouds

I’m sorry – I know.

It made trees lament their roots.

Forward and back, those trees

Branches teased by restless eddies

My grandfather, Israel, sells cars

Made by a “Hater of Jews”

(Or at least that’s what I’m told)

My grandfather, Israel, his ravaged brain

Set in motion to slowly stop

The Mustang humming, its pistons greased,

The machines at his bed -

How can this be, I wonder?

This land of bending trees

And sunflowers moving to the rhythm

How can he be so still?

I have held a brain,

My grandfather, Israel, still as a spider

Does not want his grandson to know

But he is motionless to intervene

Each giggling child that looks into the gray and wonders…

Or even sadness or celebration.

Squeezes my hand, just barely

The abject absurdity of this fettered and scandalous Joke.

I wish I were a turtle,

I would retract my head and stay.

Only to come out and take a peek

Before disappearing for another day.

Perhaps it’s best to take to my bed

And pull the covers over my head!

Gone the fun, gone the warm greetings

Gone the sun, and our special meetings…

January, February, March….do you think there will be hope for May?

Just for now…..I’d rather not say.

Dog Grace looks and looks

until I see the empty

for skies clear of bombing planes

but who will give that?

live in cellars, but so too,

ever again? asks my doll,

Will they come here too?

Habsburg chin and with it that

I've seen it all, yeah.

J. and E. who live where war

took its toll, human costs.

What did I do? asks

No one should think that

history is a done deal,

clothes these days, fearing poison

E.T.s coming in rescue

“What Is To Be Done With This Love Of Ours?”

There’s something I’ve been doing quite a bit

all of my life since I can remember,

How to describe the restless state I’m in?

An infrequently used verb is the clue

to the cause of the emotions I feel –

often when I think I can ignore them:

. . . for my ship to come in . . . for the main chance . . .

. . . for when good things will come to good people . . .

. . . for the cows to come home . . . for you to speak

those few loving words you let yourself learn,

doling them out to me when you care to.

Not counting my chickens before they’ve hatched,

I’m always on the lookout

for little signs you’ll turn compassionate

and make up for those times you thwarted our love

while I stood watch at the dock of the bay

feeling more like a cliché than singing.

That Left Fielder with the long hair your wife loves so much

The one who is built for

Scrubbing doubles clear off of the scoreboard

Erasing the gap in Left-Center like so much sidewalk chalk

Face made for laying in the grass somewhere

a face not made for finishing things he started

The smell of over-priced sausage

Almost too cold for baseball

But the grass is green so it almost fools you

Balding and a shade too serious

A newspaper asking for his job

Send him to Toronto for someone

Who reminds us less of our own mortality

But it’s opening day

and his surgically repaired knee feels 21

and it’s itching to put a dent on that green tin wall

Tomorrow he will look ten years older and we will all say

Today we all have one foot in the batter’s box and one in the past

But today is opening day at Fenway Park

And if you close your eyes Pedro is Pitching

If you close your eyes it’s Luis Tiant

27 cigars lined up in his locker

Whoever is pitching today is toeing the rubber now

As gentle as organ music

And soon he will be throwing

Throwing to a batter and when ball hits leather it will be summer

And winter won’t have died for nothing

Someone will throw it back and we will do it all again

The curve is flying like its avoiding sniper fire

There are birds near the Triangle by the bullpen

Time isn’t marching anywhere but a World Series now

Fingers searching for red stitches

Fingers hidden in a glove

And time isn’t marching anywhere now

“The Gospel according to the First Base Umpire”

A ball is fouled off and up into the sky down the right field line

And everyone in section ten is standing

Arms raised towards a blue sky

Arms raised towards a cold sun

And everyone in section ten is standing

Last night I had a dream that I was me and that you were Jeffrey Dahmer

You had big thick wire rimmed glasses

And that shirt you took off that boy from Puerto Rico

You were Jeffrey Dahmer and I was falling in love with you

My mother was there and she was crying

She told me you smoked

She said I was full of flowers

That I didn’t have any organs at all just flowers

She tried to say that you were gonna cut me open and out they would come

Big thick bouquets of Orchids and Azaleas

Watery things that just then would see sunshine

She said you were going to plant me like a flower box outside your window

And why don't you find a nice boy who looks like Ted Bundy?

No single boy ever looked liked Ted Bundy

They have wedding bands and 401k's because they look like Ted Bundy

I would too if I looked like Ted Bundy

a dog too, and a closet full of shirts with a French collar

But, Mama, guys that look like Ted Bundy never remember birthdays

I asked her to leave

She was only half right anyway

I am all full of Daisies and Kudzu

Cheap things that grow unabated

If she was right about you

And right about me spilling onto the floor like the first day in May

Pluck my pedals from the hardwood and save them

Press them in a book

Press them in The Scarlett Letter

Try and remember that once you held their hand

watching afternoon games from Wrigley,

renowned uniforms of “Cubbie Blue.”

Today, still a devoted fan

“Die-Hard Cubs Fan” my history.

“Loveable Losers” their moniker in history.

Once enticed, the magic of the Cubs

makes you fall in love

with the allure of the ballpark, wonderful Wrigley.

Every game, every seat filled by a fan

expecting them to lose, expecting to feel blue.

The joy of seeing “Cubbie Blue”

take the field, decades of baseball history,

and countless generations of fathers and daughters – now she’s a fan,

and their “Temple of Baseball.” In pilgrimages to Wrigley

regardless the score, she’ll cheer with love.

I faithfully bleed “Cubbie Blue.”

For naught holds more thrill than a trip to Wrigley!

This team, this Yard, intertwined in my life history.

When young I fantasized playing for the Cubs

but became a pull-hitter, and so remained a fan.

People ask, “How can you be a fan

of such a team?” I reply: “This is the team I love,

win or lose I am never blue.

104 years without a championship? This history

does not matter. I left my heart in Wrigley.”

The legendary ivy-covered walls of Wrigley

are tattooed on the heart of every fan.

Endless rollercoaster seasons, unforgettable history

can’t divorce true fans from their love.

Everything this squad represents when dressed in blue

bonds millions worldwide; lifetimes devoted to the Cubs.

Wrigley’s ingrained in me, as are the Cubs.

Their history, their pinstripes blue,

forever sacred. This fan, far from home, sends her love.

Like Gretel with her Hansel, she stood there in the cold.

The phone call with its story now two plus hours old.

They had spent the day by skiing on the links of Bretton Woods,

Under splendid sky and awesome views where Presidentials stood.

Heading south to Grammy’s house for the cherubs they are rearing,

the car decided otherwise and lost its power steering.

Rolling down the slope to exit safe from 93,

they stopped at Dunks in Woodstock town to have a look and see.

It’s BUSTED, drained, no fluid there— perhaps a broken hose?

More fluid added to the cup flowed to the street below.

“We’re stuck not going anywhere, despite impending night,”

And Dunks was closing at that hour, turning off all warmth and light.

The only fix for the busted car was a tow to a distant shop,

Leaving them standing there waiting for a hop.

So it was I got called last night to fly north on 93,

And rescue from the cold and dark my precious Emily.

from climbing a fire tower,

that swing and lunge when

she takes the dog out at night,

on top of the Oyster River.

its way up the hill

of the living room walls.

If the wind symbolizes anything,

a snaring of one’s very self.

Females fireflies hide in tree shadows

swirl in the darkened air.

for suitable flashes of code,

signifying the very best genomes.

Tonight, a male firefly landed

in the garden, his tail’s cold light

still blinking from the ground.

The life of a firefly is so short

that some adults never eat,

of securing a mate. They

like this friend’s mother

on top of her kitchen table,

smiles as she offers half of

the sandwich just given to her.

She responds by dismantling a lamp,

a toaster, walks down the driveway in forgetful

circles, yet she concedes to be photographed.

The lenses of her daughter’s camera

persistently and precisely aimed at her

still-blue eyes, her billowing white hair.

for a click, the shutter,

There was intake. And a waiting room. There were x-rays. And a waiting area in the hall where I sat in a wheelchair with my leg propped up, weeping quietly in exquisite self pity. Then there was the reading of the films, the verdict, and another waiting room. Next the temporary bandaging and casting.

I'd known I'd broken my ankle the moment my foot twisted off the edge of the pavement and I hit the ground. I'd struggled to stand up and hobble—half-dragged by the eager Lab—back up the steep hill. In that instant I'd signed on for an hours-long stint in a hospital in North Carolina, far from home.

Finally the last room, a closet of a space where those of us who had been treated waited to be discharged. This place was dark and close. I was at the frayed end of pain and patience.

A young orderly poked his head around the door. I signaled him and he approached. Please get me out of here. I spoke in a half whisper. He looked around. So I looked around, conscious for the first time of my fellow sufferers. Elderly men and overweight women, fidgety children and sullen teenagers slumped in molded plastic chairs. They were, all of them, black.

The orderly nodded. I understand, Ma'am, he said quietly. I'll get you another room.

Does the emerging tulip shudder--

at the frosty earth and biting winds?

Does it crave to go back

to the safety of the womb?

raise the hopes of all

who wait to rise again

Rise, oh herald of spring,

And show us the way.

I am Jane. I am Ellen. I am Julia. I am

I said I would remember them

What if the breast is guilty again.

no nod to the months of prep

no hurry to start tomorrow

“War Report from a Ukraine Basement”

The nurses, holy as the

icons in their churches, have stayed.

The babies are bound like packages,

lost in delivery amidst the bombs,

their souls wait for delivery to

“Notes from Every Night Now.....”

Touched by the deepest darkness

Wondering will I wake to the rising sun of heaven

Or (ever so briefly) to the flashing burst of hell?

"Breathe in... quietly through the nose.....hold;

Exhale softly and slowly through the nose."

At the doers of prevailing evil

But then what have I done to prevent what I've known to be wrong?

Rwanda, Sudan, Yemen, Amazon, Afghanistan, and so many other places

where innocent victims of psychopathic power

were erased like chalk from a blackboard

"Breathe in... quietly through the nose.....hold;

Exhale softly and slowly through the nose."

dying for the delusions of one man,

while we are forced to watch.

"Breathe in... quietly through the nose.....hold;

Exhale softly and slowly through the nose."

Will I wake to our precious star

Or to a light that spells our end?

Could the best news of the nation

Really sound from a radio station?

Yet with no advertisers for money

Could their future be sunny?

I shouldn’t wait to make a donation.

It’s not March yet, but I am on alert,

cocking my ear toward frozen swamps,

listening for the call of the peepers.

armies of them, burrowed in mud all winter,

rise up like the proletariat from the depths

of bogs and marshes. Raucous and jubilant

they carry the cross of spring.

I know, I know, it’s not time for spring yet.

When it comes in its erratic, maddening

fashion, it will come too fast and I’ll miss

that pivotal moment when winter turns

its back because I watch too hard, listen

too intently, want too much.

has been blowing for two weeks,

lilac bushes, spinning up loose

below zero. The birds are silent.

Every morning I watch the five-day

forecast, study the fickle curve

of the jet stream, calculate light

gain according to an arcane chart

in the Farmer’s Almanac. Nights

the sky is a billion sharp stars. I stuff

newspaper into cracks in the door, set

the faucet to a slow drip – and wait.

“Spring Ritual at Lane Valley Farm”

When the sap finished its last dark run

and the frost heaves started to settle

My father has just finished his poached eggs.

Oscar was in our doorway blade shears in hand.

I knew then it was time for our sheep

to lose their winter coats.

Once a year he spreads out his denim tarp

and straddles the first ewe with her head between his knees.

He gracefully flips her on her back to shear her underbelly

then frees her to run off into the field

as my father patiently leads the last bleating Dorset to be shorn.

When it’s time for a break he stretches on his back

to rest his sturdy shoulders and neck.

The clouds all look like sheep in the sky.

Oscar scoops the fleece from his tarp and stuffs it in his burlap bags.

My favorite part of this ritual is when he breaks for lunch.

He pulls out a meatloaf sandwich wrapped in wax paper

has a sip of coffee from his thermos and checks his pocket watch.

When lunch is over he pulls out his false teeth,

giving me a toothless grin,

"No nicks and not a speck of blood."

I follow the nurse’s back

down one corridor, then another

Behind each door, a patient sits alone.

for the nurse or doctor,

Some wait for the Coming

a call from a son or daughter

Some listen to their breath

go in and out, anxiety building.

to make sure it is still there.

Some listen to the air

banging in the heat ducts.

They avoid the examining table;

the sound of stiff paper creasing

I was waiting all my life for this rain.

A ribbon of light woke me.

Ants’ nests in cracks of concrete multiply,

sand and branches roll underneath my sneakers.

Afternoon rain violent at first,

settled into a steady rhythm

Under my umbrella, I felt complete and

balanced like an oblong stone on a cairn,

the rain misted my face.

Rain poured into the ants’ nests,

scattered the birds seeking seeds.

Even though I was walking I felt

I was contained within the umbrella,

I saw no one. I didn’t want to stop,

so content, I felt the lovely

“ Through A Glass Darkly”  

Sitting in the car waiting for school to be

let out a steady rain just short of freezing

slides to blur the windshield Moving marks

of wavering colors distorted shapes

Grammy loved that special vase she kept

up high on her piano It had been her mothers'

and maybe her mothers' mothers' too

The pale translucent one the color of coffee

at breakfast with lots of cream It had hundreds

of glass beads crusting it over

We were never to touch it but we did

Looking into and through it the room changed

to a purple edged tan and the beads dimpled everything

To hear the words “Susana’s coming home”

Was music to shy Antoinette’s young ears.

In Mama’s place she carried on alone

And her relief was evidenced by tears.

The hospital was strange and far away.

No one they knew had ever gone before.

But Mama’d grown more ill each passing day.

The midwife said that she could do no more.

The neighbors came but mainly took up space

While Papa was away at Mama’s side.

And Antoinette put on her bravest face

For she was needed by the younger five.

“Tomorrow she’ll be home,” Ann overheard

As prayers of grateful praise flew from the child.

She diligently scoured and swept and stirred

And kept the little ones from running wild.

“If born,” she thought, “the baby will be small

And my help will be needed more this time.

Life should return to normal by the fall

Then only eighth grade problems will be mine.”

Now in the days when Antoinette was young,

Most children weren’t consulted or informed.

They were allowed “about” but not “among.”

“Do not ask silly questions,” they were warned.

And so the moment comes with Ann awhirl.

She stands with all the neighbors at the door.

An eager heart beats in the little girl.

Excited toes tap on the polished floor…

Through time I view the scene - the stage was set.

The house was scrubbed, the parlor nearly shone.

And all were ready – except Antoinette,

The day they brought Susana’s body home

We won’t walk the dirt road to the house

or admire the red barn and fog shrouded hills.

We won’t sit on the porch at sunset

looking upon a sea of green or a new fallen snow.

We won’t warm by the wood stove

or go to bed early and wake up late.

I won’t tell a joke that causes you to laugh

I’ll do my chores. I’ll plant a garden.

I’ll become an empty vessel and feel like a hollow reed.

I’ll be sad, as I am now, until one day

I’ll hear the whisper of life calling me back.

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