complacency/today’s lover

we tiptoe now more than ever
the verges of all
comfort, this house we’ve built
probably delicate
at foundation though
truth be told
we haven’t looked in years

*

I surprised myself by thinking the beard was attractive but
perhaps it was merely youth or coloring or how he leaned over
a computer for doesn’t that speak brains? it could have been
silver hair, or glasses. bow-tie and glasses. shoulder’s curve, certain
combos of eyes/lips, forearm beyond rolled-up sleeve. dressing up
the urges to make them make sense. and then
with clear maturity of thought I told myself you can’t
have everything, not in one person, not in a hundred.
what then, this craving
to bring every ever-changing facet of beauty within?

opening

because in this closing of the year
i find another narrow door
to slip through—somelight
like you came into the world
all pent-up fuss and bother

more than true for once desire
to escape without admitting it—
sometimes
proclaiming it—

now these boxes and ribbons
become remembrance, smoothing over, wrapping up
and making pretty
ordinary, how mothers and daughters fit together,
spool apart

on wanting to share “To Earthward”

a day of sudden hard light:
we’ve grown so tired
watercolor gray, so
with each visible sunbeam
we anticipate snow melting
on the verge, imagine the bee-
house warming and all green
pushing from the other side,
touch to touch, still seeking
wisdom’s communion
but tree-tough, immune
to frost, to blossom

You can read Frost’s “To Earthward” here.

building the rest of the world

ripples, or a Zen rock garden
the atom at the center

because we began
in the same star, light-

years ago, falling
(sometimes fall still)

but these rooms of reality
small (rocks, again)

catch us, safe
when we want to float free

Inspired by passages from Alan Lightman’s book Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, pp. 53 and 55.

filling the book

with what I don’t know about
trees, their loves and losses
intimacies with beetle and worm
higher math. how to curtsey in

and bow out, gracefully
to say no and graciously
yes, these distances between
and how to bridge them. why

a lover fades before your eyes
or changes, or you change. how
to get up every day, new
in the eyes of dog or child

to prevent disappointment.
why words come thick
(fast in your youth, in dreams)
then vanish like the bees

though all the scented flowers
lead like a jeweled trail
to or from your heart—
and all the silent waiting

Presently

Let’s say I am writing you a better story. Happily
ever after? Wait. Here you are, still tangled
in the thicket. Struggle, scraping by, grief
from earth to sky, as far as you can see.
You wanted a fairy tale? Wait. You are the hero
down, broken, sword at your throat. But. Any moment
the coin will spin. Let’s say we take you forward,
through the tunnel and out, over the walls…

The Coming of the Dog

So. In a low season, tag-end of winter
and time on our hands (an illusion), did we
feel two teens still at home, two rodents, a cat
not enough? Not that our love couldn’t stretch so
far. Did we need to give without guilt or fear
of spoilage? (a softening too soon into
grandparent-mind, accepting these unfinished
offspring as imperfect, and by our own fault.)

We begin again. Well. She knows a few things
about respecting furniture, sleeping through
the shortening nights. But see, how she needs me
and how I fail again in wrestling, running,
being best friend. Don’t say, unconditional
love. I am more than proof against those brown eyes,
their eloquent pleas.

contemplation 2

stunned, chained—where is this cog in the great machine,
this puzzling piece in the grand design? is my part beauty,
remembering, simple love? how does beauty stand
against a landslide? how does memory shine
in a millennium’s weight of darkness? how does love open
one fist, finger by finger by finger, and then the next?
can the chain be fingers clasped, my one hand holding yours
or the children I give, having built them of love?

Inspired by Hafiz, “The Heart’s Coronation,” translated by Daniel Ladinsky.

“The pawn always sits stunned, chained,
…
there is nothing but divine movement
in this world.”

contemplation 1

what could I teach but to give and give
and practice when you can’t preach:
put off this skin and its masks, coat, hats—
yes, even dress, shirt, pants and all the jewelry.
what is there to shine but heart?
when the birds only drink of yesterday’s rain
can we splash through the puddles, regardless?

Inspired by Hafiz, “Everything in Your Kingdom,” translated by Daniel Ladinsky.

“Borrow from your inheritance God has left for you,
…
This is the place to utilize gold,…”

A life history in suburban plantings

We’re a flower-hungry people, so you know “bloom where you’re planted”: from that land of live oak, bluebonnets, prickly pear you grow in a neighborhood draped with ivy and crepe myrtle. Rooted shallow and wide. Your own first garden unshaded, broad-bladed grass framed by marigold, vinca, mint.

What root traces your steps

to prairie snow, sugar beets, lilac by the door? The spreading apple tree, dandelion spring. Your first taste of hate for forsythia follows to southern pine forests, thin wood at playground’s edge, understory ferns’ moist heat.

What love for a place you never belonged?

Thinking to settle: the huge rain-flopped peony, ants swarming on the buds, short burst of cerise and the cheerful yellow rose. In back, a fragrant heirloom shrub (so your children shower you with petals).

What root graces your steps

to a place of language you can’t speak? Though you can hear its nature through the soles of your feet. Rosenbogen wreathed in pink, balcony view of trellised garnet-red, scented cream-peach Vorstadt walk.

Such love for a place you never belonged.

Now you are here, tamed by hosta, daylily, boxwood hedge. Your roses true knockouts (though bees don’t care) gleaming ruby in the light. Heart-shriveled, craving green-wild and the overthrow of mulch.

What root tangles your steps

and what blame if you guard yourself from sinking right in? You’re the dandelion fluff blown by any new wind…