Gratitude

Something my parents
Have shown me
In their absence.

As I sift through my memory
For their many actions,
Still misunderstood they are the spaces
Among sand grains.

The Art of Carrying

When the house burned down
My grandfather ran to the neighbors’
And leaned on their front door
Put out his arms and looked down
The grey concrete firm beneath
The soles of his feet.

When his mother overseas had died,
My father went outside
Put out his arms
And leaned on the balcony;
The iron banister gripping heavy thoughts.

Tonight, at the library circulation desk
I think of how badly I want
To be held again
By a mother, a father –
And my hands pull out and I lean.

How

How did I kneel down to this,
Which just bears the name of “living,”
But has no heart involved?

It has become the life of the lolling eyes
Which follow dumbly the movement
Of alternating colors, nothing else.

I have not caressed myself for a long time
With the gentle hand that I once knew.
Now there is only the gnarled fist,
The grasping wrist of labor and loss
That clenched me and drinks,
Drinks of my blood, slowly.

How have I so forgotten my own self,
And not admitted of this person
Who tugs, tugs at my sleeve?

How have I left this pile of shattered glass
Now on the floor of my kitchen for years, years,
Without picking up the broom?

I once believed in myself
In my strength and beauty
When I was not yet an urban woman,
But a girl of leaves and meadows.

Now a heavy darkness has come over these eyes,
Which once shined with a ferocity so bright.

Today I wait,
Like an old cat howling in the rain
For someone to open the door.
I want to find a way back inside.

And I ask how.

Paralysis

The gymnast with the red leotard runs freely
Like blood seeping, the yawn of life, she spreads
Out onto the floor into splits
That would hurt (would they?)

My legs do not
Comprehend the limber, dancing swinging limbs,
Awake at last, from this punishment.
This “impairment” I must not forget (how could I forget?)
My eyes loll over your leanings, nimble blood drop;

The strides attained by ferocious toes on tips,
The arms gulling gracefully over the elbows
And the quiver of that elastic band thigh
Without which the kick-leap would only be a distant possibility.

I have a longing to move as you do.
I stare down at these numb things
That only pardon, make rain checks, stir not.
I can it out the window and drivel in my own drool
Fantastic trick you’ll see me do someday.
Can the imagination make you fly?
I have often wondered why I am perched here, on this branch
From which I cannot embark
But only peek out for adventure,
Squint out at the unknown.

My legs
Have an ache to feel what they haven’t walked on yet.
This part of them does grow.
But there is no hurry here no fixed place
To return to for cover I have floundered here a long time
And it’s time to get on.
My hands clap
Loudly for the drop of red. She is my hero.

* * *

She’s wheelchair-ridden and watches me
Run across the dance floor,
Like she hasn’t done it before, ever.
Like she wants to, real bad.
Her hands twiddle, fidget on the lap
Of her white wool sweater like
Two nervous birds flying fast over a cloud.

I look away and straddle the beam.
I may be a gymnast but inside this body
It is graceless resentment kicking
For a way out, starved hard by perfection.

I’m walking on these fixed beams, no others
To turn toes on or slope over backbone’s tail.
Drive instead these stiff knees home
And park the hallowed hips of fatigue
In their couch garage, sounds fine.
I’ll give them a shake but nothing’ll fall out-
They’re dusty. Dead inwards, dirty and swollen.

I am a mere marionette, trained well
And overdone by these trappings of beauty;
Slick muscles bind my bile of green envy for the dead
That rest in graveyards, their souls stirred by sun and moon,
Universe their entire roaming ground.

Her silver wheelchair glare shines
In my eyes and I look at
Her shriveled legs, noticing only their repose;
They move for no one, not even
For medals.
My tired eyes close.

Ms. Magpie

For Lada~

After I lost you
I made a promise

Not to pocket anything precious or golden,
Or cherish it in my nest of treasures;
Because I’d lose it to the gutters
Or have it stolen by some wicked child sooner or later –
And so I decided I wouldn’t spread my wings
Or leave this tree I sit on,
Because I’d lose far more than I’d ever find again.
On my fixed branch, declining, I cannot tell my legs from the bark anymore.

* * *

Last night
A stern, unruly wind
Blew me onto the rickety roof of Eliot Hall
Where I heard again your memorable, loving words:

Give ‘em hell!

And then the rain fell on me like
Thousands of small diamonds.
Each drop, rolling off my black feathers
Was a part of you.

The wind was your hand,
Moving with me again as I flew
Off that roof
As fast as my wings would allow.

And so I fly
And fall,
Fly and fall again,
Your zephyrs holding me
With their beautiful, bold uncertainty.

This I Know

To Lou~

The wind chimes within my ribs are made of red accordion keys
Swiftly ripped out from their treble home
And tied to a wire coat hanger with string
Suspended in a city with no gentle breezes to stir them to song,
Hovering in a stillness held by frosty hands.

Some say I chose you; that you could hold up to me
What I needed to see so that I could play again
After hatred’s clenching silence had left me
And I could move to the music once more.

Time and a lack of words came between us
They formed a sweeter rhythm between our mad hearts.
Hours passed, then years in which there was not a soul
Who moved me like your absence moved me;
And I listened hard to hear candor and tenderness
In your indiscernible murmurs from another shore.

One day your voice found me at a music lesson
When I tried to make sounds with my clumsy instrument;
I found I could not fight you and win anymore.
So I let go and felt your lips blowing warm breath
Into the keys of my heart. They rustled like a thousand linden leaves
In a song of terrifying beauty I sensed through these stubborn tears.

And as I look into my face in the mirror
And your almond eyes and wolfish eyebrows stare back at me;
An echo of your visage imprinted upon me in a simple melody.
Then anger breathes out its tired sigh
And departs, and I cannot hear the solemn silence anymore,
Only this music danced by my heart, mind and bones.
This I know.

The Orphan’s Grief

It dreams
In dim daylight hours
How you’ll ring Mom and Dad in the morning
Not yet awake to remember that they’re dead.

It covers
“What do your parents do?”
With a cold, heavy blanket of silence, or
Or “Your folks must be so proud”
With sullenness softly hidden
In an awkward smile.

It sucks dry
All the liveliness of new bones
Grown a year older and fidgeting to celebrate
With balloons and presents and blackberry pie.

It isolates
A human far from the dizzying crowds
Bustling like swarms of bees on hot summer weekends
Indefatigably with an energy obtained
From who knows where.

It removes
Any resolution whatsoever on the war of yourself
Being gravid and spilling with words to tell them
But them not being here to hear you at all.

It introduces
Nature to the wandering soul
To whom it sings through the turning seasons:
I am your home.

It searches
For someone to laud your tenacity
When you’ve mastered this or figured out that
Or certainly won’t try again
What you did yesterday.
Even a whispered syllable would suffice.

It creates
Conversations with trees
Winking at stars, dancing with squirrels
The following of clouds with your fingers
Naming shapes they would have known the names of.

It encourages
Candor with the parents of close friends
Yet their daughter’s scowl and son’s reticence bid you
Get your own pair of battle-axes.
These are taken.

It numbs
All that a body can feel.
There are days when
Only the memory can make a body move.

It cultivates
The gathering places for the dancing balls
Of the deceased after dark;
Quiet exhumations of mysteries only in the
Afterlife you will understand.

It leaves
Ears that hear low sounds
Making you hearken to the stories
You once found simple and boring.
Now they are not so simple anymore.

It pontificates
On the possibility of heaven
Or rather, on the necessity of such a place
To house the once known.

It culminates
Never quite, by an indiscernible fading
Lingering on for the sake of hurt
Then hope, then reverence;
Past years and time it will become a part of you
And a gully of imagination at your side.

Icarry, Didcarry, Do

From the time of heaviness
To the time of absence

In the room
Where the words fell
To the floor before they hit my ears,
Icarry, didcarry, do.

When your body I felt
With a stranger’s hands,
By fingers blunted from too much holding,
Icarry, didcarry, do.

Because clemency
Never did come,
And dreary remorse still sags
Like a heavy bundle,
Icarry, didcarry, you.

The Goodbye Garden

This garden will not leave when you remove it;
Its weeds will grow on past the bulldozers.
Tree stumps will never quite be cut down to size,
And a trillion butterflies will roam the scene,
Longing for the flora of their past.

I will watch you gather the farmers of the land
And tell them the soil is not theirs anymore to till.
I will hear you declare how your buildings matter more
Than a run-down piece of land where some folks make things grow.

I will close my eyes and wish that you, too, would see
What lifts my heart when I pass by this garden;
What makes me think – for a moment –
That I could grow something myself,
Before walking on to large buildings where there are no green things
Besides broken plastic Easter eggs and saccharine jelly beans.

I will shut these eyes tight past tears and see my garden,
Its never-finished beauty always changing, always growing green.
The farmers will still marvel at their harvest; the children will again
Be brought to see the flowers; the old couple will nonetheless linger
At the spot where they once planted a tree for their dead son long ago.

And I will see all of these things as your whackers and saws and trucks attempt
To remove eternity from the senses; the simple awe of hands working daily;
You will erect an insipid building that only an earthquake could enliven.
And I will laugh through these hot wet eyes at what you can never do –
And that is remove this garden from me.

Feminist, Circa 2005

In my hands a pointed sword I carry
To slice the heads I find untrue;
But Alas, in vain I tarry,
For my quick sword slits
My limbs, too.

I cannot mark others red
With this fatal blade of judgment–
Cannot sever lying lips
Or carve away dreadful deeds

Of those I hold in contempt,
Without tending to my own
Bleeding hands and knees.

Justice marks me lame with wounds
I cannot cure if my pointed sword I use.

Grass Still Grows Around The Graves

I open the door to a dark, empty apartment
And cook a meal of sweet potatoes and sturgeon for only myself.
My eyes avert from the bed, now bare, where your kind form once slept
And your books lie lifeless like fallen soldiers on the floor.

I tell myself that you are not gone forever
Or that maybe I'll get used to your absence eventually
And that my eyes will stop automatically darting up to see if
There's a light on in the window on my way to the front door.

Perhaps I can convince myself in time
That your sweetly sad kisses meant nothing much to me at all
And your brokenness never met with beauty
In my eyes at all, ever.

As I bike through the forlorn twilight of the city
Picking up your scent in my memory-
The mourning doves flit wildly upwards with frantic cries
And ever quietly, the grass still grows around graves.

There, There

I saw it spread slowly over his face
A tremble, a hapless wincing about the eyes,
Searching for the right words
To tenderly frame his father's final exit.

He held on to the microphone
And gathered in his heavy heart the memories
That would sustain him. The certainty of
The ground beneath him was sweet
And the kind eyes of the audience held
Him like a tired child asleep on a mother's shoulder.

Where
Do they go, the beloved that have left too early
For us to know their value or their vision?
Have they awakened to some new dream
Or paradise? Perhaps they sail slowly back to us
On the oceans of our silent tears.
Maybe they ride stallions on the thunder of our laughter
At the mistakes they warned us about making;
And laugh too, at us, having made them, ourselves.