Yesterday I lay in bed All day Unshed tears spilled down Into my gut And hardened into concrete Unspoken love Winged from my heart To my head The left side of my head My sweaty sundress Worn the bright day before Lay crumpled on the floor Today I got up Not until late morning But I got up Put on the sweaty sundress And forced myself outside To sunshine And leaves Stirring in the breeze To a showy red cardinal Claiming the bird feeder As his throne To a humble song sparrow Nesting below the roof peak Of our brick-red garden shed To the nuthatches pecking Upside down On the trunk of the red maple To the smell of lemon balm Planted near the porch To ward off mosquitoes To the music of our low fountain Water plinking Quiet but steady From one small pitcher to another Into our rock and moss pond Surrounded by sky-seeking ferns And one young yellow sharp leaved Japanese maple WOW! I thought How could I forget Even for a day I live amidst goodness Always, right here, My balm in Gilead
Cream Cheese
In a compromise with my parents That age ago (they wanted near I wanted far They wanted Catholic I wanted not) I started college at Marquette University In Milwaukee, Wisconsin As far from New Orleans As my parents would allow But for them at least it was Jesuit Though not Springfield, Which was closer and Also – importantly - where One of my mother’s priest-cousins taught We called him Father Junior My parents drove me to Marquette That first year A drive delayed by Hurricane Betsy My dad walked downtown from our house To send the school a telegram (The first like that they had ever received, We were told when we finally arrived) That I would miss freshman orientation Because of a hurricane The first night on the road We stayed in a motel VERY exciting, my first time in a motel At the diner where we ate breakfast The next morning After an increasingly confused exchange with the waitress (Have you ever seen Jack Nicholson’s toast scene In Five Easy Pieces?) My dad was served – reluctantly – A block of Philadelphia cream cheese Since he persisted that he wanted cream cheese for breakfast And so we all three learned That morning Something none of us had known before Only in New Orleans Did cream cheese Always Mean Creole cream cheese (You might know it as curds and whey Of Little Miss Muffet fame) A breakfast favorite
In praise of Mary Oliver – and Skinks
I imagine Mary Oliver after a nuclear holocaust writing of her sorrow that in our arrogance and anger we destroyed ourselves and most of our world I imagine her writing of her fear for the world and for herself denying nothing of her sadly changed expectations I imagine her ending But look at the way this little brown skink moves unhurried up the porch wall stopping and starting again enjoying its bit of life
Here And There
Woody waits outside On the porch he made for us Sitting in the rocking chair We bought in Ohio Coming back from Michigan Not our last time in Michigan Just last weekend When we drove there For Jack’s memorial service Stopping for the night in Berlin, Ohio Because we don’t do the fast 10 hour interstate way But wind our way slowly Through the every season beauty Of West Virginia And Amish country Ohio We went the slow way Going up for the memorial service For Woody’s nephew Jack loved hunting, and his hungry chickens As Woody loves gardening, and his Japanese maple trees We came back the fast way on Monday Because the assisted living home called On Monday morning Mom was having another hypertensive crisis And they were taking her to the hospital Possibly So I drove us back Using the interstates and toll roads Not hurrying, but not stopping for the night either Mom is fine now And Woody sits in his rocking chair Waiting to take my hand And walk together through our garden
Uncertainty
I stare at the prompt, “Write about uncertainty” I sit, pen quiet, thinking thoughts Uncertainty, I think, is my life Uncertainty, I think, is my only sure possession Uncertainty, I think, is my only certainty Just as I pick up my pen to write My phone buzzes I have it nearby, on mute In case it is my mother calling Or, worse yet, her nursing home It is my mother I have to answer Nothing is wrong She just forgot this is my workshop time And wanted to tell me her blood pressure Is just fine Nothing wrong today Sigh Uncertainty is my life
beyond
the best of poetry ironically is that it takes you where words cannot go
Orans
I want no cathedral In my head or soul Unless it be The cathedral of nothingness Lifting unseen spires high Into its own nothingness And within that nothingness The sanctuary of Infinity And within that infinity The altar of Love And on that love The chalice of God And within that god Me In womanly orans Tall and uplifted As a cathedral spire Arms bent, spread wide Fingers cupped As though to catch and cradle Anointing oil Dripping forever From Sophia’s chalice
Cracked Light
Leonard told us It’s the cracks Through which we see the light I’ve been looking for them Those cracks in my shell My problem is this: Words keep sealing up Every crack I find As soon as I find a crack I name it As soon as I name it It is this It is not any other that As soon as I name it The name becomes glue And seals the crack On and on Around my shell I search Whenever I see light I know there is a crack What crack? God? Enlightenment? Satori? Savasana? Oh damn It’s sealing up again No more crack I give up I rest in the center And let the shell be Soon I am flooded And floating In many cracked light
God/Us
Imagine, if you will, a person No, wait, I don’t mean imagine the idea of a person I mean SEE a person How tall, how heavy What color hair, eyes, skin How old, how gendered SMELL that person Are they Clean smelling Slightly stale smelling Or really rank HEAR that person Is their voice soft or loud Their accent particular Or talking heads generic Do they snuffle Sneeze Cough Or just quietly breathe I don’t want you to sit there Reading and imagining a vague person I want you to imagine A flesh and blood person With girth and height Color and clothing Name that person Know that person Believe in that person Now here’s the hard part Believe that person In their very particularity Nothing more and nothing less Is God That is, that person is Divine Just like you Just like me
Growing Silence
For six years From 92 to 98 My mother lived with us … I have paused now After writing those words Because to give true texture To that simple declarative I have to reveal Our ragged raveled family Cut to pieces too often By jealousy and illness Alcohol and abuse You see? Already to write just that Grows a weed in me That offers no shelter Even before the worm destroys it And I sit, burning and cursing And feeling sorry for myself That is why my words stood still A minute ago Because what grows in my now stillness Is just simple stillness Silence Sweet sweet quiet But to appreciate what it means to me To snuggle with Woody Within this tightly woven Wide warm quiet quilt For you to appreciate that I would have to show you my family’s rags And I would rather not Or maybe, all I need tell you is this: My mother When she lived with us Got up early, went to bed late And kept CNN on her TV, loud, louder, loudest Despite hearing aids and surround sound So that even in my bedroom A floor and a more away I could hear the words of the talking heads Louder than my own thoughts Maybe I don’t need to tell you More than that For you to glimpse The gorgeous flowering Of silence in my home And what it means to me