I am eight in a blue striped chair listening.There is a song that makes me tear upA pure high pitched voice sings ice cream castlesclouds and dreams and a refrain I don’tfully understand but somehow do in my belly.I am eighteen and I know the woman singingthat song wrote the song when she wasn’tmuch older … Continue reading Both Sides
Be Light
Widor's Toccata, fr. Symphony for Organ No. 5, generally lasts around 6 minutes.Longer than it takesto readthispoem (I promise)A well- wornRecessional featured atRoyal weddings,Funerals n-such -itspeaks tothe vitality- some might say-freneticism of walkinginto the light.Go forth, it says.Be brilliance,stamina,be the orderedrepetitionand deep basspulse of lifeCelebrate.It’s a showcase for organists and,I hear, notan insurmountabletask to learn. … Continue reading Be Light
Whistling Your Way Home
A house still stands near the place you crashed but it creaksand it leans -paint peels, eerie white lights twinkle within.People ran out ona moonless night, whenyou struck the combine cutter barbroken off too close to the shoulder.The road you’d traveledfor 70 years offered no signtrusting, it does, local driverslook out for themselves.And farmers too, … Continue reading Whistling Your Way Home
Whenever it Ends it Ends Like This
There’s a girl in the war they make pictures, glossy black and whiteHard times come again no more.I gaze, tears glaze, cannot look awayIt is gloss and grit, so sick of itThere’s a girl in the warShe holds her brother’s hand, her father’s rusted shawlAll that is left is rubble and dust, hunger, rageHard times … Continue reading Whenever it Ends it Ends Like This
Tall Tale
A smoke-grey cat with long legsshowed up at our house long ago.One of many wayward strays tuckedunder the rafters of our littlebrick colonial with the pink bathroom, dusty chandeliereddining room, where childrenpracticed piano in the corner and stretched the phone cord aroundfrom the kitchen to conductthe business of adolescencefor anyone to hear. Mothertaught school then … Continue reading Tall Tale
Ah Grief
Ah griefsaid my friendmy mother’s scuffed black shoeson the back seatwhen I made my wayfrom the hospitalwithout herTo know griefsaid the windis to rattle windowpanestrouble the puddlesof every loss shakethe raftersof your heartKnowing griefsaid the teacupis to spill bitternessand compassionread the leaveswear the stainlike a tattoo…after Alicia Ostriker’s The Blessing of The Old Woman, The … Continue reading Ah Grief
Housekeeping: a book forgotten now remembered
Forest dark moss covered rooted & Vined newspapers piled wet smell the lake maybe a bleached skull or maybe the name of a town Fingerbone battered walking boots sagging porch orphaned girls The mystery of Sylvie her Solitude her wandering her train trestle traipse her cardboard closet the eternal question stay or move on I … Continue reading Housekeeping: a book forgotten now remembered
On The Other Hand
I question the form of my blooming in a slow growth season. It’s not that I don’t seek a little running sap in life anymore, change, another miracle of 3-day resurrection, re-planting in the soil of my circumstances. It’s not that I’m anywhere near worn & worried to the bone, quite the opposite, in fact. … Continue reading On The Other Hand
Dogwood of Desire
I want you to bloom the way you did 15 years ago Tree of springtime, bright stars against so much green. I want your younger tree self, your flourish, your promise. The way you recede these days reminds me of the Thin skin on my neck, fine white hair, the snow I find lately on … Continue reading Dogwood of Desire
Unnamed
My oldest daughter shared a dream once in which she met an older sister and felt herself displaced and downhearted. She’d known for years there were others before. Her dream made me weep all over again for the unnamed unborn. We pulled 5 kittens from an oil drum in the barn today, their yellow mother … Continue reading Unnamed
Early Morning Poems 