Month: December 2011

My oldest sleeps on the couch downstairs.
I sleep in his old room.
I wonder what he dreams
what he dreamed when he slept here.
The windows face East 
sun in the morning 
moon at night
in this almost tiny room
and my bed barely fits
but I would not now give up
sun in the morning
moon at night
for any old big room
facing any way but East.

Who calls again and again
outside my window
answered distantly by another?
What pretty bird sits on that
branch insisting to be 
heard
acknowledged
answered?
 
When I went to fill the feeder 
yesterday the noisy commotion of birds
in the unruly brush and tangled vines
across the creek abruptly stopped.
Keeping things hush-hush, as if I,
dull-witted human that I am,
would be able to fathom 
and somehow foil their plans.
 
In their last hours both my mother 
and my friend Pam had silently 
retreated to some place within
or was it beyond
as unfathomable to me 
as the language of birds.

Woke in a cheerful mood wondering
if I might have dreamed a Lovely Thing
that is now hidden even to me
and if so can it be true that
we have hidden pots of happiness
within us of which even we cannot know
and if so then where do they come from
and would they be ruined if we
ever found them out
the spell broken
and if so if so if we leave them
wherever there untouched
could we perhaps  now
and again and again say
Take me (blindfolded) there,
your secret’s safe with me
and have a little visit in
SecretHappyDeluxeFunLand
and return to find our regular selves
alive and well and unaccountably happy?
Well?  Could we?

What might this breaking day hold?
Certainly some sort of conundrum
perhaps a story or two
with what might possibly be
a heartbreaking conclusion.
A quick flash of realization
followed without fail by 
perseveration upon its finer points.
A sudden inner voyage prompted by
an old worn suitcase
picture of a boat
smell of cedar
title of a book
notes of a song.
Most likely all of these
will write themselves at random
and without warning upon
the unwritten agenda of this day 
for that is the Way Things Are 
and the way they will remain 
forever and ever world without end.  
Amen. 

Cold winter morning 
grass spiked with frost
and the sky is a white blanket.
For twenty-four hours now
my eyes have sprung hot tears
at the thought of children 
who go without.
Sleeping, my dreams bring
small lost children clinging
to me in a crazy landscape
of riches and abundance.
To what do I owe this visitation
and where do I take it?
Sun breaks through that white cover
as if to signal an epiphany 
but I am either too simple
or not simple enough
to grasp it.

A gaggle of laughing girls gathered
around a Salvation Army kettle ringing
bells in their pink and yellow sweaters
bobbing poufy yarn balls at the ends 
of their colorful knitted hats.
Innocent girls who know nothing 
of the troubles of those Others
for whom the bells are rung.
Happy little girls having a jolly time
on the sidewalk of a fancy street
its shops prettily lit with Christmas lights
and cheerful banners urging All to buy.
Good for those girls, I say.
Let them be innocent and gay
as children everywhere should be.
Let them stay warm in their sweaters
have bowls of hot soup and cookies too
as all children should if only all could.
Let them grow up strong enough 
to gather the others into their arms one day
wrap them up in warm clothing 
keep them safe, feed them soup.
And cookies.

Made a pact with myself one year ago today
with no clear vision or plan other than
the writing of a poem (of sorts) 
each day for forty-nine days.
Unlike so many other 
spoken and unspoken agendas
lost forgotten abandoned
I kept this one, extended it, upped the ante.
Now All Things seem possible.

Today, December 13, 2011, marks the 365th day that I have written a poem a day.  I am amazed and proud of what I’ve done.  Oh, not every poem is anything great.  Maybe none of them is truly great.  But some stand as very good, for me, never having considered myself a poet.  A writer of verse.  An artist/writer.  Maybe those things.  “Poet” seems a hard title to claim for myself, just as “artist” has been.  Regardless of all that, I have written a poem a day for ONE YEAR!  The original pact with myself was for 49 days and now look!  I am quite proud.

Today I went as far as to write two.  Some days I have struggled to come up with even a thought, a start, let alone something that I would want others to read.  And some days I have had to settle on something not entirely satisfying and get on with the responsibilities of earning a living, paying the gas bill, etc.  But I have found this to be a wonderful practice, a lovely morning routine added to my already daily routine of journal writing.  It has been a different sort of way to document the days, my mood, the vagaries of my brain.  And an amazingly rewarding discipline.

At many points I thought it might be time to quit.  Sitting there in my pajamas, tea finished, tapping my pen, looking around the room for some piece of thing to get me started, finding not even a single thought in my brain, I’d think maybe it’s over, maybe there is nothing left in me, maybe it’s time to stop.  Of course there is always something in me, in all of us, I know that.  I am certain of that.  Sometimes it’s just a matter of unearthing it or giving it permission to crawl out of its cocoon and emerge.

So there it is.  One year of poems.  I am not ready to stop now, either.  Maybe someday I will be.  Or maybe some unforeseen thing will bring this to an end.  Not yet, though. Tomorrow begins another year of poems.

I.

Picking burrs off my dog
his heavy head in my lap
he raises a paw, now two, to my face
stretches languidly, looks up at me 
love settled in his brown eyes.
Rain drops quietly outside
the homely warmth of our house.
Miles is a one-woman dog and I
at sixty, know my fate is now sealed.
I will never be a world traveler.

II.

Five thirty in the morning he stood
up at the foot of my bed
made those familiar awful sounds
threw up what looked like someone’s liver.
He is a dog who eats.  
Eating is his raison d’etre.
Branches, dandelion puffs, chunks
of wood, dead animals, paper,
plastic bottles, my neighbor’s 
compost, sticks of butter
left unattended.
The world is Miles’ savory smorgasbord.

Two socks lost in the wash.
One each from two pairs
missing, gone, disappeared.
Not clinging to my son’s underwear
or hiding in my pajamas.  No.
Not in the dryer, on the stairs, in the 
crack between washer and workbench.
Two lovely wool socks vanished!
Like the perfect phrase for a poem
a sparrow on the wing
that last piece of chocolate
an early morning dream
the moon behind clouds
a mouse through its crack.
Gone.
Leaving me lonely
and cold.