first night of spring break
in March it’s been so long
we’ve lost our camping groove:
how to start the fire
how to wash the dishes
were to keep the headlamps
what to wear when
but we know it will be worth it
our bodies soaking up woodsmoke
and an intensity of stars
lying down on the land
listening to cranes
fleeing on foot
what still haunts Grace
is the families fleeing on foot
holding hands
the little children with their flimsy school backpacks
meant for holding little more than a snack
now carrying all that they might come out with
and more than that –
driving past them without stopping –
having no room, no seats
being one more in the long line of cars
passing up those without
Offering to the Air
all day Irish trad followed me
each time I started the car
Spotify announced the day
and who I am
and what it means
but when Willie Clancy played
Air: An Páistín Fionn
I recognized myself:
ashes, flame, keening, awe
and, sometimes, harmony
I think how Alex would say
play this at my funeral
but that’ll be too late –
play it today
and I won’t need to make
another pen stroke tonight
burning bridges
you’d never give up on anyone
she says
and she’s right –
why would I?
we talk an hour
and the only useful thing I say
is her lucky number
but it’s enough
it adds up to family
as meager as it’s always been
as hungry as it’s always left me
the next true thing*
I could do this all day
Paloma says
meaning write a silly story
and I’m so glad I live
however briefly
in a world where that’s true
*title from writing advice by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
migrating snow geese
some days joy hides
easy to forget the contours of its cheek
or the scent of its shirt in the closet
some days awe is a memory
stored under basement boxes
at risk of disappearing into a cobwebbed corner
but today
the snow geese stream by
loose white black-studded Vs against
clear blue sky
and we gasp over and over
at the spectacle of black/white/blue
at the never-endingness of the drifts of white
coming in on the wind
it’s an unfamiliar abundance
that we in this time of diminishment
imperilment risk extinction decline
fragmentation extirpation catastrophe
have little acquaintance with
and the rush of wings and bodies and joy
all these beings requiring essentially nothing of us
no intervention no advocacy no sacrifice
is so welcome we blink back tears
my son says if the sky had a necklace
it would be made of snow geese
we sit in wonder
not just listening to their cacophony
but feeling it inside our skins
the collective vibration of their thousands
of hearts and synapses
the air itself trembling
at holding such tenderness
one more small loss in the immense field of losses
the orange koi survived the embers
weathered the flames
withstood the ash
through it all they swam circles
in the little stone pond
but the day came when the bulldozer
rumbled and scraped and wrought
smooth dirt where their little depression had been
some things are not survivable
not all allegories have happy ends
now this earth bears
their quiet little bodies, too
what’s missing
I can see the wind waving the trees
but can’t hear it
the cabin walls tight
though not warm –
we need the crackle
of fire
who’s to blame
it’s disturbing
but for now they’re right
on some of the plots where people chose
to opt out of the county’s help
the earth hasn’t yet been mulched,
still ready for the wind to carry contaminated cinders
to the edge of town and beyond.
(shake your head here)
but on other opt-out-plots it turns out
everything has already been smoothed away –
twisted metal unscrewed from earth
ashes carried away by truck not air –
and they’re ahead of the county-trusting curve now
you know, they called it:
interference, delay, graft –
just as they suspected
but not who:
it’s business (as usual) not government
trying to squeeze more money from tragedy
carving another scar before the land can heal
Ode to Betsy’s Linen (Valspar #7005-16)
at Bates
I gained an appreciation for
off-white:
all the cream correspondence they sent
before I even arrived,
every dorm wall and pipe
painted this warmer
easier-to-be-in shade,
not blinding white but ivory
and now for years and years
we’ve dipped our brushes in
“Betsy’s Linen,”
her tentative cheeriness
papering over whatever other gestures there’ve been,
making the setting a little more calm
a little more circumspect
(not really changing the parameters of anything)
but smoothing order and a warm openness
onto difficult days
things are almost never black-and-white
but sometimes they’re neutral
