Day Nineteen NaPoWriMo

I try to start each morning
not with what would be known
as prayer or meditation,
though poets would know it
as exactly such when reading
or writing a poem. Often, I am
worshipping joy with Brother Ross Gay
as a way to make myself pay
attention to the day ahead.
Though a chickadee somewhere
in the maple can also set focus
or the sound of mourning doves
in duet no grief in their song.

NaPoWriMo Catch up 14-18

Day Fourteen

Wind, hail, rain & more wind
but subterranean we only listen
like moles pondering echoes

Day Fifteen

The neighbor’s black cat
comes to lie beside
my birdfeeders.

It has taken
a year for her to know this edge
of the cul de sac.

Now she is queen.


Day Sixteen

The lonesome pine
has burst, so much new
growth, its arms full of song,


Day Seventeen

white blossoms
exists along with pink
bees visit each
safe at any door
in this neighborhood

Day Eighteen

Along Old Lincoln Trail Road
a man carries a large toy dinosaur:
needed wonder.

The day lightens and then lightens more (First Anniversary repost edition)

Heavy writing homework, tornado warnings and homecoming have kept me from posting poems. And today is filled again in other ways. I was at Playa last year when I wrote this, watching snow, listening to silence. But I repost it today for those two crazy kids who hopped over to Iceland... love them both so much. 

Overnight the trees bloom
monochrome blossom, soft down.
& the birds are silent this dawn
yesterday’s sun & activity
ushering in this morning.
Quiet & rest. The snow
still sifting down, heavy
with water & promise.

Along the pond the only sounds are ducks plunging underwater and then popping back up; the puddled softness of snow falling into the water from the overhanging branches. A snowy pond music, a mid-April melody. The day lightens and then lightens more. I make the first human trail. I see goose tracks, a rabbit, something went under the snow across the path and their tunnel has since collapsed. Bird tracks everywhere: how do I read these notes?

The snow is so wet, heavy, melting everywhere (in the back of my mind, please don’t freeze – don’t get colder) a steady stream of water off the lodge roof; at my cabin, I could hear the snow compressing, crashing down.

It is quiet off the lakebed (how many times have I written quiet this week?) the view limited. An insect lands on a bare stalk of yellow grass, “Careful,” I warn, “the swallows are out.” As if on cue a hawk on the willow flinches as it is dive bombed by a bold swallow. It shrugs off the attack like the snow on its feathers.

The clouds rise. The far ridge can be seen still holding a shawl of cloud over its shoulders but clearing above. The lakebed visible again. It is eight o’clock. This weather is only a needed pause.

It is Saturday, the 16th of April. Miles away, thousands, in another country, another time zone, another wide place, my baby girl, my Bambina, our lovely and loved daughter is getting married. Their wedding day, like her life the way she wanted it, they. It’s as though the snow brought such perfect silence so I could lean into the world and almost hear their voices. That simple promise, “I do”.

Day Thirteen NaPoWriMo

There has been talk lately about a poetic form called a golden shovel, this is not one but it's what came as I thought of a shovel...

The shovel

Is the only tool that rests in knowledge
of worth. Year-round it is called upon,
needed to dig and scoop, pile and pat.
The garden, the yard, the flowerbeds in spring
John’s little kitten mashed beneath the tractor’s
tire. Each job the shovel comes to stoic
and silent, ready for each level of gravity.

Winter mornings, across the shoulders, it is
taken to the frozen creek to open the watering
hole (again) for the cattle.

Day Twelve NaPoWriMo

 Today the most popular place on campus was here:

The llama is a busybody, the pony aloof.
The lamb and the kids they’re the showstoppers,
the hug-worthy, finger nibblers the oh-my-god!
they’re too cute! selfie accessories. The ducks,
oh, the ducks away from the fray in shade;
happy little quackers, happy away
from the cloven-hoofed and furred, with a quick hiss
to send you away: no pictures please, no paparazzi!

Day Eleven NaPoWriMo resurrection edition

My poem for today is still struggling to survive so I thought I'd post this poem from NaPoWriMo 2006

Oh, Lord, please forgive us

The indigenous people along the Black Warrior River
built mounds in a soft green park setting near what would
become the town of Moundville, Alabama. Abandoned
sometime in the 1500’s after 500 years of use, archeologist
are still trying to understand the cultural and religious uses
of the twenty-six earthen mounds.

But what boys from Hale County High remember is that
on the Saturday night before Easter, the park would be busy
with the reenactment of Jesus’ last days. This was the one occasion
it was alright to keep young ladies out all night, wrapped
inside a blanket, hands wherever you wanted them to be
as you wound your way from mound to mound to witness
the performance. The park grew crowded near dawn,
the sunrise service drawing close, a lanky boy
ready to be Christ; hung on the cross, his blonde wig
tangled in thorns. A procession would move up
the highest mound, where floodlights would substitute
for sun if the weather failed; below on-lookers
in the shadows would watch the white Jesus, atop
the largest mound, the one believed to hold tribal elders
and holy men, and as one, as a wave, would shade their
eyes to enlightenment.

Day Ten NaPoWriMo

The first cowbird appeared

singing in a smug way atop
a lamppost. Every tree is in bloom
today. The pinks and the greens
and the soft purple across the street.
Even the moon tried to nudge
a goose off the roof, feeling
the exuberance of spring.
Curled like a kitten a cloud
launched the afternoon
into a gentle slope toward evening.
And here I am now watching
the sky blush as the first
star tickles its face.