the world, the flesh

An unexpected poem.

        the world, the flesh

They did it to me when I was too young
to resist: in my name they renounced 
my skin, my heart, my lungs,
my sex, my brain, my little fingers. 
They renounced my senses, 
my fears, my hungers, my animal urgency.

They renounced the world. 
The deserts and trees, mountains and seas,
everyone who crawls and swims and flies:
denizens of the dirt, tigers and dogs and whales.
They don’t have souls the story goes,
and all that matters is what isn’t.

When the trout lily leaves emerged, 
when the bears came out of their winter dens,
when the buds swelled on the maples,
every spring we remembered our renunciation. 
How strange when the empty tomb
recalls the garden and the flesh. 

I repent. I reclaim all I was taught, 
along with the devil, to renounce. 
Beginning with this patch of ground 
where rotting trunks flower out their fruits,
where robins overturn the unraked leaves
and acorns sprout along the edges of the unmown grass.

NEW i.d.

NEW  i.d.

First day on the job alone,

he had to keep calling the sergeant. 

Good-humored, she was,

joking about new machinery 

that made the work harder. 

Typical military we all agreed. 

 

I voted for Bernie.

I’m all about peace, 

and eliminating fossil fuels

and reducing my carbon footprint.

I drive a Prius, for Christ’s sake.

The new fighters they’ve got—

 

we couldn’t believe 

they’d be louder than the F-4s

but they are. We can hear them

all the way from the Adirondacks.

And they’re expensive, useless.

Can’t dogfight, so what’s the point?

 

Three took off. We waited

for the fourth, like clockwork.

Shit, they are noisy suckers. 

But fuck it. I’m a

fighter pilot’s wife.

My man used to fly machines

 

like those. I’ve stood on the flightline,

watched him take off,

seen him loop and hammerhead,

do the Memorial Day flyby.

I gave birth on the eve

of drill weekend, kept house

 

that winter he trained in Witchita

when he was DCM, that ice-storm winter 

our son was in second grade

and we had a funky woodstove.

I watched my pregnant friend

watching the Missing Man

 

formation over her husband’s

grave. What can I say?

What can I say?

I make no apologies

for my life. Love is a funny thing.

So now this new improved i.d.

 

is good another three years. 

We stopped on the way out the gate

to look at the old F-4 

on static display.

Not Miss Piggy, my husband said.

It’s got Rich’s name on the door. 

Perspective

PERSPECTIVE

Oak and Ash and Birch breathe their gold.

It sifts through their twigs and branches 

over our cars and lawn furniture.

Oaks and ashes and birches think

life is worth continuing. They want

to make acorns and winged seeds

and tiny cones. They want to make

food for turkeys and squirrels and jays.

If they told you the Council of Trees

had decided to fill this year with abundance,

if they told you they had decided

this was a good year to cover the wounded

Earth with their love, to spread their gold;

if they told you that you, too, could participate,

wouldn’t you say Yes? And here you are!

Every sneeze, every dribble, every gasp,

they tell you, is a price you can pay.

Last night

Last night

before the comfort of book and bed,

I stood in the yard and worshiped

the highest moon.

Soft-edged shadows spread 

across the frosted grass.

The darkest month gives

the brightest night—

not an insignificant grace.

Open Studio Poem #19

rambunctious

Pomeranian

red

 

 

With a frisk of rambunctiousness,

a Pomeranian energy,

the March wind like a red-rubber ball

is bouncing away the long cold dark.

BEGINNING

BEGINNING

 

The book cover shines gold 

in the lamplight.

 

Small birds irrupted from the north

cluster around the feeders.

 

I’m an old woman now

and none the wiser, but

 

at least I can define

emotion with precision. 

 

The landscape of exploration

looms underground. 

 

Forty years but surely not wasted.

Are we between wars

 

or is there simply one war.

Was there ever only one?

OPEN STUDIO POEM #18

OPEN STUDIO POEM #18

 

 

aplomb

solid

chrysanthemum

collage

secluded

 

Under snow, under solid ground,

earth knits a fabric of mycelium,

bulb, the roots of chrysanthemum

and rose.  The February landscape

shapes a shifting collage

of branch and cloud,

a splash of of jay-blue.

We stay secluded, painting

our lives with aplomb.

REPORT: February 2, 2021

REPORT: February 2, 2021

 

No shadows this year, no light sharpening shapes.

Instead, tracks of a fox bounding 

through belly-deep snow across the unplowed drive

into the pinewoods edged with bramble 

where the rabbits hide. West wind drifts the snow.

Sun and moon rise and set behind the clouds.

OPEN STUDIO POEM #15

OPEN STUDIO POEM #15

leaves

haven

susurration

possibility

 

When the days lengthen,

the cold strengthens

but the light too grows strong—

apricity on a frozen day.

 

Last fall the young oak kept

its leaves. It stood, susurrating

in the shadow of its mother,

collected light feeding the roots.

 

We live these days

in a haven of possibility.

OPEN STUDIO POEM #13: FOR THE LAST DAY OF 2020

OPEN STUDIO POEM #13

bobble

bauble

clarity

celebration

POEM FOR THE LAST DAY OF 2020

With smiles and nods, thumbs up

and applauses, with bright baubles 

 

of technologies—our new necessities—

we’ve bobbled through this hardest time. 

 

We have more courage than we knew,

our loves are stronger than we thought.

 

Now, let us begin a celebration, now, 

as we tiptoe toward the clarity of light 

 

at the far side of this dark passageway.

We are beginning to know 

 

how tender we are; beginning

to know how gentle we can be.

With thanks to Wanda, Kathy H, David and Kathy C for their words.