On the border

The suited men have jaws 

                        that snap up & down
      about invaders.

It must be done, they growl,
                   hearts dangling 

      from holsters:

This yanking on necks 

     of newborns

while grinning 

    at the camera 

flashing light on the blight 

       behind white shirts;

                   stink steaming through 

 button holes

as the sunburned beseech
viewers on TV too pleased

       to teach the flip-flop clad

                    a lesson.

Beside the plastic men stand

       beauty queens

      double-breasted & stoney-styled

thinking about getting home,

sun shines on painted gold hair
and sewn back lids

at the fields of families

        tired, kneeling, sweating 

                    at our gates.

With no backward glance, 

         the mighty board          

                  their gulf streams 

and fly toward the stars
          like the gods we allow

                           them to be.

Let’s say you are the widow’s middle child

For my mother: Some stars become black holes. Others get sucked up inside them just for getting too close. --Author Kris Kidd

Let’s say you are the widow’s middle child

still in braids when you first hear

goose steps on your street.

Let’s say the last day of school the Luftwaffe

offers you a typing job, they mention travel.

Let’s say you ride in the back of a Mercedes-Benz Transformable Torpedo 

behind your boss and his driver

When the gates open and beings pour through the yard

Like rushing water, drenched as if just risen from the ocean floor.

Let’s say sleep comes and goes that night 

and the next morning you place your breakfast 

on the window sill 

and turn your back

And when you look again, the plate is gone

And you feel relief 

that a ghost has eaten 

And you are not arrested, your giving 

hand not cut off.

Let’s say the next day you repeat this act 

and later when all is over, 

in the dark of night,

You grieve because you did not do more.

And let’s say what was 

not done becomes 

the story and your life a protracted 

mourning for it, 

for what was not done.

Like a kidnapping

  One average day

       on a walk to school, 

 the love the child carries for you

     flushes out like milk                

from a leak in his thermos.  

The way that child looks at you 

     one evening over dinner 

is a look you have not seen before. 

     You can't be sure 

      you saw what you saw.  

The way that child speaks to you 

     is not the same tone, 

not like any previous tone.          

And for a long time, his sweet face                

    appears in your dreams on a

   poster pasted on power lines.  

 The new voice, new gaze sweeps 

     into every moment going forth.

Quiet as midnight,

     cool as that dark.      

All day I stroll with the dog in the redwoods.    

No thoughts of him 

I raised from birth

     who now shaves his face,         

him I pampered and praised--perhaps too much 

     because, well, he was so                

beautiful,  

so tender in all God's ways, 

     and exiled into life with me.     

When I return to the house,      

     it hails me again—

      the strange voice, that novel gaze

—that face-slapping loss.

Of course the dead do not come back

I know, I know        and yet 

ignore this 

            sometimes 

when I pass his chair.

Minds do that:

                  fly 

tree to tree like a hawk

         sensing a heart nearby.

      Today I sit in his chair 

                       and feel he

might come back. 

              His whole beautiful self 

              now getting a break from                 

 clocks and scales--

                     all that holds me here.

One day he might show up again. 

       I’ll say Hon, where have you been?

       I’ll say Don’t leave like that again 

And his right hand 

            will fold around my left.

                       

How true this feels though none 

     can say for sure 

     so I sit in his favorite chair

    and watch for signs                     

      like a hawk.

I've grown used to absence--yours husband

I’ve grown used to absence--

           yours husband.  The clock

       has not stopped since 

you and I sat 

under this patch of sky

             I move around in 

without 

          our quiet conversation.

Now and then your face hoots

through me as a train

       waking up an empty station.

And though it does not stop

        you are once again 

in the picture--you are

       the depot of the life I led

 before this one.

And then 

I return to my day.

Where to begin

Morning is my second favorite time of day. 

The first is twilight.

But that’s another poem. 

Morning, a moment past dawn, if I slept well, 

the possibilities line up before me. 

Do this or that, 

which first, which now, which last?

I brew coffee and sit where the view

Is wide and nothing yet has gone wrong.

Check emails, texts then headlines

for something new and shocking.

Sometimes in the quiet morning light

I think of him who loved me, feel

joy for that abundance where

now famine reins.

Thoughts about the dead bee on the porch

 From the kitchen window tonight,

I see a lump on the porch 

that I know is more than a lump. 

This lump has three legs. 

         Wings. 

It has a heart 

      that was rushing her 

somewhere else 

     not here to the shine.

Surely she did not know 

      what time it was.

Not one of her five eyes could see

      this coming

As she lifted another drip of sugar,

      on her knees, from my

forget-me-nots.

Suddenly my own heart rushes,

      with thoughts of sudden rain, of sudden stings--

of sudden anythings. 

Tomorrow, her sister bees 

       must go
right on sipping

from the brightness.

 

It's too much for a girl

 The Sisters of the Holy Cross teach things 

       that break my heart.

Like Only Catholics go to Heaven. 

    

The infidels 

     must have known this

     when they hired me to babysit.

     

When I lean into his crib, 

he does not wake--he sleeps 

as if 

     his soul were cherished and

secure. 

Then I see his small fists knocking 

      on heaven's gate,

     the teddy bear backpack stuffed 

     with PJ’s, the toy giraffe 

hanging low 

on his back. 

I hear the Angel Gabriel, hard-nosed, 

     Sorry, you're not welcome here.

It’s too much for a girl of 10. 

     And so 

     the small chapel of her soul 

     crumbles--the heavy stones 

    fall off her shoulders 

         to the earth

        below her boots.

Sea shell

There it is again--his voice

calling far away.

A voice like wind swirling

     in a shell. The wind of 

     my blood
     rushing through 

     my ears rolling 

     back the stone

    of my heart.

He is born 

    again in

    that wind.

The end of summer

This bowl of oatmeal looks pathetic          

and I'm the one 

     who prepares it for him.  

It waits and cools on the table 

     as my love is wheeled down the hall 

     toward the breakfast room.  

Bits of dried apple and puffs of cinnamon float

      on this mush the way lotus

      and spatterdock 

drift on a pond.  

His eyes fall on it. 

The spoon and a napkin wait 

      with me for him to take the usual 

      four bites though I hope he will eat 

it all this time. 

My love is so thin. 

But not his face. 

      Still boned and squared.  

Not his hair: still full, still thick 

      like the sweetflag around a pond.  

But oh God he is thin. 

He is disappearing. 

My love is a twig

      on which a single blossom clings

      to summer.  

Get over it

 

The Peace Lilies I bought 

     for his funeral 

     look the same 

 six years later;

their green mirrors

     the shade that consoled 

     a room 

of trembling hearts.  

In the beginning, there was

     a husband.  

    He got sick.  

He died.

Doesn’t everyone have grief 

    like this?

Doesn’t everyone have pain 

    spurred 

on their bones? 

Aren’t we all crumpled bags 

     in the wind?

His son might be over it now.  

    (Does singing in shower mean 

he’s over it?)

Should my heart still feel 

     this dry—

    a hill of frozen dust?

When does ice melt 

    into a stream? 

Where is 

    that point?

When the blooms fall

The orchid's petals 

uncouple on my dinner table

just as my heart blooms and loosens

over and over

again and the light

dims from white to honey 

then steel to black

and the loneliness comes

and then it goes

as these petals come and go.

Such is the character of life

that day after day the world

feels a garden of plain and tender

and anguished hours

so sometimes the day feels

endless and sometimes

the night feels so

like now with air around

the orchid thick with my beloved 

dead.

Sneaking away from home to write in a cafe

 

     The Moony café now a restaurant once

      was a nave where I stopped 

     many eves after work 

                       before reuniting 

with the domesticity 

     my family of six 

     had wrought.  

I liked to sit in the back 

     along the wall--patron chats

    did not distract 

from the guttural

ones I seek with

    my journal. 

Sometimes the word winds 

     blew 

across the pages, sometimes 

     so hard 

               they pressed down 

on my hand, sometimes 

     only a light snow of longings, 

sometimes making sense,

    sometimes not, sometimes 

words landed perfumed, 

sometimes not.  

When I got home, my lateness 

     was forgiven but sometimes 

     not. 

Even now decades gone, 

     I am startled I got away 

    with it so often, sometimes 

I cannot bear to remember 

how I stole the time, 

     sometimes I can.  

Hard to breathe

Oh this man. 

This man who stands before me 

smiling. 

This force working on me.  

When his knee leans

on my knee, we blush. 

His knee admits what 

he is thinking 

and my breath 

is my confession.  

Our pulse no longer

under our control.  

Now I know his secret 

and he knows mine.  

The problem is:

I have a man 

and he has a wife. 

We are just  magnetic poles

standing much too close. 

His north pulls hard on my south.  

The field between us 

gaining power. 

We cannot be judged.  

What is happening is simple physics.   

Invisible forces circling 

the center of our beings.  

I will pull us apart. 

I will pull     pull      pull      

us far apart.  

I will defy the laws 

of Nature. 

Another birthday

Ahhhh another birthday. 

I've had many but beg

for more despite 

the gruesome 

consequences.  

Oh Universe, let my glow fade 

as slowly as the coil 

inside a burned-out bulb.  

My friend fought death with every weapon.  

Every full moon egged her on 

but she vanished anyway.  

Death as much a miracle as life. 

Is it not confusing 

to see thin air where 

your friend stirred the soup 

and poured it steaming 

into bowls, one for you, 

one for her?

Savory soup 

over which you chatted 

with the leisure of Redwood trees 

that will flower in their fairy ring

2000 more years.  

As if our presence had roots 

that stabilize the world 

we stand on. 

My dear man's laugh 

still hangs in that same thin air.  

The echo fading not by seconds 

but by years. 

Is it not a miracle that a mind pulsing 

with wit and song will cease? 

Because chemistry always 

comes undone, because rain 

sweeps away the soil

silt by silt until 

just the stones below remain. 

Whatever waits

We meant to spend the night on Lake Isabel 

but made a wrong turn 

and now the light on the mountain 

burns rust 

then old rose and 

soon a very dark 

wine. 

Should we turn back,  

try again,

keep going 

on this pretty road,

the one walling this river

with boulders 

that rolled down from the sky

like a horde of moons?

Should we stop at this inn 

with a view of the river 

rushing toward all 

that is waiting? 

We do. 

All night the river 

rams the rocks. 

We hear the purling, 

the tumbling, the crashing

them toward 

what is waiting, what

will keep waiting.

We drown in our sleep 

through that all-night 

dash into all that 

is waiting, waiting. 

We bow to this wrong turn--

it is a gift 

on our journey into

all that awaits.

When my son's car pulls up next to mine, waves of stink blast from his open window into mine

The driver's goofy smile tells

he does not remember 

     he spent 

last Christmas eve in jail 

     for another DUI

so I pull away without a word—

      run from thoughts that

chase me on the freeway 

     and all the rest of my life--

thoughts 

of what I might have said 

to change his mind, 

    to adjust his life--

to change this goddamned 

    ball game.  

Let him hit bottom, people say.  

     Let this abandoned building buckle, 

let all the junk catch fire

     and when the smoke clears, 

watch him rebuild 

      from ground up; 

watch him rise from ash like

     a brand new stadium,

watch him make those MVP

     home runs again.  

Near the pond

This bowl of oatmeal looks pathetic 

and I'm the one who prepares it for him.  

It waits and cools on the table 

as my love is wheeled down the hall

to our breakfast room.  

Bits of dried apple and puffs 

of cinnamon drift on

this mush the way 

lotus and spatterdock 

float on the pond.  

His eyes fall on it. 

The spoon and napkin wait 

for him to take the usual four bites 

though I hope he will eat it all this time. 

My love is so thin. 

But not his face. 

Still boned and squared.  

Not his hair: still full, still thick 

as sweetflag around the pond.  

But oh God he is so thin. 

He is disappearing--

a twig on which a few 

last blooms cling-- 

these last moments 

of summer.

They have learned patience

 Terrifying to live on this earth 

with so many

gods out to get you. 

      One day on the deck, the god 

of gods pleasures your skin

    but tomorrow sends

the god of ice 

     to swig you down. 

Then the storm god 

     frowns and your house shakes,

thudding on the roof.

     The cammellias bend and tremble.  

You want to save them but 

     the planters roll on the patio,

 your wind chimes scream

    from their perches.   

So wrap yourself in wool, think 

     of all the strays, human and other, 

hoping they find cover, thinking 

     there but for the grace of God....

thinking of your cousin off the ventilator 

     after 28 days, being wheeled home by her man, 

himself limping, wheezing;  

thinking of the ambulance that came

      for your neighbor, wondering what 

jaws sprang overnight in his

    yard-- just a day ago, you see him place 

 a Christmas tree in his green bucket.  

     How easily he wielded that nine-footer.  

Somewhere hills are caving, 

     there are mud slides.  Somewhere a car 

is crossing a line. 

      A virus gains power.  

Traumas creeping up behind us.  

     Striking. Out of the blue.

Out of sublime sunshine. 

     Picking a moment in their own time. 

The gods have patience. 

 

Spirit among spirits

Walking along Limantour beach,

a sumner day in winter

thinking, not thinking.  

Salmon drawn year after year 

spooning eggs in this open mouth

of fresh stream and salty  tide--

but how do they find 

this nest again?

Do they smell its spit

like wolves smell rabbits 

in the snow 

or an Eskimo spots a bear

in shades of white?

So many kinds of knowing  

closed off to me 

yet I love to wander, 

a spirit among spirits--

my bed a mere

stopover 

on the way 

to another world.

.  

You raise the boy in privilege

You raise him in privilege 

advantages galore:

private school 

forgiveness respect 

love and more

rains down 

from heaven:

the star athlete

star artist too

talent brains 

galore, 

even more--

it's almost unfair 

how much mana

smiles down on this 

one small life. 

And then a wind comes 

down and flips 

this life into a field 

and it all gives way 

like a fence blown 

down in the storm. 

How odd to hear him

rap on your window 

when the moon is low 

and see that face white  

and blank as snow, 

to see him bagging cans 

from the bins in the park

to see him thin as a reed

with eyes that spark  

like campfires in the dark;

that sun drenched boy   

of soccer fame sagging 

like some

abandoned 

house 

and the riddle 

of why 

and how 

will not let 

his father sleep 

one full night.

My friend's brother commits suicide

I know why 

they make themselves die. 

It's when the truth 

whips through their 

bodies 

that someone is never coming back

the war will never end

and the money ran out

and they are sleepless

and the man loves someone else

and they failed to castle when they 

could have,

and they believed that story 

and will be full of promise not

again and 

there's nowhere to send 

their hope.

It is when the truth,

like biting into 

milkweed,

cuts off the taste 

of sweetness.

There is a sharp indrawn 

breath

when they must decide 

to exhale 

now or never. 

Yes I do

The truth is I do not believe

     in magic, 

miracles, 

ghosts, souls--

      all that jazz.  

Yet when a hundred herons 

     sitting still 

on the edge of the shore 

      suddenly rise as one 

in a blur of down moving 

      in slow, slow beats 

blocking sky in their storm 

      of snow,  

I do, yes, 

yes I do 

     sense wings move in me.

I do 

     feel a swooping down 

from clifftops.

I do

      feel my body in that updraft 

soaring 

      toward the moon 

and what is left

      of me 

on this empty beach 

      is but a tiny cloud,

a mere idea

     on which good fortune dusts 

a sweet, sweet down. 

My teen boy moans......

 Our teen boy claims:

 On the hour his handsome face 

droops below its perfect bone line,

he will kill himself--

so unable to bear life 

without glacier taut skin--without 

the tangled dark hedges

thickening head to limb. 

It would have been easy 

to fall on my knees in tears

to recal my own youth, 

when the cells of this body

loaded up like bee hives 

with clear honey,

when my own eyes beamed 

from stars within, 

not yet being a moist-eyed widow 

staring out from heaps of stones 

lathered in froth along the shore--

not yet sitting like a living memorial 

with a fault line carved 

on my heart--without 

this fierce longing

to blend with the lavender 

of sky and sea,

all sadness gone 

from this throat.

But the feeing passes. 

This boy, this figure of beauty, 

believes one day he 

will will smash himself

against the kitchen wall 

like an empty wine bottle.

 Oh Just wait, I tell him,

Watch how long--with what heart-- 

your shaky hand clasps that bottle.

Thank you for the brilliance

 Oh constellations, thank you

for all the life 

    you spit out from 

      your ancient 

                          furnace.

Even our lowly beetle 

        pushing balls of dung 

        across the ground 

        steers its course by 

                    your miracle light.  

Thank you for the brilliance 

          you splatter across what 

            seems to us an 

                        endless sky.  

And though

this bright snow moon 

          may be a minor work 

          for you,  its light 

            shines in a billion 

                  spoony eyes tonight. 

And along earth's dimmest 

            shores, crabs right now 

            spin rock bits

                          into pearls. 

Proof

 Here high in the woods 

warm softly dark 

light keeps changing 

venue and shape, 

leaking streaks along 

some lucky branches 

in between 

blinding super nova flashes 

make my body tingle

under their sudden spell--

stop me in its thrall--

which is why 

I come here to worship 

this sleigh of hand,

to feel this power over 

the mundane, to bow 

to impossibility, to inevitable, 

to eternal, to sense my life 

as one branch on one tree 

in endless forests, 

a tiny part 

of the full story 

of a seed igniting 

in a blur of heat 

growing roots, heft, height 

not knowing  

what will happen next, 

that being a mystery 

or quantum mechanics, 

meaning we sense profound 

things that have no proof

outside the heart.  

Death Valley: What is the reason?

Moon, I come so far 

to be dazzled 

        but not by you. 

I come for the Milky Way,

for its points of light 

      sprayed across the sky.

But your ancient mask glows 

wide its tranquil mist 

over rocky hills, 

    these salty flats of

Death Valley--the darkest place 

on earth except on

nights when you

illuminate all--

even the atmosphere, 

     even the solitude.

In your light I feel this earth--

its vastness, its great unknown, 

all its ancient dust blown

on these battered stones.

     But not a reason for it. 

Waiting for miracles

It will take a miracle, 

the nurse

texts 

of Sue.  

And the day 

gives more 

to mourn. 

Mel's text dings: 

Off life support.

His miracle 

did not come.  

Jan got final radiation.

Her voice 

without weight:

It will take 

a miracle

The arc of life leans 

toward 

the ground.  

All alleys flow 

to nothing.  

The wind 

will 

carry us.

Thinking under a full moon in Death Valley

This moon--

I cannot stare long 

     into that white bulb 

    lighting the low desert,  my

    fear of dying 

                      before I'm ready 

and my other fear--

                      I may never be ready--

     all this extravagant beauty 

     standing in the way.  

In this old basement

    of North America--

    this dried out sphere 

   of flat but rocky plain, 

   of ruffled mountains 

   of pyramid dunes,

                 on cracked ground where 

once blue seas gleamed 

                for centuries.  

This sand confirms it all,

      red mountains divulge 

      what broke them

to all who speak

                  their language.  

Here I see what will become of me 

       but cannot turn away. 

This black vault, 

     this white flash above,

    all the nebulas beyond--tell 

                    that nothing survives the night

                    that I do not think these things 

                   alone. 

A small church

A crow roosting on the dock flaps 

both wings as my bike rolls 

     by the water's edge  

I take this as a blessing. 

From high on this coiled trail,  

I see a man step into the lake 

     and part the water

      as if he held a sword of light 

 

not a fishing pole. 

In the thickets, bats cry their syllables 

and phrases and so with awe 

      I stop my wheels 

     

to better hear the choir sing. 

And as the sun ebbs, 

the whole lake glitters 

      as if a million tiny candles flicker,

     as if saints and angels swim 

among the fish.

Again I stop and strain my neck 

toward this small church 

       below,

      the one named Lake Chabot.  

Valentine kisses for the grandson I raise

So here we go again. 

Valentine's Day. 

    My old love long blazed

to ash--now not even 

    ash. 

In my palm what he left me --

    heart blown in heavy glass.

I see my face in its candy 

    apple shine

which I use to trace its shape 

    on paper--a Valentine 

for my teen boy 

     who makes it clear 

he does not care about such things, 

     least of all from Grandma now that

what matters to his heart is how 

     he styles his hair for today's

Tick Tok masquerade.

But what good is life without love?

    Even unrequited?

So I fill the pouch with chocolates, 

    each wrapped in blood red foil 

shaped as teats but called a kiss.  

Tonight  I set the gift where in the morning 

    he will eat his toast.  

All night they wait for this flashy boy--

    this
dozen unwanted kisses. 

New chances on a sunny morning

Here's another chance to feel at ease.

      Maybe hear a compliment about 

an unexpected aspect of your anxious self. 

Another chance to forgive them all, 

     to accept something--finally.  

Begin with a Swiss cheese and spinach omelet topped with salsa.

     Already feeling health and gentle power. 

And then the chance to plant bare feet 

     on the sand where herons lift

their humongous wings as you meet their land

     and you all glow with immortal soul.

Another chance to dream you are not a clump 

     of matter formed from flotsam in exploding stars.

A chance to ride a bike on a new trail, flat and blooming,

     all yours, another chance to stop

by the wide lake, lean your sore back on a rock 

     and write two good lines, 

 about silvery fish and purple berries--consolation 

   for all that fails to last. 

Another chance to be at ease on Earth, 

     to think of not one thing

that must be changed.  

Puberty

 It takes him away all at once.  

      Like a kidnapping.

One average day

     on a walk to school, 

 the love the child carries for you

     flushes out like milk                

from a leak in his thermos.  

The way that child looks at you 

     one evening over dinner 

is a look you have not seen before. 

     You can't be sure 

      you saw what you saw.  

The way that child speaks to you 

     is not the same tone, 

not like any previous tone.          

And for a long time, his sweet face                

    appears in your dreams on a

   poster pasted on power lines.  

 The new voice, new gaze sweeps 

     into every moment going forth.

Quiet as midnight,

     cool as that dark.      

All day I stroll with the dog in the Redwoods.    

No thoughts of him 

I raised from birth

     who now shaves his face,         

him I pampered and praised--perhaps too much 

     because, well, he was so                

beautiful,  

so tender in all God's ways, 

     and exiled into my life.     

When I return to the house,      

     it hails me again—

      the strange voice, that novel gaze

—that face-slapping loss.

After my friend entered hospice

We were up all night, 

the nurse says. 

She is  asleep now.

Come back tomorrow.

Why wake at all, my friend?.

Why face this gruesome 

dying another day?

All your horses now sold. 

The house and husband gone

Every organelle betrays you.

 

When my man understands Spring 

will not light his brown eyes again

and the ants have carried off

every trace of his last ham sandwich,

he looks from our breakfast table 

past the bowl of oatmeal into

the pod of pills.  

Shoulder to shoulder we fix 

our eyes on those ripened ovules.  

I can think of no reason for him 

to down them except to keep

with me another day.  

I would not do it for him 

as we once agreed and now 

he will not do it for me.  

The air feels stale and hushed. 

Alone we two now on this moon. 

One of us now untethered. 

When they carry him out, one says:

there appears to have been 

no struggle. 

I tell her nurse I'll return tomorrow

but I do not. I walk on the shore

and meet a mess of driftwood,

one bleached skeleton raises two 

crooked arms as if it wants 

to hold me. 

I come here because they cannot

be the fleshy one in this dream.

Because it is a gift I am offered.   

I want to receive it. 

Talking with my friend who has cancer

Next thing I know, my friend does not sound 

like herself on the phone. 

Her voice crawls on elbows through 

the tunnel between us.  

Dragging, unresponsive

as if her body's motor can't turn over.  

The musical patterns remain--a few light notes, 

a pulse of laugh, a few light notes, 

another pulse.  .  

I think of ways to make her laugh 

--it's always been so easy. 

My thoughts remain out of sight

far from the tumor hidden like a stump 

along the rolling hills of her brain.  

I am told, let the patient lead conversation. 

And so I wait for her next words. 

While so,  I recall the ceiling of chandeliers 

at Home Depot. 

Each a sparkling castle, 

each crystal nudged by a gust 

to tap against the edge 

of the body of the other.