poetry

poetry

closure

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closure

beat your swords into plowshares
Isaiah says
in Colorado it’s different

first, poison the land while smelting your swords
so no person may call it home
then wait
for the weapon of choice to change
the killing to grow more efficient
the boom to bust
and the other beings to return

the hooved and winged and furred folk
don’t know about sarin gas
or plutonium’s halflife
they see only a quiet open space to be

today we pile out at Camp Hale
a fairly upbeat installation
known for fresh-faced skier boys
and I’m not thinking of death

the kids skitter off down the dirt road
and I stop at the sign
eyeing a closure
wondering what wildlife
we might be lucky enough to see

but it’s not like that
ASBESTOS
no human entry
human health closure
they’re too far to call back
and I’m not positive
where we are on the map

the whole area’s off-limits
to off-trail use, too
and when the beavers’ handiwork
forces us off the asphalt
I wonder –
unexploded ordnance?

I hold my breath
not knowing what safe looks like here
cursing the military-industrial complex
feeling conflicted about these
contaminated but public lands,
like Rocky Mountain Arsenal
and Rocky Flats
with their innocent burrowing owls
and elegant jumping mice
still greenwashing the worst of our nature

I don’t want plowshares left even
I just want to beat all those swords
to dust
proxies for the men who profit from them

mostly I want to stop worrying about where we step
and what we might breathe
just recklessly take in this blue sky
and bands of white clouds
without having to think
about the terrible things
we do to our own

poetry

happy trees

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happy trees

spring fills in the paint-by-number mountainsides
and broad swaths of beige-grey lighten up overnight
it’s a green so new it floats like mist
a luminous glow suspended above crowns
like a saint’s nimbus

you can’t make out a single leaf
instead there’s a cloud of burst buds
as if someone took a fan brush
rubbed in the taste of early snow peas
and dabbed the scene to life

the aspen stands come in the way they go out
patchy
one sprawling clone flashes on at a time
your brief chance to greet each individual
before it fades into forest

poetry

Bev’s Stitchery

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Bev’s Stitchery

the bell on the glass door jingles
I step in and it shuts
me into the vacuum of
the silent craft store
white walls pitted with peg boards
things to do in all directions
and no hands to do them
except two

he had been at the windows
watching the traffic
this tall lean grey-haired farmer
so utterly out of place
so clearly not-Bev
but the only possible proprietor
and I’m not sure whether
I’m relief from tedium
or a nuisance

I tell him what I’m in for
and he leads me straight there
ma’am-ing me all the way
it’s a simple transaction
I pay cash to keep things snappy
but I can’t stop wondering
where’s Bev?
I look over the register postings
for a clue:
a funeral parlor?
hospital?
prayer meeting?
craft show?

but no, there’s something in the gravity
with which he turns off the open light
as I leave
something about the disjunct
between his stiff Wrangler jeans
and the women’s notions
I believe he’s spent his day within
that at home I look her up

Beverly L. Vancura Zabloudil
born in rural Nebraska in 1942
married to Ray at 20
mother to Raylene two years after
moved to Buena Vista 1965

In 1977, she took her love of sewing and crafts
into the marketplace.
She bought out a fabric store,
and Bev’s Stitchery was born.
When she wasn’t quilting,
she would have a crochet hook,
knitting needle
or cross-stitch needle in her hand.
She said that you should never
have time to be bored.

She died in hospice in 2015,
preceded in death by daughter Raylene
whose 2012 obituary says she
loved quilting, crocheting and needlework,
and she taught those and other crafts.

Ray’s 87 now
and has already added his name
to the headstone they all share
for at least four years now
he’s put in his own long hours
in the empty shop
keeping the lights on
to keep them near
not knowing
how to bind off

*text in italics taken from their public obituaries

poetry

new to the neighborhood

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looking down at El Capitan Lodge from the slopes of Taylor Hill

new to the neighborhood

they peek out and test our scent
Goldie the ground squirrel
popping up from the rocks at the edge of the deck
the pair of pine grosbeaks
decorating the aspen before leaf-out
and the mountain chickadees
unabashedly evaluating a nest site
while I gawk five feet away

in mid-morning
violet-green swallows careen about the eaves
regardless of where we are
and any time we’re in the woods
the gray jays find us first

I try to strike up a conversation
introduce myself
but their eyes are on our palms
wondering whether we’re handout types

exactly 28 minutes after
hanging up the hummingbird feeder
I hear him pause midflight
I rush to the window
just in time to see him take a sip
seemingly not to his satisfaction
then he buzzes up a story
looks me in the face
as if to say
puh-lease!

we’ve seen deer tracks in the dirt
and woodrat scat in the shed
(beside the ripped-open recycling)
and this evening
a ball of sunset glow came trotting
down the hill to the east
lighting up the family room windows
jovial, unconcerned

we leapt up
and as if to put us in our place
the red fox squatted
marked her territory
and nonchalantly kept going down the road

we’re summer people, after all
unlikely to make friends
(despite our best efforts)
glad to settle for some
curious new acquaintances

poetry

eating apples

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some things are hard to swallow
thirty years believing
nothing was going down
all that ending
in daily chitchat
about nonsense

my grandfather
after his stroke
begging for ice
me not knowing
which was compassion
giving in or denying him

immune tonic
so vile I shake
each time I take a swig
sitting there on the shelf
through my coughing spell
an open challenge
I’m not ready to meet

the orange pills
that let me run
and keep my sight
but claimed my gut instead

our sweet son
grimacing at an apple
refusing to obey
his need to please

oh as antidote
to all the bitter herbs
stored in my little chest
I’m gonna chew on pine needles
and Old Man’s Beard
swallow big draughts
of sun and snow
wash them all down
with muddy meltwater
and the strong tea of tannin
make my own tincture
of silence and time
wait for the healing to come

poetry

meringue mountains

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meringue mountains

the black peaks sport a smooth white mantle
glossy in afternoon sun
the texture of whipped egg whites
not yet baked to toasty brown
cornices stretch along ridges
like pulled marshmallow cream

from here the slopes seem airbrushed smooth
but put yourself there
stung by angular crystals
blasted by wind with nothing in its way
all sculpted and smoothed
by a chisel and hand
we’re too small to see

poetry

baking on the boat ramp

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baking on the boat ramp

in not-quite-spring
when the world is more
white than green
and the campground gates
still slumber
you and I
find a steep bit of sun
make ourselves stars
or corpses
either way
we bake on the boat ramp
like dough on stone
letting the photons
wave their way
into our bodies
to cook out the cold
keep death at bay
put some Vitamin D
-elight into each
preoccupied cell

poetry

the little firs

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the little firs

after the sun
then sleet then hail then rain
snow thinks about moving on
leaving this patch of woods
lighting out for downstream parts

deciding, it transforms
grows supple energetic on the move
flows
buffs and magnifies
each once-mediocre rock
into a semi-precious find

that old stiff snow laughs down the mountain
singing a spring song
and at the margin
of each steep white-walled
cliff of reluctance
peeking out at the very edge of the melt
are the little firs
their small lithe bodies
bent but not broken
shrugging off winter’s frozen weight
straining toward summer
ready to make something green
from nearly nothing again

poetry

on our way

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on our way

the corrugated metal door
briskly unrolls down to the ground
I slide the latch right
shoot the lock through the hole
and our life is stored away

we hit the road
dust in the drawers be damned
all library books accounted for except
This Is a Poem that Heals Fish –
gone the way of desperate goldfish no doubt

there’s a flurry of wet spring snow at the divide
and This American Life on the speakers
Cedar cheerfully puzzles out a dot-to-dot eel
trepidation turned to glee (at this moment)

up the rough driveway
past patchy pillows of snow
until the boys spill out
before I can set the brake

soon Cedar’s stuffy has a nest
Owen’s found a pair of pine grosbeaks
Alex is learning guitar
and I’ve found a dozen books
I left behind already here

there’s a glow on Homestake Peak
and Alex recalls we’ve already
seen this place from there
yes. I sail through the blue-white air
to the summit at the memory
one more connection
I hadn’t accounted for

poetry

words before taking the toaster out of the cupboard

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in preparation for photos by our property management agency

words before taking the toaster out of the cupboard

all the messy things hidden away
here’s our magazine-spread life
without the dying basil that lets me hold onto summer
or the cloud covered with tiny handprints
that’s kept watch over his bed
since he was 2

it’s much less the physical labor
of finding a place for everything
it’s much more the emotional drain
of facing who we no longer are
what no longer serves
what we’re prepared to let go

Cedar looks at me sheepishly
an all-caps turquoise highlightered
scrap of note in his hands –
Is this your handwriting?
I LOVE YOU CEDAR
a quick line dashed off
before he knew lowercase
neither one of us has any memory of the occasion
this slip of paper’s the only evidence it existed
I’m sorry – would you be sad if I recycled it?

He’s doing what I asked
what we all need to do
letting go
clearing space
losing the weight of things

I know he doesn’t need proof of receipt
of early-day love
and I resolve not to be sad
as it’s quickly subsumed
by old posters and
-please, God, Pokemon? –
(nope, he’s holding on to those for now)
I shouldn’t need that scrap’s tactile assurance either
we’re leaving them so much more
than we ever had anyway,
growing up in the days of film
and sporadic snapshots

in the quiet kitchen
after the Marie Kondo-ing’s sting has lessened
all is calm and (more-or-less) sterile
ready for new souls
to possess this place