Can you believe it's been a year since I blogged here? I told someone the other day "2020 is just a big bird dropping splotch on our calendars. Nothing happened, or so it seems." Now we've rolled around to another Postcard Poetry and I shamelessly will promise to get better again about blogging and hope to have some good news before this year in over.
In the meantime, here is PoPo 2021:
The Great Wall of China in Six Parts
Can you see me up there at the top of the hill?
All you need to do is enter, step...step by step.
Up, up, follow what path has been given you,
a map, unnecessary when it's all laid out for you.
A window,
essential to seeing in,
and seeing out.
Vast,
with so much promise,
all that is required is to
open
eyes
wide
shut.
The Chinese wall,
intended as protection,
was a path for
travelers...and so one could move,
stand still,
balk,
reach,
reject,
run to or from,
fear,
admire,
care for,
or seek to destroy.
And I stand and wait,
watching moons and suns ascend, descend,
stars come out and diminish,
comets vanish,
planets born, die, change names,
and a plan for your return
in the distance,
where I can make out
the thin form of your resistance.
Where it begins, ends,
falls in disrepair,
seems invisible
from the blind eye,
rolls,
like the blood in your veins,
connected,
never completed severed,
always pulsing,
always present,
always struggling.
Spring arrives each year with hope,
a new possibility with
a non-holiday holiday. Cruises
into summer, on the edge,
the opportunity to reject once again,
just like autumn does; and winter disappoints,
over and
over again.
Family Legends
The stuff for family legends isn't always worth repeating even though details may be clear and unforgotten. When my son was lost at sea and there were helicopters searching dark waters, his father trying to figure out how he would explain to me he'd lost our boy, who was sound asleep in a deep bunk midship. Rescue teams cheered while we fumbled with untrusted emotions.
However I'm Dressed
I know you think this is an invitation.
It's not.
It's me,
being me.
On the beach,
the pool,
walking down the street,
over the bridge,
in school,
at work,
in the grocery line,
at the theater,
wherever you see me,
however I'm dressed,
no matter how much skin
I choose to show,
or hide...
this
is
not
an
invitation.
LOSING YOU
Losing you was losing a part of my history.
There were things that only you and I
could remember and now
I must remember them on my own.
With no one to validate the memories.
And the sadness is not so much
that you are gone,
it's that we are gone.
aLmOSt NoRmaL
We almost started
being a little normal.
Trader Joe's even took down
their plastic shields.
Masks were optional
for the vaxxed.
Too soon.
Wildfires make the skies hazy.
Again.
This.
This is our new normal.
Masks fulfill multiple purposes.
We are all frogs
in a warming pot.
The canary has sung.
Chinooks
Lavish Saturday morning
breakfasts at Chinooks.
Laughing family laughs, eating
honeyed butter, and the tingly taste
of orange zest. Seagulls
piercing the calm of the drizzle
hanging under the sky, scolding
us for living too well, telling us to
go home,
pack for the future.
Forgiving Myself
Flipping through old notebooks, photos, clippings, poems,
quotes, flattened matchbooks. Hours pass as the sun floats across the southern sky
on a warm summer afternoon and I, caught indoors, forget the garden, the dust
and dishes and all other duties, forgiving myself for places I meant to see,
words left unspoken, dried up tears, ships that have sailed.
Life Redirected
Once I had submitted to the life
that had been redirected for me,
I dove in headlong. Limbs
no longer were a matter for
prom gowns and
summers at the lake,
ski slopes or wooden stages.
I became a leg to cling to,
a vessel of milk, rich and blue,
arms never empty,
a backbone
stronger than my mother
ever predicted.
New shoes,
a different hat.
The Summer of '66
The summer of '66,
I thought I had
everything figure out. But
I missed some things.
How to protect myself.
How to fight back.
How to say "no."
My outlook
was always cheery and
I was confident. There were
leading roles in my future,
straight A's,
the Dean's list. There were
other lists, too, which
I could not have foreseen.
I have no regrets but
I have some good advice.
Our heads were filled with magic
and a new ancient language.
We walked on whaling beaches
where history has been forgotten
by those who choose to change it.
The songs,
the food,
the stories,
the mystical words,
clicking and soothing,
the craggy beautiful faces,
the clamshell yearning
for a different time and place
Master Thief
I'll teach you how to steal he said.
First you take the little things
They go unnoticed. The big things
are harder; you're always being watched.
But it's not impossible. You must be
brave and put on a face, as if
you don't care at all. Pretend
it belongs to you. The
difficult part is when
they steal from you. Some
have nothing of
value. He taught me how to steal.
He was a Master Thief.
New York September 2019
East Village
was a perfect time
in the city garden
with Marta, who had
the key to let us in to the
fairy lights and
marjoram, parsley,
Simon and Garfunkel warbling
over speakers meant for
dayworkers. It was a
sister kind of night,
young and brash,
old and wrinkled,
in between,
imparting stories, opinions, guidance,
raucous laughter, tittering giggles,
bold invitations, glasses never
half empty, pushing the morrow
out of our minds.
CATS
My son wrote a little
personal essay once about our cats; past,
present, and future. He was 9 at the time
and it was
one of the sweetest things
I've ever read by anyone. He
laboriously typed it out on my "Selectric"
and I still believe I will find that yellowed
piece of parchment paper in a box
someday. I miss all those cats.
Brave
Looking back, I can see
the crack forming when Brave
died. A strong beautiful hen,
so named because
Brave
was who she was. One of the
original brood, she
carried so much weight
on her tiny feathered wings;
so many expectations,
future dreams,
silent songs,
little secrets,
prospects for a formidable foundation.
Hope.
Peanut Butter Memories
My bro and I shared a love
of certain edible things.
Popcorn,
tacos... and peanut butter
on warm toast with butter melted
and dripping! You bite into it
and it oozes between
your teeth, gets stuck
to your cheek hollows and
you wash it down with a cup of
good strong coffee. All
those things
make me remember him;
olfactory memories.
Kornfeld
He was just a guy
who lived in my building. I
collected his rent
every month. He smoked
so I saw him outside
usually. I
talked with him
and his son about
football, croquet,
dogs, the weather. He
died alone in a hospital
room while others
were attended to. No
one was saved. I
was the only person
he said goodbye to.
Childish Summer
Mornings were soft and fresh...
smell of dust from
the alley, green wet
grass. Trees, with gnarly
roots, to create spaces under,
outdoor sanctuaries with
rock-lined borders, little imaginary
shops where fairies visited
after dusk, when children
were meant to be
indoors.
Dolls dragged out of
bedrooms, then found
in the morning dew, forgotten,
then retrieved and
loved again. Kool-aid
with so much sugar
it hurt your teeth, soda
crackers, peanut
butter, fresh picked
berries, slightly
dusty. Barefoot
for weeks on end;
toes splayed in September.
Battle Lines
Battle lines
were drawn.
One of us fought hard,
the other with a short stick,
keeping monsters
at bay. It ended
in an emotional rout and
open wounds closed
eventually but
the salt remained.
Ships sailed.
Horizons fell dark
but never stayed that way.
New shores harkened.
Castles were built
on sand.
California
Songs have been written about California,
the beaches, the palm trees, the sunset pigs, the hotels.
It pulled me until I got fed up with partial truths, earthquakes,
and broken promises.
I won't forget the swarm of baby hummingbirds,
Olvera Street, mean geese in Sacramento, canyon bike rides,
being taken for rock stars, Paul Bunyan, the pier,
candles in wine bottles, and your hair.
Fall 1968
I loved the market,
even the odors of raw fish, mixed
with the pungent smells of mums
and marigolds. It wasn't a tourist
attraction yet, just a place to buy
from vendors, the deli, and a newsstand
with hundreds of selections;
I could've hung out there all day. I
bought pudding from
the sweet Asian lady,
a peach,
and a tomato,
which I ate whole,
sprinkled with salt.
You told me I was pregnant.
We Saw the World
From the time I was 6 or 7, my bicycle was total freedom. No
one really cared much where I was in our safe, small town. I was GONE, down the
street, around the corner and into the wild. When he was 2 and I was 11, my
baby brother joined me, perched in the
basket on my handlebars. We saw the world. Our world. We had no borders and
wide horizons.
Another Country
I loved you in another country
There were maps leading us down roads, over seas,
into mountains and jungle, that we imagined
or simply conjured. So we could
go our own way, like birds
in a murmuration, whirling,
changing with a whim, impossible
to follow.
Off the charts.
CHURCH
Anklets, bare legs all the way up to the Sunday panties, Mary Janes
that pulled socks down over the heel, like a tiny determined conveyor belt,
repeatedly. Impossible to find two socks that matched, per order of Mom.
Late. Snow splattered on the landscape like crispy sugar. Holding a heavy green
hymnal with crackling pages, wishing to be home
having hotcakes with Dad.
The Eye
I miss you, Dad. You always had an eye on us,
even when we were far far away.
You were all seeing and you knew
everything.
At least we thought you did and
that was good enough for us.
OUR HOUSE
Our house was a very very very fine house,
on the best street,
on the best hill,
in the best city,
in the best state,
in the best country,
on the best planet.
We used to sing this song
when we thought nothing could change,
fooled
by our image of reality.
We were so wrong.
Distant Smoke
In the distant smoke of the future, I will not acknowledge
pain or sorrow. I will see my beauties as full-grown
human sculptures, perfect in every way,
better even,
having gained wisdom
through ears and eyes. May they
always think of me,
who loved them completely,
as one who cradles them through
distant smoke.
And now another year of PoPo has been completed. I ask the post office to hand-cancel my little poems as they are sent abroad and near, in hopes words will be left clear and legible, but there is always some overzealous postal worker, who needs to run these tiny pictures through mean machines. One hopes they arrive somewhat intact and if not, here are all the words, and the images, too. Cards are collected at estate sales mostly and these poems are rough drafts, written as prompts, using the postcard for inspiration. Many will be reworked and polished. Look for them and others in my poetry chapbook, available at the end of the year.
Thanks for reading...
