Flight (When I was 15)

A helicopter carries my mother

to the next town where there’s a room

that can stem her bleeding disappointment.

I do not miss her gaping eyes,

how they rob me of nerve, my real self, 

or how her mouth whips the air into

storms and hail stones.

But for a time, when she returns,

chloroformed, my mother has no more 

longing for what she lacks. Her throat 

bursts at times with song, all her rancor 

and despair seems burned to ash 

in these cheery, most welcomed

holocausts and I want to throw some flowers

at her feet.

Utter relief

What a peerless--what a blessed 

feeling.

What an unwinding!

More than mere relief, 

which is exquisite, 

utter relief stops your heart. 

It’s what you feel when the police say, 

We found your little boy. 

When the doctor says, 

Your blood count's back to normal. 

Utter relief is when the body 

explodes with exuberance, 

when the cold, wet peck you felt 

on your cheek was not the lips 

of  monster death 

but a small cold drop of winter rain. 

My friend and I ramble along a beach. 

She stoops to touch a crab, 

the life gone out of it, 

turns the shell in the sand,

in a gentle voice asks, 

Isn't God's work amazing? 

Her face shining clear as glass. 

The splendor of the ocean 

and what spills out of it stirs her 

just as it stirs me. 

I wish you knew God loves you.

She says this kindly, knowing my grievances:

Life’s cruelty, its utter futility, 

the extreme mystery the God she

loves insists on.

But why spoil her moment 

with my unease? 

She only wants to share this thing 

that’s changed her life. 

And yet I must complain, not gently. 

Life just stumbles along on its own, 

merely rises up from nature’s patterns, 

and one day will vanish. 

She lifts her face to the clouds. 

Utters not a word. 

But I can tell she’s praying for me. 

Poetry

Every day 

a poem 

pecks 

a path 

down

the page.

Often just 

a hen or a crow--

sometimes a whole flock 

of hens, 

a whole murder 

of crows and

now and then

when a comet 

sprays the night,

or Mars

and Venus 

cross in fuzzy 

dislocating light, 

a whole charm 

of hummingbirds 

dip down 

to agitate

all this 

empty space. 

On the way to Yosemite, November

We arrive in El Portal, 

just outside of Yosemite, 
after driving on highway 140 

through squares of apple orchards, 

small vineyards, 
a few pumpkin patches, 

wide flush meadows of gold 

until that unbending, solid highway 

finally curves up into the Sierras, 

into its shadows of ash and black 

that droop across the road 

and across trees of blood orange 
and lemon (but many holding on fiercely 
to their green),

some bringing to mind the lace 

my mother sewed on dresses, 

and others call up flocks 
of yellow butterflies,

as the road ribbons higher into the hills, 

narrowing and curving, sometimes 
very sharply, unstoppable as the Merced river, 

dry in places, its smooth bowels 

exposed and assailable, 

and in other places the water depthless,

and in others gurgling, until finally 

the sun slumps behind the ridges

and the Yosemite View Lodge shines 

before us like a galaxy. 

What old men do

Now my husband reminds me 

of my father. It may be all men 

resemble my father 

when their vital organs wane. 

It may be they all sit for hours

in oversized chairs to read the paper, 

and scold about the wrong turn 
the world has taken

since they were young and quick. 

It may be they all sink 
into long naps

while watching TV mobsters 

and large game 
chow each other down. 

It may be they all 

make grocery shopping 

the high spot of their days, 

and yet each morning, shave, 
fuss with their hair, pat on racy cologne 

and dress to kill.

Under my feet

San Leandro Creek early this morning, 

so still, unmoving, only a shudder or two from frozen. 

Under my feet, points of light twinkle 

from the deep litter of dead leaves, each light 

a leap off a frosted drop sparkling like a star,

adding brilliance to a damp and dark 

forrest floor littered with corpses, 

but how they lie lovely in their graves, 

greens and yellows faded or completely gone, 

but at least they have me, a grateful woman

for this carpet of gold and brown 

under my feet where I spot a fresh leaf, 

still yellow, others gold or dull green, or grey
as if born at the last minute 

then dropped from the exhausted arms 

of these old trees. Just beyond I see

pure brown earth from which swollen roots bulge 

silent and battered as if they popped 

out of the ground in a plunge for air.

I can’t take my eyes off that sad disarray

of skins cast off  by the eucalyptus trees, 

as if in a rage about the shortness of everything 

they are tearing off their clothes.  

I find a long thin branch on the ground. 

It serves well as a walking stick to steady me 

up the slippery slope where my car waits. 

Just one last look around before I go. 

I'm pleased that all this winter dead-- 

its silence and bareness, its sharp chill--

doesn't carry me off to melancholy,

instead takes my hand and squeezes it.