Author
Poetry
My poems are inspired by seeing new things as well as looking at familiar things more closely. Have a read and feel free to let me know if any of them resonate with you.
You May Never Pack Correctly
You must accept that you may never pack correctly.
You will have lists based on good suggestions.
You will have lessons learned from trips past
And a heart that can anticipate the shame
Of having brought too much.
But you must accept the fact
That you may never pack correctly,
Just like you have had to accept
All your other foolishness.
On Day 2 you will survey the landscape of your luggage
And see how two white shirts instead of three
Would have sufficed.
You will refold each of the pants that made its case
And you will sadly acknowledge that here too,
Less would have been more.
You know there will be hot days
Alleviated by light breezes.
There will be evenings out
And sudden chill.
There will be beaches
And there will be trails.
There will be seven change-of-underwear
So that the luxury of travel
Is not too overshadowed
by washing in a washstand.
But why then should it be,
So hard to pack correctly?
Can’t you picture
That the person who was standing landlocked in her bedroom
Will not be the same one
Looking down at her old skin
left beside the rock?
Trust
My mother said, “Everything is for the best”
And how those words annoyed me, such a sweet and facile way
To dress the wounds that were unjustified and keen.
I thought she said it just because she loved me,
When she sent me out into the world
With this thin sweater for the cold.
But maybe this is Trust.
That everything is best because everything is good.
Not the underground river I once thought groundwater was,
A steady, moving source,
But water seeped between interstices,
Trapped between the gravel and the dirt.
Imagine if I went to sleep without Trust.
Each morning I would have to build the world again.
Some days I’d just be lacking in imagination,
Some days I’d just forget the gentle whirr of hummingbirds,
The lime-green of the newest leaves.
I can’t be counted on,
And this too, is for the best.
Penmanship
There aren’t many crafts that I can teach.
Can’t weave, can’t knit, can’t sew.
Picture a woman sitting with a child at her knee,
Watching her repair a fishing net.
I am not that woman.
I can talk about the fishing net
And all the fish that we might catch.
But threads will just slip past me,
While the fishes, I can hold.
Today I helped a second grader with her penmanship,
And ship it is, that sails across the page.
I remember when my mother left me with a neighbor,
And she taught me how to make the letter K –
A letter that eluded me for months.
My Ks were faltering and tipping
Til she showed me how to make a K
More fit for sea.
Today I sat beside that little girl
With arms as thin as branches,
Moved my chair so she could see my motions on the page
and moved again so I’d see hers.
Soon they all were there: the A to Z –
The fleet of letters she would use –
And all of them so legible, lined up, a proud flotilla.
This, I can do.
Ode to a Hot Water Bottle
How I love your plain utility,
Remarkable in its humility!
No waste in curve or space
No bits or pieces out of place.
Yes, you wear a coat of fur that’s fake
This too is purely practical, for insulation’s sake.
Haters, they may have their say:
I dress you like a poodle on a chilly day.
I’m not embarrassed by my taste
I’ve made worse choices in my haste.
Unchanged since centuries have turned,
Sometimes perfection is just quickly learned.
You found your niche and stayed there with your staying power,
To give sweet solace in the coldest hour.
Elemental kindness, renewed by kettle every night,
Ardor only cooled at morning’s light.
Now winter’s over,
But you were so much more
Than something I can put back
in an empty drawer.
Lilac
Once I saw a lilac blooming in September.
Lilacs shouldn’t do that, I remember.
I was sorry for the lilac, harbinger of warmer days.
Duped by warmer temperatures, and gentler ways.
To hell with angle of the sun.
To hell with Summer’s stingy run.
Next Spring felt much too long to wait;
You bloomed too soon, or just too late.
I’ve had my share of those false Springs,
Foolhardy and impatient for the lovely things.
Look, everything around you has made peace
With fading green, with Nature’s one-year lease.
Look at all the russet, yellow, red.
Why can’t you give up ghost of summer,
And put summer dreams to bed?
Why not relax into diminishment?
I know, it’s hard to do.
The months of lilac flowers are too few.
How foolishly do I bloom too,
Against the angle of an autumn sun.
I’m not the only one.