Loud noises fill and turn my head:
ants burrowing in the walkway, a volcano in the Phillipines,
my great-great grandmother’s laugh, clouds burrowing in the sky.
How can we live with this cacophony badgering us day and night?
…
Stars chuckle, the morning sun scrapes against the hillside.
The moon hums, a neighbor calls her son home for dinner.
I keep turning my head to see where the sounds come from,
And almost, I almost catch them before the brief silence cuts through,
Before my attention is pulled away to grass laughing out loud,
or a car horn
or the click of my niece’s heels crossing some street in Manhattan,
or any number of loud noises giving me whiplash and bad dreams.
How can I live with this cacophony badgering me day and night?
…
Even in dreams…I dreamed I heard a loud explosion far away in the forest,
and the white fox who had crossed me years ago ran toward it.
I did not. I waited for the noise to fade,
and for the silent fox to return.
That we who need each other
will find one another.
That we may follow the lines
that will lead us
to the kindred of our souls.
That our tribe will grow
and prosper
and be a blessing.
That we may be the beauty
in which we long to dwell.
-Jan L. Richardson, In the Sanctuary of Women
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
of the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuttering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.
….
…. from Mortal Acts, Mortal Words by Galway Kinnell
..
Do you know what is never the right tool for the job?
Needle-nose pliers. Anytime I use needle-nose pliers
…
it is with hopeless resignation. I stare at a thing
needing fixing, shake my head, and say, “I guess I could try
..
needle-nose pliers” I do not blame whoever invented them.
They look like a very good tool. Would you like to twist, pull,
..
or push something small in a tight little space? Here is a tool
where one end fits in your palm and the other end grabs tiny things.
..
In the middle there are even wire-cutters, should you need to cut wire
or something similar. The truth is: Would you like to strip, shred,
…
or otherwise destroy a thing, plus also pinch all hell out of that
soft fusion of flesh at the base of your index finger?
..
Then here. Here are the needle-nose pliers.
….
from “Rattle 79” Spring 2023
….
The dove was wrong
She was mistaken.
..
To travel north, she flew south,
Thinking the wheat was water.
She was mistaken.
..
Thinking the sea was sky,
That the night, the morrow.
She was mistaken.
..
That the stars, dew,
That the heat, snowfall.
She was mistaken.
..
That your skirt was your blouse,
That your heart, your home.
She was mistaken.
..
(She fell asleep on the shore,
You, at the tip of a branch.)
….
….
Se equivoco la paloma.
Se equivocaba
..
Por ir al norte, fue al; sur.
Creyo que el trigo era agua.
Se equivocaba.
..
Creyo que el mar era el cielo,
que la noche, la mañana.
Se equivocaba.
..
Que las estrellas, rocio,
que la calor, la nevada.
Se equivocaba.
..
Que tu falda er tu blusa,
que tu corazón, su casa.
Se equivocaba.
(Ella se durmio en la orilla.
Tu, en la cumbre de una rama.)
…
…
Returnings: Poems of Love and Distance
“Springtime for Hitler and Germany” is viewable on YouTube.
I cry.
I send it to my theater friends.
We read about Hallie Flanagan and “Cradle Will Rock.”
In a tiny town we plan a play.
…
Isabella Rossellini modeled for Lancôme cosmetics.
Her farm saves animals that would otherwise go extinct,
She is nominated for an Oscar.
In a tiny town
We adopt a stray cat and fill a bird feeder.
…
“Rep. Jamie Raskin is still optimistic
about defeating Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s agenda,”
politico.com
We stand in front of a small city’s city hall
to protest Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
…
The hungry squirrel eats the tiny birds’ seed.
She’d much prefer peanuts.
…
…Because They Really Upset My Stomach.
A Poet's Indulgence 