to its end another day a week
more days more weeks
but not this one so full
not this one ever again
though even this not truly gone
but tucked away in the dark folds
of our brains in bits and pieces
surrendering to the soft patchwork
of memory
Author: Kay Foley
Tucson to Bisbee
Up and out by sunrise a bank of cloud
stretched over an orange sky
ranges of mountains left and right.
We are driving southeast to Bisbee Arizona
Watch For Animals Next 10 Miles
ocatillo red rock sagebrush and mesquite
Tombstone–The Town Too Tough To Die.
It’s a dry country and the same could
be said for all that grows here
tough wiry and scrappy.
Cookie and River
These two dogs of hers have aged
it’s plain in Cookie’s face, River’s
movements. Ourselves too with
lists of minor ailments aches and
assignations. Bunions, trigger finger,
bum shoulder, bad knee, failing eyesight,
sketchy memories. But here we all are
here we go the new adventure the one
of aging the question being will we
do it with aplomb or dragging
our bunioned feet?
Weather in Tucson
Summer in winter
here in Tucson after spring
in winter at home.
Neck
Pinched nerve knotted muscle dreadfulness
in my neck just as I held that African necklace
to my throat. Ach! Was it cursed?
The gorgeous fat ochre bead so stunning
nevertheless stabbing pain took me away
and superstition kept me from going back.
My neck my Achilles heel my raison d’etre
my love and my nemesis tries to tell me All
yet I fail to comprehend.
My Mother’s Room
Tucson and last I was here was the day my mother died.
Coming down the steps in the airport I rush back
to that night tumbling into the arms of my three sisters
I’d cried afresh. How would it feel to sleep in her room?
To be here, even, after two years away
two years without our mother?
The room is surprisingly peaceful.
The angel’s foot hovers above the bed
my mother’s Tiffany lamp sits beside
for the reading of a good book.
Whatever becomes of us when we die
has become of her. All is as it must be.
We are all where we must be. We are all safe.
I am safe, after all, in this room.
Cloudy Morning
Mustering cheerful laissez-faire
aplomb is no easy task today.
I feel as feeble as that old sun
barely poking through the clouds
before retreating again both of us
needing gentle encouragement.
Poet’s Block
On this day
no blanket of snow with
all its incumbent imagery
no thunder and lightning
no despair
no longing
no wish denied or fulfilled
no boundless joy
no guilt or recrimination
no pithy phrase
no piquant thought
no grand metaphor
for a life lived or unlived.
Just the impatient poet
(if poet at all)
tapping impotent pen
to paper in abject futility.
One Black One Red
Two ovals of dog
one black one red on my bed
poems in their heads.
MidWinter’s Eve
Party day for me and Most
is ready, enough is ready
that I can sit listening to
the creak of the house
with rain the far-off siren
my dogs’ sighing breaths
the melodious blue jay
the cogs of my brain turning
and connecting ticking off
what needs to be done
enjoying the thing of
anticipation
a lovely feeling marred
only by the terrible news
of a friend whose
anticipation
stops her cold
in her tracks.