Friday, April 22, 2011

Good Friday on the Little Spokane




The deer, their coats matted and brown,
will not stay.
They risk the road instead.
The turkey turns his back,
is deliberate,
spreads his feathers.
The river pushes past,
smug with forward motion.
Its grasses press down,
stay low,
feign indifference.
The meadow
is heavy
with still water,
winter’s unwanted remains.
She assents.
She contains.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

An explanation



I will go again
because
to be
among the broken
who see
a fault as happy
a blemish as necessary
brings murky
clarity

Monday, April 18, 2011

Present

"Woman with crossed arms" Picasso





A thousand small hurts
tenderly tied with ribbon
of sharp rusty wire

alone in the dark
unopened and indignant
plot quiet revenge

This prompt is loosely based on one or more of this week's prompts at Big Tent Poetry.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Jack


From the beginning


your hands moved with the instinct


of the second born son,


first banging on me from the inside,


so I wouldn't forget you were coming.


Then reaching out in welcome,


like happy baseball mitts, clapping.


Or balled up into fists,


pushing hard against me,


while simultaneously


insisting,


on sleeping right beside me.


Your hands took no prisoners,


even in peekaboo,


but always pointed just in time


to the full blue pools of your eyes,


or the perfect curve of your dimples--


smart hands!


And they felt so right


resting in mine,


but too often I had to drag them from behind--


the plight of the second child:


never enough sleep,


never enough time.


But now your grown hands strum your guitar,


and I can't remember the last time


your hands reached



for me.


But I want you to know


that you have always had me


head over heels,


out of my mind


in love.


My hands


will always miss yours


wanting mine.






Friday, April 15, 2011

Status Update





When you text your friends


under the desk in my class


I can still see you


Your smart phone does not


make you invisible, dude


there's no app for that

When spring comes


Snow melts and each word


from sputtering angry lips


melts into tulips


This kind of follows one of this week's prompt's from Big Tent Poetry. I'm having to resort to Haiku to keep this thing going!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

For Colleen




On the day we met,


I was struck by two things:


how your face opened up


like a book of kindness


and how completely in tune you were


with your own body.


You were confidence in motion.


I was in awe.


And my brother was in love.


And each day since then,


you have been


the sister of my heart,


a gift to my family.


Time and again,


I have seen


how you harness seamless energy


of mind, body, spirit:


on the basketball court,


on the dance floor,


Even in the throes of labor,


when you reached down


and delivered your own son


from your own body--


one of the most beautiful things


I have ever seen.


And so it seemed impossible


that the words breast cancer


belonged anywhere near your name.


A cruel incongruity.


A ridiculous mistake.


And I wouldn't have blamed you


if you had slammed that beautiful,


open, kind face


shut for a while.


But you didn't.


You wrote your story for all to read.


And you triumphed--


through surgery and radiation and fatigue


and teaching and mothering.


You came out cancer free!


And I just wanted to tell you


how grateful I am,


and how beautiful you are,


and how much I love you.


My sister,


my hero,


my friend.







Tuesday, April 12, 2011

April



It's not true that April enrages me.


I reserve my violent emotions for March,


that drunken bastard who stays too long,


and spews sloppy snow all over my shoes,


and slushes himself all over my lawn.


No, by the time April arrives,


I am done.


I am spent.


I'm too tired to shake my fist at an April sky.


March has worn me down,


softened me up,


so that by the time April comes round,


All he has to do is show me some tulips,


And just like that--


I


puddle


up.



This was written in response to Big Tent Poetry's prompt that asked us to start a poem with "It's not true that..."

Monday, April 11, 2011

Pain


Manipulation

of memory, the genius

of pain. The body

bends too easily

to accommodate.

The psyche

promptly imitates

such hospitality

of nerves and tissue and ligament,

thus completing

the fallacy.

The self detects no deceit.

Intruder becomes

pampered guest

then

companion

then--

most cruel of all--

family.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Still

Well, life has been catching up to me and catching me from behind. I had planned to do 30 poems in 30 days for NaPoWriMo, like I did for the past two years, but instead I will be doing 21 poems in 21 days, starting today!

I dreamed


I was nothing


but solid stone


in the middle of the river's constant flow


I stayed put


through flooding, draining


snowing, raining,


rushing, lapping


sediment and clarity--


was all the same to me


I was the perfect answer


to perpetual motion


I was still


But the dream did not last


long enough


for me to know


what it was I felt


resignation


peace


contentment


numbness


and whether it was enough


to observe


but not witness


to be carved


so slowly


as to never


truly


notice