hope like arugula sprouts
big enough to be seen
from a second-floor window
*
cat out and leap-chasing
shadows—sparrow, crow,
flick/sway of still-bare branches
*
water wind-rippled in bird baths
sometimes sun-shimmered, reflecting
on redbud bark
*
that april blizzard and how
we could see again
smooth-swirl snow on rooftops,
dollops on red-budded trees
will you take my voice, now
rough with disuse
again, the way
green pokes out from last year’s brown
leaves, bold of its welcome
no matter how thin
or straggly or
unintended
not the smell of summer but a memory
earth, sun, sweat
or skin or breath, all of it
fading. where a heart stirs yet
beneath these layers of snow
tired of the season’s responsibility
our nerves, words, glances dry-
cracked as winter knuckles
those leaves that still cling, nearly
unrecognizable to our warmer selves
put your words away
birch leaves are gone
redbud silent in cold rain
*
how brittle the red pine needles
even now in full green
next year’s cones waiting
*
one day to the next orange leaves
scarlet berries note the difference
in sky, a human smile
*
the poster says hug a tree
to lower blood pressure
feel striation or smoothness—also listen
as good as any nature center, your office
window. they touch striped antennae. just one,
in the beginning and how they got between
glass and screen and on the second story—
now you count four clinging up down right left, slow
with that deliberate creepy invasion intent.
they have the tell-tale spots and stripes
you can see very well with your hand-lens
of course they fly, but why? you keep watching
When you were in the hospital
I went looking for something
in your dark cluttered room—
you wanted your calendar—
and found my last custard cup
full of coins and old batteries
on your nightstand and knew
you had never asked to use it
but just pulled it from the shelf
as if you had right to anything
since we’d let you into our home
perhaps; but I took the dish back
gave you an old butter tub in its place
and yes I felt small but had I not
felt small all the time
Circumscribed by jail-fence, our privilege
to drop in once a week, we connect
a moment through this earth
fingers sweeping for carrot girth
radish shoulders (divided over kale)
notes on how your mothers make posole
how they worry
how they will adjust
when you finally come home
These kids learn plant
harvest radish lettuce carrot
crush basil oregano thyme
inhale incense of future pizzas
laugh sunbees & quietwords
tongue-burst tomatoes warm from the vine
thought of crowding a few more in
golden days and the last available
space for something bright
(pushed out again by—
you know)
thought butterflies should
not to linger (oh zinnia aster
-oidish collision) but this
brain on going to seed
slight ladders that bring the fence
top in
turned again and told yourself
too late
clear-coat me, Lord
with carillon and birdsong
or peel through the yellowed layers
bubbled, of what has been
self-applied, find in me
that thing unfounded:
clear heart, clean brush, blank page
Graceful Press Poetry 