Writing, corporate citizenship, and other stuff
stillness
The little purple rose,
petite petals gathered
in restrained propriety,
stares all day
out my bedroom window
like an old maid
with her plaid blanket
of rough Scottish wool
smoothed across her lap.
With the patience of generations,
she watches the changeless scene,
her gentle smile turning toward
the winter sun’s waning warmth.
All she asks is
a sip of water
a few kind words
and the rich taste
of her deep-rooted memories.
detaching
A snip, a slice–
One rose past its prime,
its petals turned sepia
and brittle
like parchment
left too near the hearth,
tips and tumbles
to thud in the dust
at my neighbor’s feet.
I watched her all morning
as she eyed the bush
not unlike the way a crow
inspects a squirrel carcass
squished on the street.
Three times her snips rose,
and thrice she relented,
retreating to survey the bush anew.
I finished two mugs of coffee
and one crossword puzzle
watching her seek
the perfect pruning position.
The bush, for its part, never flinched.
This warrior,
with her feints and posturing,
armored in her striped cloth gloves,
and flop-brimmed sun hat,
and flannel yard shirt,
glowered like crusaders of old,
the grim grime of eons
etched in wrinkles
on her face.
One snip.
One slice.
One step toward peace.
Make or break
Stubborn,
snow clings
in the high branches
against the gales
pouring from stoic granite peaks.
A gray day.
Quiet. Tensed.
I twist tight my scarf,
turn my face to the winds.
Only in their sharpness
does clarity come.
If it comes at all.
I’ve walked
up this mountain
through hip-deep snow
for a dozen lifetimes,
and I will walk it
a dozen more,
building footprint stories
erased by time
and the failures
of memory.
Ever bright,
the lights of your cabin windows
gleam in the distance,
like a tiger’s eyes–
both curious
and disinterested.
As I plunge forward ,
I wonder
not for the first time
whether this climb
is truly
worth the effort.
Epiphany
As I walk
A rainbow shimmers
Ten hundred gleaming drops
In red, orange, green, indigo
Shaking and quaking
An ecstasy of color
A brilliance of joy
And when winter’s fingers
Flip the world topsy-turvy
And paint a silver mask
Over every color
I know
In the rhythm of my pulse
In the mists of my breath
In the scrape of my steps
That one day the gray
Will be shaken loose
And sent scattering
Like flies off the shiver
Of a horse’s back.
unsent letters
Umbrella-huddled blurs
trudge past the cafe window
in dripping grays and blacks
mottled and melted
like zombies
in an amateur painting
raised from the graveyard
of a suburban garage sale
If they were to look through
the rain-melted window
what would they think of me
and my cold, half-finished coffee
sitting across from
your empty chair
trying not to dissolve
Pages in a journal
Leaves, yellowed and browned
in the cold winds
after a hot, dry summer,
cling to grayed, shivering twigs
that point skyward,
like the splayed fingers
of cracked and crooked wizards
summing stormclouds.
Raindrops slice down,
heavy and hard, soaking in
until the desperate branches sag
and the leaves tear off
one by one
to drop to the ground
where they will decay,
leaving behind an emptiness
where one day
the brightness of hope
will bring forth new buds
nourished by
the quiet tears of winter.
next time
No one saw us dancing
at the party
as we glided
separately
from room
to crowded room
greeting old friends
and avoiding each other
with practiced precision
until at the end of the night
our embrace on the threshold
lasted an acceptable duration
and we expressed
our mutual regret
at not spending
more time
together
Weightlessness
When all the burdens
are cut loose
and you rise
past the thunderheads
beyond the crowded cacophony
of overworked satellites
into the peaceful silence
of weightless space
you will find me
waiting to wrap you
like a sun-warmed blanket
There
we will float
together in the void
the only sound
our slow breath
the only weight
our bodies
pressing into each other
our only view
the entirety of creation.
Distances
Tall pines stand stoic
behind us, a row of sentries
barricading
two worlds from each other.
We broke their line
to escape the campground
with its unwashed dishes
and uncorked wine bottles
and unconcerned spouses.
We took with us
the children–
their implicit innocence
our passport
to the twilight
of the rocky dirt
beside the lake.
While they race along
the thirsty, drought-parched shore
you and I stand silent
side by side
motionless as ancient pillars
of a long lost pagan temple.
The bruised sky relaxes to black
and we turn our gazes starward
conscious of the trees
and the children
and the chill of the Sierra evening
and the warmth of each other.
I want to reach up
and pluck a star from the sky
like stealing a tiny white blossom
from a mountain vine
to curl into your golden hair.
But it would be easier to weave you
an entire wreath of stars
than to cross
the vast, impossible distance
that separates
your shivering hand
from mine.
“Your heart,” she told me, when we walked the pier and watched the lobstermen pulling up their pots at the far end of the dark bay, after that clouded talk in the coffee shop, when we both kept sipping at long-empty cups and looking at everything but each other…
“Your heart,” she told me, “has unlimited capacity.”
“You’ve told me this before,” I replied, remembering a drive in the Florida sun in a rented convertible, when I backtracked ten miles to retrieve the hat that had blown off her head on the interstate.
She was young, then, and I was… idealistic. Impressionable. Eager to be anything that she told me to be.
Her answer came like the sharp mist off the whitecaps, chilling under my upturned collar.
“I was wrong, then.”
“But–”
“Then, I thought you had a heart with enough room for everyone. A big heart. A heart like a balloon that could never pop, no matter how many people blew into it.”
I found her analogy lacking, but it had potential. I kept silent and waited, like the gathering clouds drifting along with us, far overhead.
“But my analogy doesn’t really hold water,” she mused, and I saw in her tight cheeks and quivering nose the telltale signs of a joke she knew no one else would understand.
“Your heart,” she told me, pausing to lean on a thick pole as a boat chugged past, wheezing white smoke behind…
“Your heart is more like a bucket with a hole in it. People pour their love in, and maybe it gathers for a bit, but it runs out just as quickly.”
Seagulls bobbed in the wake of the little lobster boat, facing various directions, as the twilight crept in around us and the chill of dusk oozed under my collar and raindrops began to patter on the mottled wood of the decking, drumming dully on the plastic lid of my long-empty coffee cup.