Na/GloPoWriMo Day 30 Matter of Fact

A Few Facts About Spirits

any interest they might have in you

    is heat-driven

most are not lost in fact

    they love maps       especially hand-drawn ones

        of invented realms   but they navigate by a kind of

spiritual gps   you wouldn't understand

       they favor autumn  and spring as more liminal

                

            and are known to inhabit empty shoes briefly before moving on

to woolen pockets of favorite cardigans

       and yes, the part about blue glass on bottle trees is true

pipe smoke and incense feel the same

        like ice and stone     grass and whiskers

they can't even pretend to eat the food we set out for them

          and are nothing like us   in shape or size or capacity   

except in the permanent degree

of longing

          

Na/GloPoWriMo Day 29 Past & Present

BC

after diagnosis
the world divided 
ill and well
doomed and destined
lovers      children sledding
their parents     the neighbors
out walking their dogs
well well all well

also your life BC

all those photos
taken before
who were you then
all well and still chronically
depressed?    who were you
in your plaid shirt
at the Shaker Village
breathless but enjoying
yourself in the last few
days before knowing what
you have?  And now
living with it
who will you become?

Na/GloPoWriMo Day 28 Three Beats

Rain in the Trees 

Yes, we needed the rain's

glisten and hiss. How can  

we truly know what's in it

for the trees? Our imagistic 

expertise though copious 

and evergreen falls short.

Na/GloPoWriMo Day 27 A Poem of Instruction

 

Benevolent Mystery

they say wherever you go
your footsteps draw light
leave glowing pools behind

that your breath lifts and holds
the weakest hummingbirds
in their last migrating miles

wherever you go
the people stop shouting
and begin to sing

old men worked to breaking
in mines take up charcoal and scrawl

prescient verses on city walls

everyone becomes kind
tending the sick and lonely
wherever you go

you teach them that

wherever you go 

there you are

Na/Glo/PoWriMo Day 26 Ars Poetica

 Ars Poetica/Ubi Sunt

a long-time empty house at an odd bend in the now seasonal road
cow pond glinting back May clouds and silver light sky
ponderous barn still somehow there
covered in creeper vine      red boards gone bone gray
to match the poor house    all its windows punched out
mailbox askew     driveway full of junked pickups
one long dead Ford tractor still in the doorless shed

at your feet   a line of cloven crescents 

trail through drying mud    and just like that

you recall the kitchen there   full of hunters

MacGregor plaid jackets   suspenders and boots

smell of snow-wet wool and blood     sweat and cigarettes  coffee
that frigid morning (how many years now?) just out walking

to take in all the land     ice crusted streams and mountains

frozen cow pond trying to shimmer in weak winter sun

you'd come knocking to inquire about the brown van
abandoned  sunk to its axels in red mud a half mile down

near the creek  before the little cabin
blocking the whole narrow road

they shrug     it isn't theirs
offer whiskey-spiked coffee

ask who your people are

(you're Mary's granddaughter)

with little prompting

they tell about the kills that brought
three gutted bucks to hang antlers down
from the maple's branches by the porch

counting the points    one has twelve

and spins gently from his roped hind ankles

in the winter wind

after coffee   a smoke with the guys

you walk home writing 

the poem in your head

and nowhere else until now

Na/GloPoWriMo Day 25 Metaphor Workout

Peonies

because peonies bloom here in April

i put them in these poems

and risk pathetic fallacy to say they are

patience in green-pink pods

or longing  or delight's sudden appearance

after rain  pink sun on a stem

unfurling fragrance

establishment

purveyor of ants to the kitchen table

cheerleaders in a blue glass pencil skirt

puffed mothers of song

saints of the desired

beloved

beloved

Na/GloPoWriMo Day 24 Nocturne (still catching up)

 Nocturne

Nightbirds sing in the holly tree just outside my window

a trilling ode to darkness, then call and response

my old dog snores through his long ShihTzu body

stretched out on the rug

one by one the houses up and down the street

go dark, bedtime stories read, dishes done

and the small dragon that lives in the Cooper Creek culvert

stirs herself on her pile of gleaming stones

begins her nightwatch, spreads her sturdy wings

and glides along the rooftops, keeping her red eyes peeled

and her fires stoked