poetry

after reading the District’s reopening plan

after reading the District’s reopening plan

tonight I am picturing
my sons
in half-empty rooms
of masked children
their shoes rooted to the floor
amidst evenly-spaced desks

how could they endure
not being able to move
or play
or eat?

tonight I am picturing
my sons
listless in our living room
realizing education
is such a small part
of school

how could I ask them to go
another year without friends
another year home with us
another year far from
what they know?

but I want to keep them safe –
how can I anticipate
what they’ll most loathe
about next year?

poetry

Geodes / Humans of New York

Geodes / Humans of New York

there are worse things to learn
than how to see a dull grey rock
as a vessel for violet crystals

there’s a beauty to hoping
that a nondescript rough body
so much the same as everything else
could be struck in such a way
as to reveal a glittering gallery inside

we don’t know
what might have leached through
our neighbor’s heart

what sparkling prisms
they might be waiting
to open up and share

poetry

Mother’s Day Poems 2020

sacrifices

the very hardest part
of this hard scary spring
is not hugging
my own mom

Amma in a time of Covid

from the smallest world
of anyone I know
she sends 50-year-old postcards
from all over the globe
elegant puzzles with intricate pieces
novels about whatever’s going on
(foxes, Incas, Aborigines)
she sends a tube of sock supplies
and the needles to make them
questions and answers
and a basket going over a balcony
to keep everyone safe
most of all
she sends her love

Molly

she keeps the vacuum calendar
and the trusty stopwatch
she buys masks
for the mailman
she funds the nanny
and the housekeeper
while they stay home
she reins in Gram
and a bouncy son
when you stop by
she can’t stop giving

Kira

in her outpost
far from the other mothers of her line
she waits for sun and sand and snowmelt
braiding a story
that will become a song

May

in my binder
of delicious delights
I spy her handwriting
over and over
she’s making life sweeter
one opened oven door
at a closed-up time

poetry

for Margaret

for Margaret

she lives and speaks
deliberately
with intention
a stretching out of her heart
to everyone
she listens to the stars
and the lap of the lake
she makes a cup of tea
for death
and a nest for birth
she tucks each little brother
and sister in warm
before laying down her own bones
she brings all her attention
to each blessed day

poetry

Cedar at the sit spot

Cedar at the sit spot

sometimes when I’m sitting quietly
waiting for nothing
he comes
it’s the sweetest sort of communion
Tous neyei3eibeihii*
he says to the tree that shelters us
and we sit together
contemplating the creek
the woods
the snow
and mostly the gift
of another soul
who knows how to be
silent still attentive and grateful
he magnifies my joy

* “Hello, teacher” in Arapaho/Hinóno’éí

poetry

forbidden embrace

forbidden embrace

each time we approach
the time when approaching
in the flesh is allowed
the goalposts move
and I feel your utterly human
animal selves moving further from me

if this ever ends
we will be hungry for skin on skin
like newborn babies
rooting around to feel the ridges
in the palm of the person in the next pew
slapping the back of the annoying
salesman at the door
combing the postal clerk’s bangs with our fingers
while purchasing stamps
sitting close enough on the bleachers
to feel the stranger-neighbor’s quad clench
before he leaps to his feet to cheer the play

but mostly I will hold onto
my mother, mother-in-law, father-in-law
with careful desperate bear hugs
swaying with them like a child
needing to be soothed
(I am)
so relieved I can clutch them to me
at least once more before letting go

poetry

tragic

This poem was written in response to this comic, which deeply saddened one of our sons. I actually reached out to the artist to see if she might have anything comforting to communicate to him, but I have not received a response. The article explains that she drew the comic to encourage drivers to slow down for ducklings. Our kids found it by Googling “duck comic.”

tragic

all the departing souls saying
I’m so sorry
all the dying pleading
Can you say goodbye to me?

our sweet son sees a comic
of a ghost duckling
taking leave of his mama
and knows the devastating truth of it –
they’ll never know each other again

we are not the faithful it is written type
no, we’re bound to hang on to breath
and the dear flawed souls around us
with our heels dug in
teeth gritted
not taking any chances on some future homecoming
or even any afterlife

I want to shake that artist
until her own teeth rattle
and demand
What were you thinking?
There’s enough real tragedy in sight
without making him mourn
your damned duck
or his mother.
Why make his world any more sad
than tomorrow demands?

poetry

our shared grief

our shared grief

in this lonely time of loss
each of us locked away
in our own sorrow
the future a grey haze
uncertainty dusting everything
we do or say like fine ash
the fear of dying alone
(our death or a beloved’s)
with no hand to hold
no last pressure between worlds
the one consolation is
our shared grief –
that you know a bit
of what I must say no to
without me opening my lips
for maybe the only time
our hearts share this unsaid knowing
that we would each gladly
take this away from the other

I want to splash warm red
and the smell of cinnamon
into your scene
let you remember
how spontaneous laughter feels
light the way forward for you
at least a few steps

poetry

underland

underland

I’m not ready to be
underground
unprepared to enter
the underworld
my brief visits so far
have been uncomfortable
shot through with wonders, yes,
but also the oppressive feel
of too little air
and too much rock
too much thick impenetrable dark

in Ireland we descended below dolmans
in the white-grey lime of the Burren
walked a muddy path
to an echoing room
with frozen rock icicles
amazing – yes
magical – no
it had the cold feel
of forbidden

back in the day
when bat noses were black
we found our way into
each of Boulder’s caves:
Harmon, Mallory, Boy Scout, Davy Crockett, Cavernous Sinus
(some now gated with metal grilles –
one more pleasure our sons will never know,
but a worthy concession to the bats)
(also somewhere up Clear Creek Canyon)
small rooms with graffiti
and the soot of illicit fires
spaces more likely to hide transients than the wild
they still gave cool shade, otherworldly echo,
the sense of adventurous exploring

then Caribou Mine
Tom Hendricks’s baby
open to the public now and then
the real deal, silver and gold still pulled out
of veins that once fed
the ghost town by the same name
we used to see him in Nederland
pale blue overalls and no shirt
hair cut by his own hand
he dominated the hand drilling contest
at Miners’ Days
a place industry and fantasy merged
jackhammers slowly turned the mountain to dust
it was all business

later Lenin’s tomb
red letters on black background
silent young men with Kalashnikovs
at each crowded landing
I gulped in fear
whenever it was
my turn to sink lower

at Carlsbad Caverns, finally overwhelming awe
we walked through wonders all day
even came back for more
I kept saying It’s just like Journey to the Center of the Earth!
(later I learned why –
some scenes were filmed there)
still the smell of the entrance swallows
made us hold our breath
and question our choices

next the Bat Cave (Gua Kampret)
black cool in the Sumatran swelter
sometimes green jewels broke open
across its uneven roof
reminding us where we were right then
unseen poisonous creatures
around every dark bend

lastly, most spectacularly,
the glowworm grotto
blue dangling orbs
laying fanciful traps
wherever our barque drifted
Te Anau fairy tales sparkled
we can always come home here

still, I’m not ready
to lie quiet
in some shallow rectangle now
with no view of sky sun stars
I need more time
more air
more earth
more days

poetry

Moon Gulch to Robertsons

Moon Gulch to Robertsons

little family
fleeing here all in a ruffle
disappointment dripping
from your deflated backpacks
when will you learn
that like the everywhen
there’s an everywhere

here I am
wherever you are
radiant with wonders

while you go tallying up your
unseen sloths and pufflegs
missed bays and unexplored jungles
I’m sending you a fox
who will walk right up to you
day after day
and right now a big black bear
is on his way to steal your suet
he’ll climb the tree directly under the floodlight –
yes, even while you watch

I’m making a long winter for you
who chased the sun so long
and Moon Creek is practicing her scales now
to sing you to sleep

hummingbirds, nuthatches, kinglets,
two kinds of chickadees –
they’re on their way to fill your kitchen window now

there will be moose to track
and the first wildflowers to find
and, for a time,
there at the end of the plowed road,
you’ll have it to yourselves

I’m putting out pine cones
and mysterious bones for the children
and quiet stars and the axe
and the wood that needs splitting
for the frustrated adults
so your hearts may come into calmness

and most of all
I’m giving you slow and still
and a while to call a place home