Poem for the Right and for the Wrong
In the Spring
everything is names
and numbers
messages sent
at the same time
and the way
the most simple ‘hello’
can sound so familiar
when I’m on my porch
alone
for all of May
with the songs
about songs
saying something
about turning
my back
on a friend
and me trying to figure
who I was turning on more
after all was said
with not much done
it was only me
alone on my porch
in spite of
that white bird
that blue shirt
all of this after
the long slow thaw
and how we danced
through those months
of too-short days
there’s no such thing
as wasted time
and even though
I never did find out
if you could slow down
the clock
I don’t believe
in broken hearts anymore
not on days like this
with everything so hot
like blood in the sun
and so much living and dying
while the grass just keeps on
growing
and the clouds
look like they’re trying
to rain
I’ll just keep telling the story
of the two copperheads
that my father killed
in the woodpile on a Sunday
while the pear trees
smelled like sex
and the bees buzzed on
like it was nothing
like it was nothing
like it was nothing
under those skies
on that finally quiet day
in June
when it just didn’t matter
all that much
anymore
what I claimed to choose.
Unsculpture
Today, without ceremony,
sans sentiment
I tore down the Hand of God
(untitled)
or at least started to anyway,
I left the frame
for another day,
another afternoon.
Unremarkable,
just cleaning up
an old mess I made.
Broken glass and the rust
of a yesteryear righteousness
the chicken wire
drawing blood
the hardware cloth
the nails
in a skeleton
of rotted wood
there in the Northwest corner
of my yard
which was,
years ago,
a beautiful place
and is still a beautiful place
though in a different way,
a far more moldering way.
Today, without ceremony,
without a single photo,
I peeled away the splintering waves
pushed the boat from where it sailed
atop the frame
and felt pleased
when it shuddered and cracked
upon hitting the ground
tearing a limb from the maple
as it fell,
in a great feat
reversed.
I pushed down
what I had once pushed up
and the children were just as delighted
to see it destroyed,
as they were when I raised it from the ground,
over my head,
and pushed, pushed,
up toward the sky.
“This is fun,” my son called,
as he smashed the boat apart
there on the muddy ground,
without ceremony.
Formation Song
These raindrops,
half-hearted until I really listened,
sound out a serious rhythm
a march to war,
a grand rally,
a big game
something more important than anything
that this day
just beginning – damp and lazy,
would seem to have in its plans
But, on the old metal sawhorse
whose only work now
is to patiently hold back the Calycanthus
and to slowly rust
in the corner of the yard
a movement is mounting
a syncopation found
in the hapless fall of water
being pulled back into the earth
doing the only thing it can do
when it finds the edge of the roof
which is to dumbly drop
with no knowing and no intent
And, oh, surprise
it becomes
a battle hymn
steady and certain
for this morning that is full
of quiet, whole-hearted falls
and almost unnoticeable journeys
back to where we belong.
An Imperfect Sonnet for a Dying Mother
How can I tell you, my dying mother
that you will turn to a bright comet soul
upon death, when the body becomes other
a wish to stay is the most futile goal
Your gaze to the edge of the field is long
hands clasped tightly, holding luminous ropes
“What?” she says, “I will miss life. Is that wrong?”
the mortal’s love spans all lands of false hopes
Yet, I am certain that with final breath
you will see, your eyes untethered at last
it’s true: the dead miss nothing upon death
we all become like comets, light and fast
The falling star does not cling to the night
even unseen, it shines then dies bright
To say you are the bones of your old hands
metacarpals, nails bent, a dying liver
the blood and substance of ancestral lands
in veins that cross flesh branched as a river
to call yourself by the knots of your spine
looking in the mirror at the face you know
not catching reflections, simple lines
the arrow fallen away from the bow
You are convinced that the name they gave you
bundled mass of cells and new beating heart
is somehow yours eternal and most true
from which you can and never will part
Your real name is a whisper on warm wind
The Scientist’s Lobotomy
Did you look inside her
at that place
where you imagined
all those demons, that disease?
Was she split open
like a shell
for its soft fruit
to be examined
by the stainless tines
of science?
What did you find, in that shimmering inside?
Was it not so dark as you thought it might be?
Did you see, there in the folds, the pits that you pictured?
Did you find
what you expected
empires of rot and lesion?
Did you swim
in the swamps
tucked into the coasts between
this region and that region,
get lost in the tangles
like cities on a roadmap?
Or was it softer, smoother…perfect?
Did the gentle pink edge remind you of a shell
that you once picked up from the shallows of the ocean?
Did the salt on your lips taste like waves?
There were patterns in the sand and you traced them
as mountains.
You saw the pools, your eyes reflected against the sky reflected …and you knew the truth.
You found it in that shell that held the sunset.
That soft slick pink and bruise
of grey and blue
that felt, to you,
soft like your mother
could never be.
For a moment, the whole world was there
and your finger felt
the sound inside
like music.
It’s so easy to forget
that you wanted to live
inside that place
where the ocean roared
against your ear
for you alone to hear.
When you looked inside
did you see
the landscape of her memory?
Was the universe in there?
Did it look like sand?
…or just a small segment
of tissue asleep
that you carved out
and placed on a scale,
as though this matter
could be weighed?
Was it barely alive at all?
Tell me, what was the smell of her,
in that deep
dark opening
that you made?
Did you find, tucked into a crenellated warmth,
the place where her voice
was born?
You never heard it.
She never spoke.
You never listened?
You’ve forgotten
which came first and what it was
that you were looking for
in the first place
in that space
behind her closed eyes.
Do you see that, even sleeping, her mouth looks like a bow?
You have no way of knowing
that as a child
she sang the same song
over and over again
because it made her happy,
made her heart lift up to the clouds,
spirits spinning melody.
Tell me, when you pulled
the two halves apart
did they make
any noise at all?
Tell me, what did you see inside?
Did you find God?
…or did God find you?
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