His Trembling Hands

My father’s hands are purple
and shake like
birds hiding in a bush.
Why are you hiding
from us, Daddy?
When the doctor told you
he was nearly certain
your hands signed the
coming of days worse than this--
you would not have told us.
But Mother shook the bush
and your hands told
my brothers and me
that the list was growing
longer. Your heart, by-passed,
kidney removed,
blood too sweet,
and now your trembling hands.
I don’t wish you gone, but
it is painful to think of you
going this way.
If I hold your fingers in mine,
can we together ward off
the fear, or will I start to
tremble, too, with you?


(written several years ago after Dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's. He is presently in a nursing care facilty, with little hope of ever getting home again.)

Sons and Daughters

We’ve created something--
this is called procreation.
These children dance upon our beds,
upon our dreams,
and around and around our days and nights.
I wonder what it means to
“raise ‘em right”.
We wake up every morning
with their voices in our ears,
their crumbs on our chairs,
and their names on our hearts.
No one will love them as we do.
No one will love us as they do.
These children of ours
recreate us.

Candle's Song

You and I
sat in the shadows of the shining flame,
speaking of visions and sleepy night dreams.
Candle sparks lighted the side of your face.
Silence was only in our minds,
far from the life in our eyes, as we leaned forward.

Voices stopped dancing. The moment’s break sang
a soft splash of candle wax onto the floor.

(circa 1982)

Go Gently

My heart pounds, I feel
the tension in my shoulders, I bear
the weight of the night,
but the world begins to whisper,
Go gently through this day.

The low clouds drifting past
the sunrise, the whirring wings of
the morning doves who fly
and the quiet calm of the one who doesn't, the
soft brown, smooth shell of the chicken egg, the
way the sun evaporates the cold, the
chickadee and the titmouse dancing
in celebration of the once-again
full feeder, the way the
corners of my mouth have fallen down
as of late, all say to me
Go gently through this day.

The dry leaves, lying dead and beautiful
on the lawn, the memory of
soup steaming on the stove, the memory of
your laughter, the memory of it all
says peace. peace.
Go gently through this day.

10.19.2010

Otherwise

On a Friday that’s not a payday
the otherwise friendly mail carrier
delivers the bill from the Rehab Hospital.
I read it, with only partial understanding
of my benefits and liabilities,
as I wait for the plumber with
a too well developed sense of humor
to come and clear the clog
in my otherwise fine kitchen sink.
Dark clouds fill the sky’s stage
and I let clouds darken my mind
with worries about tomorrow
on this otherwise peaceful today.
Thunder rolls, and the sky spends
some time talking to itself.
Rain falls, faster, faster
a lovely light percussion
as steady as the sea. I watch
it fall in sheets, with rhythm
like waves. And waves of gratitude
pound in my heart. I would not
trade away this modest shelter
with a safe roof for
a mansion with no open porch.
I had forgotten I am rich.

5-7-04

Pink Tree

What is your song,
you, tree,
who dripping pink with blossoms, wave
your branches to me
through my dirty little window?

Are you singing?
Do I hear you saying
I am also
pink and flowery, as you,
though the ones
who know I am
are few?

Dancing with Grief

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Without Gravity

I want to sleep without gravity
it would be like dancing
on the clouds
with the moonlight as my partner
I could move, I could swing,
it would all be smooth and cool and
everything would be comfortable.

I want to dance without gravity,
it would be like sleeping
and dreaming I was flying
with the stars
never tiring, never stopping
never waking.

The Return of the Tiger

He is nearly seven, but my mind holds clear
the memory of when I offered him the tiger,
the striped, stuffed beast, almost
shiny in its newness.
It had been a birthday gift to me, but
when my son was seven months old,
I handed him the toy.
Tonight Alexander Jon handed him back.
Tiger is aged and flattened and
deformed from passionate clinging.
His nose is rubbed raw, and his eyes
are scratched, his whiskers have
been gone for years.
Do all the dreams from a sleeping child’s head
drip into the tiger-pillow which lays under him
for hundreds of nights?
I shall sleep with Tiger tonight, and
see if my suddenly old woman’s mind
finds a dream to fill the emptiness that’s left
when a baby becomes a boy, and a
boy somehow tells his mother that he
shall become a man.

the peach

To smell the peach
I must inhale,
bring in the scent
on living air.
When I exhale,
I do not smell a
thing. My memory
of the sweetness
makes me desperate
for one more breath.
I keep breathing.
I keep living.

6-13-04

birthday

I am a vain, middle-aged woman
who delights to hear surprise and
denial when at her 45th birthday
party, those who don’t know her well,
and those who, indeed, hardly look,
protest the sum of my years.
Impossible, they say,
that you have lived that long.
And inside I am shaken to the bone
to think I may live again
this many years.

My only comfort is that
they fly. The years do fly.

2007

prayer

Break my heart,
oh, God,
and piece it together
in such a way
that
the puzzle of it
shall never fall apart
again.

Waiting For Morning

The door and window were closed
at midnight so now the air is stale and warm.
Out of a dream of green and dogs
I waken. I pray for stars
as I step from the casita.
They are there, the stars,
but the Big Dipper, pouring
grace, is nowhere to be found.
I step into the grass
and squat upon the ground, then
make a stream of
last evening’s sweet wine
that let me sleep but
now has left me
wide awake.
Will the stars ever speak to me of
such love again?
Knowing that the door of
the morning leads me
both home and away from home,
I’m ready to step through it.
But morning in Abiquiu
is yet hours away.
Leaving the door wide open
I crawl back into bed
with a head
full of questions.
The handkerchief is out of reach
and my fingers search
the bags and bottles on the shelf.
My ribs press hard against
the wooden rib of the bed frame.
My fingers find cotton softness
And I blow—to blow away
the fears and doubts of a turning point.
I lay the crumpled white hankie
like a white, holy flower
on the altar of the windowsill,
my body cools
while
my heart burns.

(August 1999)