Listening

I have never been very good at making decisions.  I've been afflicted by self-doubt and fear for more of my life than I'd like to admit.  Remembering daily to turn my will and my life over to the care of God has relieved this in recent years and yet there are still too many moments where I just feel immobilized by anxiety; the "right" answer always seeming elusive.

I should be in Kentucky right now.  Spring residency for my Master's program started last Friday and I was supposed to be there.  For the past month, I had been feeling increasingly uneasy about the upcoming trip.  It would have been my fourth residency and nerves had plagued me prior to each trip before but this apprehension felt different. I couldn't shake it and each time I've been before, excitement had always eventually edged out the worry.  But this time, even though I prayed through the fears, practiced positive thinking, talked my feelings out with others, still the feeling of foreboding persisted.

The week before I was to leave I felt like I was starting to come down with a cold.  I started popping the Vitamin C.  Then my knee started acting up.  I'm scheduled for knee surgery on June 3rd and had hoped everything would be fine.  As the week wore on, my cold grew worse, my knee swelled bigger and by Thursday I couldn't get around without my brace.  "I'll be fine," I kept assuring myself but the inner nagging continued. I reminded myself,  a cold is just a cold.  I have the brace.  I'll push through.

I could have pushed through.  I do it all the time.  I'm a pretty determined person.  Sometimes things work out positively when I do that and sometimes not.  I could have gone and slowly felt better while I was there or I could have gone and developed pneumonia and been unable to walk at all half-way through the week.  Those aren't just silly exaggerated concerns.  With a chronic illness, those would have been possible realities.

So, I started to feel a little like, maybe, God was telling me something.  But then my other voice was saying, "It's only fear."  So, I woke up Friday morning at three to leave for the airport.  My ten year old and eight year old daughters were both awake.  The oldest said she'd prayed that God would wake her up to say another goodbye.  I dressed, had a quick cup of coffee and hugged and kissed them goodbye.  As I hugged my younger daughter, I noted that she felt hot.  Very hot.  So, I took her temperature and it was 102.5.  She had a bulge in the side of her neck, as well.  She'd been complaining of a "stiff neck" all week but we hadn't noticed any bulge and she hadn't had a fever.  My husband said he'd take her to the doctor and go into work late, so we left for the airport.

I knew he had it covered.  That she'd be okay and well taken care of but by now I was seriously starting to doubt my decision to go.  It seemed like signs were coming in all directions that it was not a good idea.  I prayed in the car.  I texted my sponsor and a friend.  I asked my husband to exercise his husbandly leadership and tell me what to do. We parked at the airport and we walked up to ticketing ( I limped) and my sponsor texted back the simple words, "Follow your heart."

So, I did.  I cancelled my trip.  And something's happened in me since then.

We took Verity to the doctor who ruled out strep throat, ear infection, and UTI.  We were sent to a radiologist for an ultrasound and told it might be an abscess and if it was she'd most likely have to be hospitalized.  Thankfully, it wasn't.  It was just two very large lymph nodes reactive to...something. Five days later, we still don't know what they're reacting to.  She's on an antibiotic but each day her fever is higher than the day before and we've now been to the doctor three times.  Currently, we're just waiting for results of the latest tests.  It's been scary and frustrating but I know God's got it.  I don't fear the worst.  And I know I'm here because even though she would have been well watched and well tended while I was away, it would have been horrible to not be with her while she's so sick.

But there's more going on, I think.  The decision to stay, not fully knowing the entire 'why' of it was pretty huge for me.  I like to know things.  I drive myself crazy with the need to know things.  And I can't know all things.  God just doesn't tell me everything whether I like it or not.  And this is why I think I have such a hard time with decisions.  I like to gather facts.  I do not like to be wrong.  I like to be right.  One hundred percent right.  But, this time, I followed my heart.  And I felt peace pretty immediately.  For a couple of hours.  And in those couple of hours I began to make plans: alright, well, postponed graduation, so now, the kids and I are both on summer break and it will be glorious;  quality time and I'll catch up on housework and start cooking again, etc.  And then as the evening wore on doubt started to creep back in.  By Saturday, even though Verity wasn't on the up and up, I was regretting my decision.  It began to sink in what I'd "given up:" a much needed break, time to focus on just me, silence, solitude, creative enlightenment and for what?  To hobble around the house in the mess and the noise and the chaos doing laundry?  Like I do every. single. day? And I started getting a little comfy on my pity pot.  But then, I also got quiet enough to look at what I was feeling.  To identify my feelings without judging them, to sit in them, to move past them.  And I stayed quiet.  In between doctor's visits and keeping vigil with the sick child and entertaining the well children, I've been examining my life a bit.  Recognizing too much to write here, today.

But I'm going to keep looking at the awareness and I'm going to pay attention to what I'm trying to tell myself -- what God is trying to tell me.  Because that's what I'm most taking away from this experience at this point, that I can trust myself.  So rather than draw up an elaborate plan of what I'm going to do with my free time (which, one thing I'm realizing about myself is that I like to be busy and have plans; free time is slightly uncomfortable for me) is just spend more time be-ing.  Being still and quiet, without expectation.  I'm going to listen to what's inside.  And I'm going to make some changes in order to do that.  I'm going to deactivate Facebook as an "experiment."  I can't be inside my own moments if I'm always in someone else's moments.  But I'm going to come here and write.  I could journal and that's great for sort-of vomiting out all the swirl inside my head, but when I'm here, I come closer to God and to what I really need to say.  And there's a bit of freedom knowing that even though I post here, I won't be, after today, linking to Facebook.  So, now I can just write and send my thoughts out to space in a way.

I'm excited because this is overdue.  I've been talking over myself for a long time and I'm going to practice really listening instead because I'm beginning to believe I have something important to say.

Why I don't Save Flowers

You spoil me with flowers.
Red roses at my door

on Valentine’s day.  Bouquets
brought home
fresh and fragrant
from the grocery store.

You are lavish in your flower
giving.  Petals strewn

across the floor, leading to the bed
where they lay in wait of romance, heart-shaped.
So, now,
our house is full of flowers:
                 in bloom

and wilting in their vases;
some now long expired.

You asked me once, long ago
why I don’t save flowers.
Why I don’t
hang and dry and tuck away
as memory.

I said that once I had

and I know it hurt your feelings.  Once I made
a collection out of flowers,
hung upside down on every wall
of my girlhood bedroom
single and in bunches tied with ribbon.
A flower gallery.
Each, reminder of a date or dance attended,
an apology or an attempt.  I knew
    each story,
each suitor.

Six years worth of accumulated flowers
finally taken down and trashed
when my parents split and sold their house.
Not one do I now recall
as special.  Not one do I remember
for individual sentiment.

Only
once more
after that
did I save
these emblems
given, these emblems destined only to die.

When the petals turned
from purest

red
to crimson black,
I placed them in the vase they came in,
perched this on my dresser.  Honestly,
I don’t remember the exact
    occasion
for which these were received.

Twelve years, four children, eight houses
and countless lies and broken promises later, I still had them.
I don’t

remember when they were given
but I do remember
when I let them go.  Crumpled,
dust layered,
now shelved inside
a closet.  I pulled them down and ceremoniously
threw them out, vase and all.
This act, more symbolic
than the actual flowers. 

I did this when I met you.

You, the flower giver.  You,
who shower me with bright
and beautiful bouquets.  That sit
and pose and rest
around the house;
that we photograph and draw
and paint
and for however poor

we always seem to be,
I feel gloriously well-off at the sight of these.
And I keep them even when
they’re drooping, faded and dried
up…until you bring me more and I’m out of vases.
Then I have no problem tossing so I can just replace.

And I guess the reason
I’ve saved none
is just that I don’t need to.
I have you.  You are the ever-living bright spot in my life,
the ever-giving blooming show of love.

You are the best arrangement:

almond flower promise of always and forever.
ambrosia because you love me too,
crimson carnation
to represent my passion,
mauve for what I dream of, and pearl for faithfulness.
so many tiny dots of cherry blossoms
for your many beauties,
leaning daffodil of brand new days,
creamy elderflower for your sweetness,
and white heather speckled bell-shaped flowers mean that you protect me,
lavender and honeysuckle for your devotion,
and simple, gorgeous jasmine for this unconditional love,
rainbow array of lilies, lotus for rebirth, and seashore mallow because I’m utterly consumed.
There is peach blossom because I never want our life together to end
and blossom of pear because we share a lasting friendship,
primroses in a circle speak to our eternal love, the trueness of this is seen in scarlet roses
and finally fuchsia displays my gratitude. 

And so I could give up flowers all together and forever if forever I’ll have you.

Margo Roby

Domestic Art

There is
           something
about laundry, eyed, hanging on a line outside, blowing in the wind,
                                       gathering
to it, the fresh scents of the air, the grass, the soil.
Like each
article, its own story, bodiless
but embodied
by the breeze, or words
with sunlit possibilities, written as a list, channeling a draft,
generating poem.

Too, something about hanging each item separately, shaking
it out, clipping—
calming.
Then, linen, cotton, single socks,
sheets, side by side, mingling, evidencing kinship, in flight
with each gust, unruly, billowing like flags of capitulation, shaking
in surrender.

Or seen in a neighbor’s yard:  an ink black nightie, too sexy
for an old lady, (not viewed as condemnation, just noted as a curiosity)
alongside doilies, embroidered, flowered pillowcases,
her husband’s underwear.

There is no shame in laundry.  All is clean.  Though the children giggle,
make fun, sense that privacy is on display.  Delicacies,
                                      like stolen candy.

Dried quickly on a Midwest summer day,
a woman
with basket hoisted like a baby on her hip
comes out to change loads.  The children scatter, not wishing to render
help.  This means a few moments of silence for the mother.  She works
slowly, enjoying a time of neither ennui nor enthusiasm, gradually
works her way toward the end, sighs, folds the last item, holds it up to her
face, smelling the fresh, crisp aroma of her labor, inhaling the possibility
of a poem.

The Sunday Whirl

Magpie Tales

Home

I have a home   I have memories of an earlier home
I have children   I was an only child
I have the near constant hum of noise
I remember the sounds of fighting
and chilled silence
I have loads and loads of laundry  washed
and unwashed   I did not learn how to wash
my own clothes until I was married
I usually have dishes in the sink 
I had tea parties with my dolls
I have art supplies  I used to draw Betty
and Veronica from the Archie Comics
I have a Bundt cake pan  
The first time I tried to bake a cake  the eggs
hardboiled themselves
inside the cake
I have a husband who cooks  We ate out a lot
I have books  
Books were my friends
I have help 
I felt alone  
I have love   I wanted love
I have fears   Fear grew inside me
I have imperfect vision   I wore huge glasses
I have responsibilities  credit cards
and no savings  
I never thought
to worry about money
I have routine   I enjoyed making lists
I am divorced and remarried  
I prayed
that my parents would stay together
I am an ex-piano player  
I hated practicing the piano
I wish I could still play
I have a busy mind   I had an active imagination
I have holes in my memory   I learned early
to fill in the blanks


Poets & Writers
Pink. Girl. Ink.

Watching

She wakes to the sound of the phone ringing,
though it is not early. 

She should be up.

Her mother on the other line

only

says, Turn on the TV. 

Something about her mother’s voice tells her
she should also wake her husband. 

Together, they observe the second plane fly
into the second tower. 

In real time.  The reporters.
had been reporting on the first. 

Had not
expected this.  Their shock and confusion
exposed as they simultaneously

attempt

to report and sort out what they
are seeing.  As the girl watches, something
both unfamiliar and frightening

begins
to stir; it takes up residence

within
her womb. 
She is young, expecting her first child
but now something else kicks

inside her, as new and strange as the small fetus.
Innocence souring. 

All her beliefs
about how life should be

were on that plane.

Margo Roby

Unfinished

Saffron yellow threads of light shine through
the slats of the window blinds.
She wakes early,
dresses, treads outside to greet the glow. 
Last night’s  rain left mud so she is careful
where she steps.  Otherwise,
there’s not a sign of storm, the sky of sapphire,
cloudless.  An owl, unaware
the sun soon will rise, still flies low
overhead, whoo-ing like she’s the trespasser.

She stands at crossroad in her own backyard,
glances once where pale
purple crocuses will open even in the snow.
Uninterested in their optimism, her footfall
finds dry ground to navigate
toward the lone rosebush her husband
planted years ago….years before he died.
The roses are on their second bloom of year. 
China pink at tips of petals, white in middle,
and at center, a color like golden butter.

She lets a finger slide along one stem,
stops and gently, barely pricks herself
with thorn.
She does this every morning− repeats this
strange ritual, where she contemplates
beauty alongside pain, draws
drop of blood, and with her tongue, suspends
the flow, tasting stannic sweetness.

She thinks of all she didn’t say
when he was with her.
She grants that much was said, but cannot
escape the truth that death has summoned
words laid latent she always thought
she’d have time
to verbalize.
Now, these words may as well be buried
alongside his body, for, though she’s taken
each meditation she’s had since and had
also then; let them burn unsaid,
then spoke aloud
with fervor at his grave, then wrote
them down as unsent letter, prose in journal,
and even poem, without response,
they’re worthless−
seeds that will never effloresce.  

She’s not been angry but for this, and every
sentiment she’s left with is one of praise.
Though not a day went by without the words
I love you uttered, now even those seem thin
and wanting.  Wrought with not enough.
Had she never held what all was planted
deeper in, she’d offer self-forgiveness
but the knowledge that these existed
without voice now haunts her.  She had tried. 
Found herself tongue-tied by the sheer emotion
felt, unable
to admit the ache that came with ardor.
So, now, the tiny throb of pulse from prick
all she has to serve as a reminder that once
necessary words were born and budded
in the silent soil
of her mouth.  She’s left
to mourn their suicide.  His, an honest death,
her words a scandalous, shameful hanging,
choked in this vacant air. 

So, she forms prayers of repentance
with hands that tend
the garden that he left her, frets over every
flower’s life but plucks them when they’re
close to expiration, preserves them
in a press.  The grass
grows free but weeds are promptly pulled.

Perhaps she believes the blossoms to be
expression and that care
will be her
reparation,
her suffering unfinished.

The Sunday Whirl

Bones

Could our souls be so open
we could build a fire?  Burn the bones
of our past?  We could start again−
            anew.
Find our souls unburdened
by our quondam havoc.

Yes, baby, unearth your skeletons
and I’ll dig up mine− each
clandestine secret ever held,
every fragment of shame,
every shard of self-reproach.

It’s a midsummer eve; let’s let the sun
set on all that came before we met.
We’ll watch
the framework of the witches
wither in the gilded flames
until their cackling dies out. 
The heat
will scorch our fear. 
We’ll be reborn.

These bones have been our bane
and bondage.  They rise at night
to haunt and taunt, remind
us of our sins; their limbs rattling
as they boldly dance around our bed.

So, during
day, in safety, we’ll bring them
to the light.  We’ll make
a ring of rocks to place disparted
bodies in.  Pile high, bone by bone,
every soulless fuck, every thief
of worth.  Abjuring
in our conflagrant ceremony,
the selves we used to be and the selves
the bones once feigned to be. 
We’ll throw in skulls with cavernous
sockets, where eyes would be, still
as vacant as when flesh filled
face.  We’ll throw in cold and lifeless
frail fingers and inhuman hands
that once grasped for all that was not theirs. 
Their lying tongues have rotted,
their fraudulent hearts, decayed.
Ears that would not listen, now
do not exist and wills that would not stop
when asked, have been long put to rest.  

Now, just bones.
Once the bodies of men who wielded
their weapons like promise, women
who seduced the weak and watched
while their victims moaned and writhed
beneath their honeyed words of power,

now, unburied, we see, these bodies
are just bones.  Without garments of skin,
they are nothing but brittle stories.

The stars will come tonight to shine
their blessing and we’ll drop the match
and we will not mourn
as bones at last turn to ash.

Poets United

Broken Pleas

Lord, hallowed be your name. Merciful / Lord
                                of reconciliation, hear my / poem as prayer; these broken
pleas in lines,
Lord; /                                        
                                                                             metronomic musings,
unmusical, / heavy with fear.  Lord, hear not my
                                       numb speech /
                                                                                                      but the token−
                                 the meaning.                                                            Take
away / the hindrance of self−
                                the sense of− and leave / with me a greater sense
of your presence; / Your spirit within revealing signs,
                                                                             sight / restored
                                                                       and light.  Within this rare shining, /
shine through
the gift of losing self to You. / This vital understanding
awakened / only in sheets of grace poured out and down /
                                and seen in strips of visibility, / so release me of all pride,
                                                         generate / humility and create connection /
                                                          so I might dine with you in communion /
drink from goblet
                                                                                              of signification /
                                                                                             my sins forgiven
by sipping tipped back / offering and again in harmony / I pray Thy kingdom
come, Thy will be done…. /
                                       Amen.

The Sunday Whirl
                                                                                                          

Light Calling

She held
  her life in her own hands
as if it were an egg.  Strange, small,
     fragile.
A world within, unknown. 
Unexpectedly still intact, she had never seen the whole
of a shell. She imagined
the egg pulsed; felt not vibration
from this hope but believed
    birth
not death
would be discovered if she were careful.

Between her thumb
and middle finger, she held it up to the light
streaming through her bedroom window,
to see if she might see inside
but found the covering too thick.
Still, with her index finger, she twirled
this secret little world around;
an oval earth rotating on axis of her will.   
She cupped it gently
                   in her palm,
feeling its cold, smooth shape.
She placed it on a piece of paper, spun it like a bottle
in a kissing game;

removed her touch and noted shadow
and when tired of speculation,
                 she devised a plan for hatching.
She made a nest of blankets in a basket
and went to sleep to wait.  She dreamed
she was inside the egg, warm and safe and placid,
curled up tightly in a ball.  She felt this
while her eyes were closed but a sound
from faraway
woke her and her eyes without permission opened.
Her confinement produced no great unease
though her feet began to tingle.

She strained
        to hear the sound outside herself− a voice,
muffled,
       deep.
Conflicting thoughts entered her mind. 
She felt compelled to venture out and meet the call
but also wary.  There seemed only one way out−
that of fracture and this, if she were honest, she feared,
so holed up like a mole in hiding she fell back asleep. 
For years. And in the dream she dreamed she woke
unable to remember where she came from but knowing
who she was. 

And light was streaming
       through
the bedroom, spreading over her, so welcoming
the day, she stretched
        and was subtly aware
that as she did, small bits of shell fell softly off her,
though overall this was unremarkable.  Sitting
on the edge of her bed, she stilled a moment before rising,
and asked the voice that was in the light if she might
be able to see at last the large world outside herself,
and for the ability to release her will, offering herself
to the divine, deriving
power from something higher, demanding nothing
and asking for help only and finally, when she stood,
                                                            with eyes wide open,
she walked out toward the calling,
                                                             unafraid.

Margo Roby

Our Bedroom

The lock on the door that does not keep the children out; every
size of sock, balled up, scattered everywhere, unpaired;
dead
deep-red roses
drooping sadly, heads bowed down, stems entombed in a clouded
vase− eleven of them, so, one short of a dozen
(strange); brown framed
               depiction
of a laughing, happy Jesus beneath a brown for background
canvas of our names in cursive inside heart of petals; bought
for twenty dollars at a yard sale,
          end of day,
two velvety violet-ish
couches, covered in dog hair, one doubling as a desk, the other
as a hamper; on the coffee table, another vase (this one tinted pink)
with withered flowers– these of unknown variety – purple, too many
to count;...

Plants do not fare well here.  Like the best-laid plans.

                         ... edges
everywhere, crossed, overlaid: books, furniture, shoes overlapping
the edge
where carpet meets tile;
edge of dresser, mantle,
nightstands, all surfaced with papers, trinkets, valuables
and not-so-valuables, threatening
to topple
off;...

There are no clear lines here.  Sharp-played piano keys sound
out.  I cannot tune
                        it out.
Not
plunking of rote song
but rather impromptu melody made by small, playful fingers,
moving like geed horses
and also bullet-voices marking breaks, shooting through
these flimsy walls.

...bluest blue sky
seen from my window; subtler blues inside, copycat shades
on candles, glass, hair on a painting where I was favoring
experimentation, in photographs, scarves,
sheets; lip balm in a small, round tin that I can’t open
but won’t throw out; few spots open for sitting or even walking;...

A dismal mess.  Signaling
   disorder
in our marriage? 
So says a study.

...blanket thrust off the bed in heat, still crumpled on the floor;...

What calm I remember, a ruse believed sub rosa, wrought carefully
with such intricate threads of denial.

...words, words, words, meandering across pages and pages−
poems, prayer journal,
notebooks full of distilled hope; (such
              shallow thirst)
attempts to release heavy weight of this; damaged trust
hidden in a drawer;
half-truths pandering to sentiment hanging on all the walls;...

Media in vitae in morte sumus.

...paperwork combed through for clues; in bowls, matching rings,
unworn; captured and enlarged mocking smile; the muck
of bad luck evidenced in disarray; indulged in urges; aroma
of your cologne, distinct; written rants; and more than what
is written here or even seen.

But, oh, beautiful, imperfect man− my room was a mess
before you moved in.

The Sunday Whirl
                       

HOW TO GRIEVE A DREAM

First:  acknowledge that it is a dream
you grieve−
nothing more.

I have just that.
Nothing more.  I have just begun. 
Have only just stood
in the hollow made by that assent
staring into the void, turning
my soiled hands around and around
to see if I can recognize the dirt
woven in with my veins.
Have only just
recently seen
that it (we− you) was
(were) merely what I wanted it to be
and nothing more.

How, seeking reality, did I,
made of clay, sculpt
man with such care, my hands
so gently
smoothing?  Yes, my fingers
can still feel skin where I thought
your face to be.  I cannot call to mind
an image of my thumbs sinking
into your flesh
carving out cup-shaped sockets
to look so deeply into
but here, I see,
beneath my nails, the mud.
What greater sin than this
surmoulage?  I do not believe I breathed
when we kissed.

I had a falling dream and woke to find
I really fell.  I am still plummeting.
In the mornings, words greet me.
Unfinished words, I long ago
(not that long ago) began to paint
stenciled on my wall.  The pencil
marks for every letter
are still there, illegible
from anywhere but up close
but the crimson color fill-in fills in
three letters only of a phrase
that was meant to say
a room of one’s own.  I left
the project incomplete
when you moved in.  

Too, unseen, behind books
another fragmentary sentiment:
Half-done purple painted verse:
Hosea 2:14.  I followed your voice
instead, afraid of the desert
and true tenderness.

All these partial writing on the walls.
Like the picture taken early on
that now looks altered in this light.
I can’t say quite how I perceived it before
but now your grin jumps out
too self-assured and my own small smile
registers a certain wariness as if that girl
knew more than what I know now.
And there I wore, and wear even now,
around my neck a symbol of your heart,
that supposed offering.

I think step two is to stop addressing
everything to you, to turn away
from that which I’ve created so I can see
in whose image I’ve been made.
To see what is truly bound,
not around my neck, but on my forehead,
what is tied as symbol to my hands,
what is fixed in my heart and mind.
What words expressed,

I do not wish to make you smaller
than life but only life-sized, finally
so I can recognize my hands when clean.
You can then break, freely.
I will leave your pieces be and pray,
confessing guilt for forgery
and after kneeling, my eyes will see
the evidence of woodwork, revealing
that I have never been alone.

dverse

These Things

A dream
is a poem
is a dream.  Obscure.  I am picking it apart
for clarity, piecing back as best I can, the glimpses,
fragile, lightweight half-truths that they are
and I am considering letting them drop.
                                  Letting them go.
(Though they shine)

I do not want to write you this.
I do not want to write one more poem for you.
I cannot avoid this.  I cannot mature
past this
point.
Past
     this dream.

You have just brought me a cup of coffee−
     these
are the sweet thing
you do.  You ask if there is anything else
you can do, lightly touching my back, leaning
                    in
to kiss me.  These things
that I’ve interpreted as love− as if love
is a formula to be expressed by specific
                   symbols.
But nothing is this simple.

You have left me with my coffee and my pen
to write.  Do you guess that I will write of you? 
My hands are bleeding.
As for the rest of me− what will
become of it now?  What
will  I look like
in the mirror anymore, I wonder.

We only ever saw the stars
                      so dazzling,
the one night.  Remember?  Even though
every night, I look up.  I said that night
that we were missing all the good stuff.
I don’t know what I meant.  These− all−
are just fragments.  Our foreheads touching,
unaware someone was taking a photo. 
Were you asking if there was anything I needed?
Did I fall asleep with vision of that moment?
Just that one.  That one and ones like it
and build dreams
to carry me through
the waking?  What will I do now?  Everyone
else was looking at the camera but all I saw
was you.

Margo Roby

Belonging

Not long at all
after we started dating, we declared our song to be “Ho Hey”−
which is a stupid name for a song so we refer to it instead
by the lines of its chorus & these lines, I bought for you
on your birthday with a frame & now hanging
above our bed
are the words, “I belong to you,
you belong to me.”  I read recently
that:
“There is a reason the word belonging has a synonym
for want at its center; it is the human condition”
& I suppose this is true, but the thing is, though now
I can’t imagine how I’d live (or ever did) in your absence,
belonging either to or with another was something
that I always feared; autonomy, the language that I spoke,
the rift that I created to exist between us & somehow,
in spite of this, you caught me & being caught
turns out to not be bad
at all.  In ways, to be sustained in union produces certain
new-found freedoms.
Shortly after I ceased resisting, I found
encompassed in your arms, room to move in brand new ways.
                                   Allurement
sifting previous notions, softening
the hard ground I’d stood upon, so flight became an option. 
Beneath my feet, the sturdy rocks
I’d forever taken for granted began to shift like old, rickety
floor boards in a dangerously aging house
& jumping now, a bit more promising…

another strange
fact of speech discovered in what it means to cleave−
the unwritten understanding that inherent in the explanation
of is a choice:  to split from or stick fast to or also
both if interpreted in biblical terms
& I think
my reasons for remaining
in my alienage were simply
tools
constructing makeshift cliff I wished someone would
save me from, quite confused on the differences between
what was desire & what was need until you kissed me
& my bones turned into wings.  I still can’t speak to you
of love without a stutter but at least the subject
no longer renders me completely silent.  Your courage
baffles me & fuels my own.  Together, we
compose unspoken,
unmatched melody reviving romance.  Released
from cloud-capped
captivity, I’m flourishing feet on ground.

The Sunday Whirl

What's Constant

Baby, I can’t tackle
the news or noise− I’ve tried.
I can’t take the static
or the slant or the supposed
statistics anymore, so,
I return to you
curl up in the comfort of us.

I read the stories,
the suppositions, all the slander,
and I get worked up
and then worn out and my ears
just hurt.

I start
to fear
for the state of the nation
and the future of the truth
and where it stands.

I start
to fear my own voice, the burn
in my throat
so I return to truth.

    I begin again to poise,
                          to position myself
                          on the side
                          of what I know
                          is right.

                          I return to you,
simply,
because baby, see,
truth is, you’re my voice
of calm in this crazy world
                         and you’re the reason
to my rhyme,
     meaning,

not that you’re my higher power
but only that you’re one

God-given reason to believe in one, 

so because
I can’t write lines
to tickle the ears of the masses
and because

I have a knack
for leaving unfinished
what I’ve started…
or
rather, an addiction
to new ideas
that trumps my commitment
to completion,

    I find it easiest
               to just write
never ending words for you.

I try and center,
remember back
two days ago
how we had a downpour

and the thunder
roared
and the
ground flooded, the rain trampling all
the dirt

and how
when the sun returned
I noticed like it was a brand
new phenomenon and I heard some bird
song vying for attention
                         that I’d never
heard before.

How suddenly the sky clearing−
sun-cracking ember first
then brightest blue warding off
the clouds
seemed quite poetic
and verse-worthy.
How I hadn’t even realized
before that moment
that my mood
had matched the weather.

The weather is as fickle
as the headlines
but at least it’s fresh.
So, I’m drawing from that instant
a little bit of joy
and cleansing and I’m likening it
to you because

I’m convinced that if anything
in this world remains as good, it’s love
and baby, love
is me and you.

Love is the way you
look at our daughters
like they are morning
glories just discovered
in earliest hours.

It’s the way
you teach our sons
how to be men
in a world of boys.

It’s the way you
tuck me in
and wake me up
with the prickle of goose bump kisses.
It’s that your kind
and that I’m rather fond of you.

It’s that your thoughts echo
and your heart mirrors mine.
It’s your midday call and your steady
talk that’s balm for my frantic
overloaded mind.

And though the seasons
                         shift
and the clock
ticks quickly and time
slips fast away
especially when we’re together
                    the fact remains
                    that your presence
is reminder
that love, not fear, fuels
voice.

So, I’m done wrestling
with words of protest.

I’m done with platform
and with preaching.
I’m giving in instead
to what some
             still
believe makes the world
go round.

I’m silencing whatever’s in me
that’s afraid of healing.
It seems this fallen world
            has finally culminated
to a place of mass insanity,
given itself over to terror
and to hate

but I now surrender
      in this dark
      hour
to a purer force−
that of love.

And I’d rather write sap than filth,
romance than lies; I’m energizing

   my own peace movement,
my own
sit-in where I don’t move
until I’ve swayed

my heart
toward courage; the courage
to write on and on to you,
unashamed of simple love poems
believing there’s still
room
for progress on that front.

Spent

I.

To put things in perspective:
there are children starving
in Africa…
and in India…
and even here− in America ( the Beautiful).

The above−
       a note to self.
My-self:  who, sadly, it is easiest to think of.

II.

The list of what
                 we can’t afford
is growing rapidly.
Meanwhile, we are not in view
of any bright or grand futurity.
The middle class is learning
that the stark black type that wrote them in
and the white blank space that offered room
to move were merely hues….or shades.
Not anything to be counted on.

Now, the gap widens and we more clearly see
the grays defining
just exactly what transgressions truly are.
The grays grasped
like straws, like the slippery lowest rung,
are bleeding up as we begin to understand
what it means to go without.

Oh, Lord, forgive me for hoarding
such loftiness of speculation.
Je suis farci of self.
Hard times will soften hearts or lines.

The underclass, the so-called dregs,
the  demimonde, still by definition work
and the women at the bottom relent to roles
and certain rites of supposed passage, sights
set on some lying light
at
the end
of a very long tunnel, the flame
anymore barely visible, just the dimmed
orange of a waning candle

Forgive me my judgment of all the women
who walk Van Buren selling selves,
who close their eyes beneath
the looming power anticipating
drug of choice and its promise of relief−
the feeling of (if only fleeting) being at last
reborn; the only promise ever kept. 
Forgive me scorn for those who only
seek asylum, fleeing to a country that at least
has food to offer if not welcome.

As we learn,
now, to live in a nation whose dream has expired,
along with any generation still inclined to mourn
the loss, I ask for pardon
for all previous assumptions. 

I still tell
my children that there are children starving
in Africa…in India…right here, in the land
of vagaries.  We’ve never missed a meal. 
We’ve never walked a mile in a child’s
footsteps on way to well for water. 
So what do we know of need? 
Divorce us, Lord, of separation if you will
or must to break us into recognition. 
Reveal your heartbreak and stay your hand.
Grant us less not more and bind perspective
around our necks.  

The Sunday Whirl

Ode to My Muse

Cloud promising a rainbow,  persistent, though rarely loud,
   looming moodily above my days, daze
          inducing.  Wisp of woman, shadow-formed, entering my kitchen
          in the steam

from stove; my bedroom in my husband’s arms, my mind
at any time, seducing.  Her hands are songs, holding mine, pulling me away, casting spell with wand
of many hues that bloom like flowers,

recognizable by aura
and soft scent
of childhood mixed with specks of mystery. Somber yet also playful, contradiction is her trade mark. 
I am powerless in her presence.

         I can taste her when I wear my apron
            and her lines crawl across my skin in looping scrawl, spilling
            into,
            in through my willingness to listen, to be found.  To see from the sea
            of my moments

            and my movements, her as land, lush
            and fruitful.  Voice of sirens carrying across my waves, reducing
            distance. 
                                      When she is through with me she leaves me                                                                                                 spent.
She knows I love to love and hate her
and that when I remove my apron,
she’s the one I blame.


Poetic Bloomings

Surrender

So, I drip sap for you.
Wrangle
words.
You are my vice.
You are mine.
I have given
up the fight, tired
of pretending
there's anything
                    I want
to write about but
you.

dverse

I hate

I hate being a poet…and by hate, I mean love.        
And by love, I mean
             only,
that I am compelled,
driven here. 
I hate that I can’t write about Israel,
or sunsets and daisies,
or in the voice of Sophocles.
I hate that I still write best
in the language of a teenager full of angst − and by best,
I mean, I’m most satisfied.  I hate that I write poems
      to you
and that I write poems about writing poems. 
That emotions more than imagery crowd the page,
panting.  That I forget that moods aren’t facts.  I hate
the need – the greed for words.  I hate
that I tend to complicate with forced routine.  I hate
that I’m readable and relatable and I hate
that I just presumed that.  I hate that I’m confessional. 
I hate that I’m not more academic, scholarly, referential,
clever or elusive.  I hate that that’s a fact.  I hate
that I worry I’m meant to write not poems
but rather drivel in a diary
and that I want to wring the little neck of Philomel.

Most of all, I hate that I sling words like hate and words
like love around.  That I’m a typical fill-in-the-blank. 
That I’m an adult child always waiting for the other shoe
to drop, seeing things in only black or white. 
That I’m an alcoholic thriving in one
of only two extremes: chaos or that damn
short-lived pink cloud state. 
I hate that I’m a co-dependent who’s ill-at-ease
to think the honeymoon is over
so now I’m writing angsty teenage poems
instead of cleaning the bathroom like a good wife
would.  I hate these labels
and that I fit them
so damn well.  That the evidence is in.  I hate that I give
myself up and away with this need, this greed for words. 
I hate that I’m an ego-maniac with an inferiority complex
and that I can’t tell you outright
that I still feel jealous of other women
and that I start and finish stupid poems about you
looking.  That when we’re in what we like to call a funk,
I won’t admit
that I don’t want you to take that part-time job
because I worry you’ll run off.   I hate that the economy
has tanked and that we’re broke.  That real life
gets in the way of playing house and that our kids,
most days,
scare the shit out of me−meaning, the amount
and also
the responsibility.

But,
baby, I love you
and maybe that’s all that counts.

Rupture

Can you hear me over the sound of the story /
you’re rehearsing in your head? 
Can you see me out- / side the mirror
your reflection’s bound to, your image /
bending to your will? 
Can you see your heart in there?
My mouth is open, I’m speaking words,
while you are / posing, pursing
lips, pressing send.  What is it that / you pursue? 
What glory do you imagine?
What / wish is thrown in what well
when you casually / toss your change my way?
What hero from what Greek myth / do you play
today?   I need to know my part, my / role
so I can swoon on cue.  You’re the lead
and I’m  / supporting actor− is there another option? /
Your wisps of truth fall slow like sand in the hour - /
glass of time you’re wasting and when the glass
shatters / your lies will leak.
You’ll be exposed and I will wash / my hands of you,
because I have tried
to reach you. / I have stared into your vacant eyes,
tried to climb / the wall you’ve built to keep out
those you fear would call / you out
and my arms and legs are tired.  / I’ll leave you be. /
I’ll keep your secret.  You keep your superhero /
mask.  Save face with your stored excuses.  Hide
behind / feigned power.  Attempt to mend
your martyred heart and / I will pardon
your inability to love / because after all
you’re just a scared and hurting / boy grown
into the dim shadow of a man.

With Real Toads