Rising from the lawn (Mother's Day)

Because she's gone I can talk
about my mother.

I can say she was not the best
nor the worst on the spectrum.

I can say she was not really
like a mother. She was ardent

like a lover, at times
like my worst enemy.

If she were here, she would be
a 101 year old chainsmoker

with hair arrayed like a wedding
cake that would sag under her laugh.

I can say she would scold me
for being too serious and when I

complain, she’d recite an uplifting
line from a famous German sage

fortelling how people cry out
for their mothers

once they are gone
and then cast her eyes to heaven
like a wounded bird.

She would remind me how much
angst she endured for her children

and tell me again to spade her
beside my dad and to visit her there

often because it's the only way
she can rise from that silent lawn.

Avelia's 38th birthday

Our oldest little girl just turned 38.  

Once her beauty
took our breath away.
A rare gift
to be so lovely.

Alas the gift comes with
strings.
Some life-enhancing skills
failed to thrive.
Like speech.

Damn Aphasia.

She entered the world fighting
gravity--the fate of kiwi birds:
Rising above the ground
a forever struggle.

We tried to help her fly but
no matter how often she flailed
her hairy little wings, she could
not rise.

Not built for soaring
like seabirds.

And one day she burrowed
with another kiwi
and behold,
a baby boy.
A seabird.

Imagine.

The kiwis panicked.
Gravity again.
Too much gravity.
One waddled away
in his direction
and ours went
in another.

We do not know what
her days are like

and frankly
we do not want
to know.

The kicker is she’s quite content,
More than many highflying
seabirds we know,
including me.

What luck.

I never imagined
this outcome but
it deserves
some measure
of gratitude.

New anthology by Maya Stein Grief Becomes You

Four of my saddest poems have found a home in this just-released anthology featuring poems, essays and other narratives and images from nearly 60 contributors.

"Grief Becomes You is a tribute to loss, an offering made on behalf of a desire to give voice to the quieter, more shadowy, more elusive aspects of grief’s landscape. The work in this collection reflects the breadth and depth of that real estate, and my hope is that it provides the kind of navigation and comfort we often need most when we are lost in our grief: to know that we are not alone."
--Maya Stein

Print and download;oadable versions available here:
www.griefbecomesyou.com

Tending the gutters

Days pass without a hint
of him.
All casual thoughts
beavered away.

But now the wind wants
to clone my windows
and his face eroded
splashes into shallows
left by rain.

I didn't clean the gutters.

He recalls how pure were his gutters
by August.

Now I'm in charge
but the tools to subdue the wild
and comprehend the workings of
the world

stand in the shed without a boss,
stalwart as a redwood above the fog.

The steady ways of him reconsidered
as I climb the ladder.

No shortcut

All morning the work demands
and I comply.

Note cards written, signed and stamped.
the cat's cry and needs all met.

Every bit of dirty laundry washed and dried.
every memory of him pushed aside.

I've more important tasks than mourning;
living flowers in my yard need corning

and

who'll cook for kids if I'm forlorn?
But there's no shortcut to forgetting.

It takes time and time and time until
we're riven, it takes all the time we're given.

Thoughts about eternity when I see the bee

A bee's wing rubs the hot tub's edge,

an autumn leaf her burial rug

she looks to be napping

but upon inspection,

it's clear she's freshly drowned.


Her legs folded awkwardly

like a crumpled ballerina.


The plump bee needs no more air to drive her.


Trillions of her kind have supped the planet's flowers.

She matters no more nor less than any other bee

or any other flower or any other planet

or than me.


We are equal in our brief hunt for sweet.


In untold sunsets, we'll return together,

this bee and me, our shrouds of matter,

specks and sparks spinning in the furnace.


Our common destiny to drift from star to star

without a single memory.

Full moon over Lake Chabot

Watch the moon step

down the hills

on swollen knuckles

then watch it roll

into the black and silent lake.

Now watch my heart

bewitched forget

the countless insults of the day

now watch the moon

lead this dark away.