Sunday, January 7, 2024

Snow (finally)

 Snow (finally)


It is quiet and fresh
like it is only when it snows 
fat, fluffy snowflakes finally arriving 
in January
after Epiphany.

We all wonder 
knowing this is way too late
to wassail
and sing love songs
toasting the trees,

but after the collection of floods
and the heat of summer
we take this miracle 
and hum to ourselves
like perfect amnesia,

welcoming the silence
like monks
on a Christmas morning.

Suddenly, my skittish cat yowls
outside my bedroom door
shivering from the exile of the night.
Her rooster ritual
shakes my limbic core
as she intends.
I throw off the comforter,
pausing my pen,
to give her acknowledgment
and access to my cell.

Satisfied with the return to routine
the feline purrs, then leaps,
onto the window sill to observe,

marveling at this swirling meditation,
answered prayer for substantial winter,

somehow, 
a common revelation
in this unusual time.

Sunday, March 19, 2023

In Search of the Moon

 In Search of the Moon (for my grandson, Otto Zane Carlson, born 3/18/2023) 

 

We waited patiently, 

made silent prayers and outrageous offerings 

into the mouths of this slice of chaos. 

Even now, we urgently want you to breathe in deeply, unafraid 

laugh loudly, play endlessly in daisy-filled fields, 

explore murky ponds and wonder between the lines of stories-- 

the way that boys do. 
 

Your parents certainly will teach you what it is to be loved by the way  

they look each other in the eye and at you. 

Your uncles will hold you in their arms, murmur manly advice 

about pocketknives, good farm food, Vermont style, music, 

and, of course, will embrace you with all their hearts 

whenever they greet you 

for the rest of their generous lives. 

They won’t be able to help themselves. 

 

I suspect it will be your sister,  

the girl you met today only hours after your birth, 

who will pledge to carry your collective dreams 

to the alter of the night sky  

in search of the mysteries of the moon. 

This common orb of delight and fiction as it waxes and wanes 

reflecting the power of the sun, 

will bind you to each other with silvery stitches 

no matter where you are. 

 
Heaven knows the promises you made to find your way to us 

this time in a body immersed in infinite ancient memories 

like a package hidden in the seam of a beggars tattered coat. 

Sunday, May 22, 2022

June 1

-for Loren-

The sky opened tonight
to the summons of air
plush with rain like tropical wings,
fluttering and trapped 
near the earth.

Cinnamon and narrow as a tardy boy
slipping into his seat unnoticed
I catch sight of my brother,
drifting spirit
at the edge of white oaks
near the old International.

It is nearly a year 
since he planted his last gardens
at the farm where we all put our hands
in the dirt. Peas, beans, and purple eggplant.
Hot peppers and beets. Clockwork of the season
our parents taught us to love.

That memorial day, even he was unaware,
unprepared to leave the flock's formation,

tidy rows like our mother's


until he crossed the line
he had crossed so many times.


Flummoxed.
Cornered with no way out.


unforgiving--


He changed
his mind
too late.


Saturday, May 21, 2022

Fever Dream


After years of masking against the invisible enemy 

the cough and fever consume me, 

even my voice is gone 

forcing me to bed.  

 

It was the teenager, 

fearless and determined,  

who brought it home 

just like a brutish friend 

at midnight, fully eclipsed 

under cover of purple gypsy music 

or hippy long locks wailing

at the blood moon. 

 

I gnash my mind 

enrobed in weakened pride 

that looks like silent meditation 

while I wait in my sweltering sheets 

for the rattling congestion 

to collide 

with morning tea. 

 

I shuffle,

take fever-breaking tablets, 

nurse warm liquids 
into my raw throat. 


In my broken dreams 

I drive my first car, grey 

on dusty backroads

in Minnesota 

frantically looking for my parents 

and my dead brother. 

 

There is no forgiveness 

for being this kind of human.