time in hospitals is not linear.
the past and future lives of patients
dangle
by wires and rolling IV carts,
souls spread thin beneath bleached sheets.
When in the rainless weeks of summer the mulch pile dried,
and worms we hooked for bait would burrow
deeper than our reaching fingers could grope,
we’d sweep with bare feet the hay fields for grasshoppers…
Serenity before dawn’s waking human world disrupts pristine Creation. I and my companion share psalms we read aloud, a sacred veil ensuring inner peace. With opened hearts we rise as sparks in spans of history…
There are those who live
between the lines of life
who once were my story
but came not to fit,
not them in mine
nor me in theirs;
will we ever know ourselves as well
as we know the radish we pull from the garden bed?
know our readiness as its, as it bulges at the surface dirt
with rusty shoulders that promise spicy delight?
A paper Burger King Crown,
Lunch with mom in the park,
She adjusts it over and over,
But it never fits right upon your head.
When I arrived home from the hospital,
there was a gift box at my doorstep
from my daughter, who recently moved away.
the winter-bare forsythia is so many
arrows of neglect, bundled;
the light, quilted, a question.
Skin stippled with drops from the emerald canopy
quietly content with the other,
no need to speak over
the rustling soundtrack of ironwood sway.
I lied when I said he’d been clean for a year.
It made a better story:
Addict resisting the call of meth,
riding the wave when the desire hit,
how big he felt—and bigger.
This morning I wanted
there to be eyes watching
out for us, something somewhere
caring that we died,
I am sure that everyone in my familia really enjoys flan.
But not me.
May I please taste the glazed churro,
the timeless cochito (con café and cream) or the delicate
tres leche cake.
You want my love but don’t want my pain,
My sunshine, but not my rain.
Can’t you see how that’s driving me insane?
The first time I saw St. Peter’s
magnificent marble and lack of time-
pieces, I dismayed my travel
partner with an obvious observation;
a trifling truism: that it reminded me of a casino
welcoming the hopeful riff-raff
reaching across, hand into the blackberry bush,
a walk from where we were down to the sea,
a small bay, of pebbles & the incoming swell of the water,
listening for the rhythm, as if it might be the key to writing
How can something
come out of nothing,
let alone the universe?
But that is what contemporary
theory of cosmology proclaims—
Seeing blurred writing
on an abstract painting
brings me right back
to begging you to teach me
to read before I went to school
…skyward, lying on our backs listening for rainfall,
lying, we the ones of loitering, of settling into the longing for dreams to overtake us,
asking if anything could overtake us,
this overwhelming desire, this yearning for…
I have been watching White Christmas for 65 years so
tonight, the first film shot in VistaVision and Technicolor
rolls onto my tv screen; but the evening news, with far more
advanced tools, has begun to seep into my holiday films …
They survived the fin de siècle logging
That claimed the rouge et blanc
Leaving tepees of slash
On the Grayling sand.
And the farmers
Wielding fire to clear land…
because I told you
how the homeless woman
preferred over a stranger’s
offer of food, water, money
just a moment of conversation
to confirm that she exists
He takes to his branch each morning, lingers there
Finds his gentle, yet firm grip on the wood with his small claws
Steady, he welcomes the fresh air
The sun on his strong beak
The orange light peaking through the high buildings
He closes his eyes
Takes in the soft breeze on his black feathers
The laughter you hear, deep within the interior of the house,
Where the old couple from Italy, have lived for fifty years.
Or the glimpse of the treasured grandson across the road,
Laughing as his cousin chases him with the garden hose.
A sentinel for three seasons,
The fireweed stands unsteady
In the freshening breeze.
A phoenix of the scorched earth,
Its seeds break out in gossamer clouds,
Seeking newly ravaged lands to restore.