Posted in Deep Thoughts, Princess MeMeMe, poems on May 23, 2008 | 6 Comments »
I caught a glimpse of myself
in a coffee shop window today.
I was surprised– I looked good.
Pale face, dark glasses, wry expression.
I was looking less damaged on the outside
than I think I am inside.
It was that glimpse, unexpected, that undid me.
What could I do if this was
always the self-caught glimpse?
The window reflects the clearest,
lightest parts of [...]
Posted in Better Half, poems on April 20, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Everything’s better when I’m in contact with you
the price of gas
the piles of laundry
the stacks of bills
grow less daunting.
And you thought it was just a caress.
Posted in just plain silly, poems on April 13, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Awakening
The chirps aren’t sharp–
the trills aren’t shrill.
But the waking me, at dawn,
thinks their proudness
and their loudness
makes their tweets
less sweet.
Posted in Deep Thoughts, good things, links, poems on April 8, 2008 | 10 Comments »
I was shuffling through a stack of paper the other day and found a copy of the poem “Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann– the very one I’d printed onto heavy bond paper in fancy script italics, and pinned to the heavily decorated corkboard on the outside of my dorm room door in college. I don’t know [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, books, good things, poems on March 21, 2008 | 9 Comments »
Why worry about the loaves and the fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love,
and the felt necessity of that love,
the fish explode into many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don’t worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, memory, meta, poems, politics on March 14, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Four uniformed transit police,
one on a cell phone,
talking to payroll.
Strung out in a thick blue line, looking tough
hands shoved in jacket front pockets,
ready by their holsters .
They’re there to protect–
the kids from themselves,
and us from the kids–
the ones with nothing better to do
than to stab and shoot and beat
using weapons whose cost could have gone [...]
Posted in poems on March 12, 2008 | 13 Comments »
Mindful
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It is what I was born for–
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world–
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant–
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily [...]
Posted in poems on March 7, 2008 | 5 Comments »
The light is gold today
not silver–
champagne gold
not 14 karat, but gold nonetheless.
The gold air is moist today
not draining, leaching, drying;
The armored trees,
scaled in lichen,
are green-barked today
not grey and desolate–
the gold cast heals all.
The trees may still be bare,
but their boughs now bear potential
though the ground is still muddy,
still trampled-looking.
Inside, my tulips and crocus
are blooming,
yellow daffodill [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, friends, poems on February 19, 2008 | 23 Comments »
Though I have never given birth
I am a mother.
Mother to friends,
to family, to strangers
needing smiles on the street.
I know you’d never tell
an adopting mom
that her loving heart for the
child of her choosing
doesn’t count.
So please don’t confuse
the childlessness under my roof
with the absence of maternal spirit.
Ask anyone who ever sat at my table
if I don’t cook [...]
Posted in poems on February 18, 2008 | 7 Comments »
The metallic air of almost spring
smells of fresh dirt and possibility
there’s no greenery, yet, but that yet
hangs there, and perfumes the air,
like the first magnolia bud.
It’s coming, says that after-rain, ozone smell.
It’s coming, says the sixty-degree February air,
caressing your face, a preview of spring.
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