On Poetry

I like poetry.

I try to find it in daily life.
It might be sitting on our shoulder peeking into the quiet morning,
Or laughing at us as we take up our passions
Poetry seems to sneak around the barriers
Look into the dark heart.
Angsting teen, it gets them,
Poetry scraps off the scabs on an old wound
Administering a new medication
Cleansing a soul
Innervating an aging mind
Till you find once more the memory of a greasy fry
You spilled somewhere, when you could digest them,
Or a time your tracks stopped.

Poetry tickles the toes
Curls up into crystal caverns
Maybe in your nose like a whiff of somewhere
Who knows?
It's allowed to go anywhere
Fight for or against
Or lean up on the rock wall and bask in your
Sun filled walk through the canyons.

I like poetry that is
Spare, bones, leftovers that taste better than last night
But it can be fertile and fecund
Spongy with diaphanous roots
Like lettuce on the plate.
It depends
Poetry is like that.
It skips away, dreamlike
Pulling out a bit of sanity in an insane
Cacophony
Poetry just tunes the ear to
Listen
For something before you know it

Like a kitten's cry, a poem
It's a mellow meow you catch
In the howl of the tumultuous
It's a pretty thing sitting up on that tuffet
Shouting out to the fiddlers
Bringing on the next act
The one in which we bow.

I like poetry, and how.

Todayism

Empty Nest

She was hugging the kittens
Nursing them with a baby battle we had
Left from the dolls
Cuddling.

I thought Mom
No one has hugged you
In loves' embrace from before the divorce in 80
Nothing.


She's stuck on the branches
Twigs in a nest it's long abandoned
Chill in the night air
Drafty, out there noticing the moon.

It's an ode to a mom
Left to her self without anyone
Finding her beautiful
Enough to fold into arms.


I think she's finished the cycles of this life
Left the bounds of earth's lessons
Moved to a place
Utterly distilled in that seated acceptance.



Birthday

You have literally hurtled around the sun for the year
That is marked by your celebration
At such break neck pace you barely take a breath to realize
That the home is a ball in an oceanic universe
That moves, it cycles, vibrates
It spins until
Once again you are lighting candles or
Pushing a cake away from that good meal
Taking measure of the feelings of turning now whatever days count you to be
An older being planted on two feet in an amazing system of numbers
And universal orders
That wants to be loved
That loves
And so it's your birthday
and I've no present or presence
Just the thoughts of having awe at the passage of time
That seemed even faster than the statistics of how rapidly the earth
Hurdles that sun
Like the little child circling the house in a joyous morning run
To just say
I'm racing through my spaces, see me go as fast as I can
Towards the places I just saw a minute ago
I'm superman with the wind at my feet.
So you are going
With that joy as you pass your candles
And make your wishes.


May they all come true.



Gun Control

I used to like these drawings we did
A gun exploding into flowers and patterns
Turning it into a potted plant holder
Or a nice kind of water fountain
It was a political act
Sure
Of artists that saw the piece
A statement
On shooting some beauty
Into a nightmare.

Where have these flowers gone?


Clematis

Strung on the redwood deck were three clematis
Unfolding flat blossoms in purple and white
Blood red to welcome the first steps out into morning walks to
Venture into the yard inspecting blueberries
The larkspur, inpatients, roses
Looking to eliminate a leaf infected with blackspot
Or seize the Japanese beetle
By the apple tree walking, searching the plum
Finding a daffodil sprouting
Or later in a year
Enjoying the glads, dahlias, the zinnias
These were the petals that fell as I grew
Like a vine that winds through the haze of memory
The clematis blossoms on the sweet humid
Smell of the sweet peas or the drifting honeysuckle
As my hand gathers the violets
Or plants the violas in a bed of
Snow on the mountain now
Azaleas in gold or sweet pinks
Dance there for me.

My cousin said on a call lasting through a night she could
Make it somehow if she smelled a lilac
And that was when I found the family line there in us both
My grandmother holding to her lap the lovely large begonias
That lined her porch, noting a pansy out the window
On a drive to live in a place that
Helps the elderly into the graves
Of lives lived and coming to a closing act.

The clematis climbs up today
Opens in my mind into those flat petals
The beauty of those blossoms faded little by a life lived
With so little re-connection to them now
Except as the names of children planted in a different kind
Of garden, one of lessons and school days.
Blooming out of the impossibilities into the lovely
Seeking flower reaching for the sun.