When you think of her one day,say, twenty years after you last saw her,and you had heard she let her hair gosnow white at age forty-somethingand you wonder if she's still workingand how old the twins are now. When you discover a trail the same daythat you didn't know anything aboutand it leads you across… Continue reading Synchronicity
Category: My Poems
Losing Things
(A hasty bit of fun, in the style of Poet Laureate Billy Collins, not my usual at all, but sometimes we need the lighthearted): .................. I might as well begin by sayingI’ve lost my keys again.It’s the second time this monthwhen you get right down to it. Poets often write about losing things—like life and… Continue reading Losing Things
To Our Beloved Dog on Your Last Day
I wonder if you understandwhy my voice is low and broken,why we tiptoe through the house,what hangs in the air, unspoken, why we softly shut a door,close the kitchen drawers more slow,and like a final offeringplace the breakfast in your bowl. Why the boy and young girl pausejust before they leave for schooland look behind… Continue reading To Our Beloved Dog on Your Last Day
What I Remember
are mournful gulls,the hollow clang of lobster boat bells,the cloak of November melancholy misting over a small harbor town,a place facing backward at Pleistocene tides,at gravity’s pull on the moon and the sea. I often felt sad at my parents' home.When my plane touched down, I sank in the cold,the constant swashing ebbing and flowthat… Continue reading What I Remember
Gift of a Sparrow’s Nest
It’s like a present found under the tree when everyone's sound asleepon Christmas Eve, and thethrill of trespassing. The rustic wrapping is full of hope,a family’s intimate history writtenin twisted straw and cursive grassand sometimes fine sepia print. There’s the urgency of architecture:this twig here, then this onecrossed with that onejust so, and a piece… Continue reading Gift of a Sparrow’s Nest
Things That Fill the Air
some of my breath, some of yours his last breath and later hers a prayer on my knees for grace if I should die before I wake your whispered words, a choir’s song the droplets that are passed along dust I touch but cannot feel a rising howl that seems surreal … Continue reading Things That Fill the Air
Pandemic V: Once an Empire
Once we made gold that sweetened the drink of Egyptian kings, elixir of gods. Once our god was an ebony gold that drove our machines and drove countries to war. Once we beat our wings at the sun, our castle a colossus that hummed. Once we made wings and flew past the sky to a… Continue reading Pandemic V: Once an Empire
Simple Fortunes
(Remembering Life Before Covid19) The morning sun that wakes with a yawn, the everyday San Diego blue sky, the sound of our dog munching her kibble, her tags ringing like bells on the bowl, the smoky aroma of toast lightly burned and breaking off a crust for the dog, a female black phoebe setting up… Continue reading Simple Fortunes
Certain Houses Get Along Without Us
I saw the gracious windows of our houselike two eyes that manifest its soul,the sycamores we planted are godparents,the homestead looking happy on the whole. Certain houses get along without uswhen others adopt them for their own.The sound of children’s slippers in the hallway—shouldn’t that be our memory alone? And time should have frozen in… Continue reading Certain Houses Get Along Without Us
Pandemic IV: Elegy for the High Five
Spring, 2020 That sudden in-air collision of palms breaking the rule, Keep your hands to yourself— it felt Friday night, it felt Mardi Gras, a home run bottom of ninth opening day. Always brazen, sometimes a rebel the way it laughed with its head thrown back, a teenager with a mischievous smile. It sometimes said… Continue reading Pandemic IV: Elegy for the High Five