memories

poetry

Remedy: AcuDetox Meets “Self-Compassion” by James Crews

Posted on 11 April 2022

Remedy: AcuDetox Meets “Self-Compassion” by James Crews

hands push hands, push
stuck energy out

clearing the system
the way dogs shake:

discharging arousal
preventing overwhelm

needles probe
meridians

curved cartilage may link
memory to muscle to panic

arranging the sharps just so
may too conduct chaos away

put your hand on your heart and say
oh honey

put your hand on another’s and
push for your lives

lay still
while some kind soul

sticks pins in your pinnae
to clear the memories –

we’ll try anything to move
our resting state to restful

poetry

20 memories

Posted on 23 June 2020

20 memories

3 people squeezed on a school bus seat
riding home from Clambake
each skinny, saying
I’m sorry my hips are so big

♡

lying on the floor in Hedge
someone offers us a second pillow
we decline
our fates are sealed

♡

driving through the Maine woods
you at the Wheel
of the Spirit of ‘76
then waiting patiently
while I learned harp

♡

walking to a hardware store
at the counter you said
we need a wrench
I grinned –
we existed
and you knew
how to fix things

♡

getting used to
grey striped Peruvian blankets
forgetting that they itch

♡

first backpacking trip
unable to lift the pack
I thought
I can’t do this
after a day camping off in the woods
Gary Snyder running through my mind
deciding
we could live this way forever

♡

our sleeping bags on Mount David
you me the cold stars joy

♡

migraine in the middle of the night
I called you, scared
you walked to me in the dark
and held my head

♡

1993
EMS gave us free trees
we illegally planted on Green Mountain
our oldest descendants

♡

standing in the field
watching dozens of herons
on their nests –
found magic

♡

puppy Chavo
one soft ear folded forward
tail unsure about curling
red collar so loose about his neck
head tilted
listening

♡

on the Molehill
in the dark
a bottle of wine
a perfect proposal
punctuated by skunk spray

♡

starting our honeymoon
taking the backroads
to Pennsylvania in August
‘84 Subaru
no AC
who else but us
does this?

♡

in the stillness of Lenin’s tomb
my glasses case snaps shut
the AK-wielding soldier
is not amused
when we escape
we can’t stop laughing

♡

riding ponies in Mongolia
nothing but land and sky before us
hours later, back at the ger
muscles so sore
we must strategize
about how to
lie down

♡

staking out your bike at Macky
then seeing our house
knowing it was right

♡

crying each time
we met our
perfectly beautiful
healthy strong
sons

♡

standing on the broad top
of Longs Peak with you
twice
feeling safe

♡

finding Elk Lake
after all those years
sleeping as far from roads
as a Coloradan can

♡

you standing beside me
for three funerals
and all that came before them

♡

there’s no way to fully catalog
you + me
no way to save
every miraculous kindness done
or extraordinary experience shared
I have no doubts
the next score of years
we’ll love being together
even more

poetry

This poem is inspired by the Be Jijimo Gallery at the National Gallery & Art Museum in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. The museum gives this explanation written by Professor John Waiko for the term be jijimo: “Be is literally ‘mouth’. Jijimo is ‘sustaining continuity’. Jijimo may be used by a person who has only one sucker of a particular taro variety; then jijimo is absolutely essential. He must sustain the sucker or that variety of taro will be lost to the community. In the legend, Rirowa, the husband gave the advice, ‘be jijimo’, keep the fire alight by blowing on it. But used as an abstract term, be jijimo means ‘sustaining’ or ‘keeping alive by word of mouth’.

be jijimo

I open my mouth
and pencil comes out
in descending diagonal lines
slidenotes aiming to
capture the essence
of what it’s like to be
here now

poetry

23 October

Posted on 23 October 2019

23 October

all day I’ve been silently slipping
in and out of thoughts of you
your birthday ingrained
in my internal calendar
like my first address
a prime number

I still don’t know
what I was supposed to learn or do
what I was asked to give
how I should have changed

no one speaks of any of this here
alone I settle into
the deep confusion
your memory rends
like the sucking fountain
where the towers once stood
the darkness going down down down
deeper than light can go
into a silent still chamber
where no answers wait

after a time
I begin to ascend
glimpse the 3 warm pink bodies near me
throw my grappling hook at any and all
haul myself into sun
with enough strength left
to mumble
thank you for the alphabet soup
that brought five of us
into the light

poetry

Plea for Saved Memories

Posted on 4 October 2019

Plea for Saved Memories

Dear Saint Anthony
Saint Francis de Sales
Our Lady of Perpetual Help:

let the little notebook
of earnest words

the cheerful sketches
of intrepid animals
visiting unthinkable actual places

the carefully curved letters
and the ones scratched in an angry rush

the endless synonyms
hand-spun for awesome

the good days and bad
sunrises lions waterfalls pufferfish sunsets

be found

and if it be not found

let all those days sights feelings smells hopes dreams
settle in deeply
to the heart-home that gathered them
and let him bring them out
when they are needed
for he worked so very hard
to note the magic as it was made