Lay me anywhere, just not indoors

I do not want to die indoors, 

my final taste of bleach, 

my last scent of just mopped floor. 

Lay me by a shore, in a field, 

beside a weathered stone--

even a garden hose will do--

anywhere please, just get me out 

      from behind closed doors.

I would break a window if I could 

and crawl out to the nearest wood 

to let my eyes open 

one last time on

something green, immense, 

something born,

where I can mulch with those 

already gone, 

where stars can clearly see 

what's become of me 

and once again reach out 

to gather 

         my remaining matter.

The Lanai

On that lanai in lovely Kapula, 

a white moon stares down all alone 

but a pacific roar tells us 

       life is near.

As does the steady groan of frogs 

buried in a slime

of hideous creatures and 

      frightening possibilities.

And above my head, every second

a new electrocution scents the air 

with sizzling flesh, dangling the inevitable 

      before me.

The watchdog

 

The way I cling to this ranch house
with its many useless rooms,
for yet another season 

though my man (and our children) 

have rooted elsewhere now.

Another summer folds into another
autumn and it is October 3 again
when he was carried out past midnight.

I still sleep in that bedroom 

a whole decade later

steadfast on this crag like 

one of those devoted watchdogs
that curls on its master‘s grave
till some kind strangers pry

her away.

The glow

 By day I’m a hummingbird in love 

with the sun and the garden, flitting 

from thought to thought to thought but 

after dark I turn into a woman

who sleeps in a bedroom strung

with tiny lights (my magical, secret cinema)

not to brighten my empty bed but

the glow reminds me of him 

who flutters about the room

mute as a moth escaping the night

for the remote village of our bed

just to let me know 

this remains 

his permanent destination.

My mother-in-law's orchid

 Stepping out mornings into my sunny garden

a different kind of time unfolds.

Coffee mug in one hand, I turn on the hose

with the other. 

Cool water showers the herbs and I hear 

a quiet applause rise

in me for their perseverance—

those deer did not return.

I pinch buds from the basil and the scent

bursts like green confetti into

my nose and move on

to my mother-in-law’s orchid.

It’s lived 13 years without her now —

Lived with her a decade before that

neglected by her and now by me 

who neglected both.

And yet it endures. 

Like her, it keeps on giving.

I’ve pruned my guilt about it but 

it grows back like her orchid’s improbable 

blooms, a sweet gift and a silent 

rebuke.

Back in the kitchen,

the basil’s scent won’t let go.

Each time I brush hair from my eyes,

a wave of green spice fills 

me up and quiets the sting 

of that regret and of children 

who take too long to call.

But when they do, it’s not the basil’s calm

but the sudden, soaring thrill I feel

when seeing that orchid bloom again.

oh how we hang on

Oh how we hang on 

even to our ficus, making sure it leans

 toward the light and keeps greening up, 

hoping our orchids only play dead and 

will burst back into bloom-- 

and stay there. 

We want every last leaf and frond 

and fern to make it, 

also our cloudy-eyed German Shepherd--

may she sit by my feet forever and 

may the cat keep watch in the window and 

may our kids and friends--all--

hang on—

our own selves especially—and 

leaf out again and again 

without end.

Oh how we hang on.

We sit on the porch and sense eternity —

right here, beside the Rosemary and Mint.

And when the bougainvillea finally gives out,

when the dearest friend doesn’t pull through,

we stare down at the ashes and 

make something infinite 

out of that smoke, see a world 

glowing at the edges

 without end.

Oh how we hang on.

Grief gets strange like that—rank and holy.

Even though we follow the science,

and nothing about forever makes sense.

My husband died ten years ago.

His ashes fell soft as snow into the sea—

no words fit for that world beyond 

atoms and forces, yet mind holds 

him intact and some part of him 

keeps glowing in the dark.

Oh how we hold on

and pray for the soul to slip

into the sky 

like a bird let out of a cage,

and there is a lasting flame 

at the center of things 

that never goes out.

Oh how we how on,

tell ourselves that flame was never born,

so it cannot die.

A whole forest of priests agrees with us. 

But it’s the wind through the oaks and 

the way the moss clings to stone that 

persuades us we will hang on too.

The part of us that longs for 

the ever ripe apples 

in our never rotting hands.

If I were God

I will think about life 

not death tonight

though I feel no ordinary light

because two friends 

now die nearby.


And here at home 

my spine knocks

against my bones 

and I regret

to mention it because 

others have it worse.


I am one who feels 

the world's violations

against people I love 

and that is most people.


I love most people.  

I love our species

and if I were God no child would suffer

in all the ways so sadly commonplace.


None would crouch and beg for mercy.

There would be no need 

for mercy, no idea of it.


No need to wash away 

what God says he cannot forgive in us,

what we are born into 

and must be punished for.


We forgive his cruelty because we are

terrified.

We are like the wife beaten 

to the floor

by the man who blames her 

for his rage.

We blame ourselves until living

feels like dying

and hope? 

It changes nothing.


We tell ourselves:  pray harder, 

bend deeper

yet God 

keeps receding.

A list poem of gratitude

 

It never occurred to me to raise crickets in a bowl just

to be serenaded every night.  

But people do that.  

The bugs sing to seduce yet keep on singing after 

every orgasm for the pure joy 

of it, I guess.  

What a world! 

I love to hear them on my evening walks but try 

not to visualize a thousand black bugs squeezing 

their hind legs together.   

How that kills my reverence!   

Tonight along the water's edge embraced 

by leafy trees of varied ethnicities, 

among them a splattering of lost marigolds.  

crickets croon to me and

a jolt of their joy rips through me.  

A jolt of privilege to walk in this lovely place 

where it is safe except for the frightened snake

& a family of raccoons rustling the brush and thistle.

My house is not in flames. 

My family not bombed. 

My son not being waterboarded.  

No army turns off my water.  

Stops the delivery of food.  

I have medicine.  

I get to go on living!

This feels like a miracle! 

Because elsewhere (you know where) 

whole families are hunted like prey.  

Even the stars above them die with less pain.

But here the oleander 

that seemed dead all winter 

is alive & abundant, well watered. 

How did I get so lucky? 

My wings rub together with the band

of crickets. 

Whom do I thank for all this? 

Clenched fist

Another day and the man who slept beside me for so long shrinks 

      and fades.

Day after day that shrinking, that fading of him.  

       Not long dead yet he is losing visibility

though I clasp hard and strain

       to smell him on this Hawaiian shirt, to hear his timber.

Another day of not seeing a man

I knew by heart.

       More and more spaces between his bones and mine.

Soon I will peer into thin air 

and his happy banter will fade

       like a train whistle rushing into night.

But today I like how I handle that truth.

Today I hear only a squeal from my own heart 

       when I step from my car

under the white bulging overhang of cloud 

       
along the great blue bay.

Geese jabber.  The wind crashes through my coat

and my body shivers as I pass

       the bench where he sat and something

moves hawklike over it and suddenly

I recall his toes were the last

       to disappear into the black plastic bag. 

I remember the weight of his ashes grey as fog,

 heard his knuckles cracking.

      

My fists clench in the cold shower 

       of recall.

Eternity is the problem

The way the Bay stretches before me 

when I step 

      over the yellow hill of Oyster park—all filmy lilac—

and a necklace of sparkling jewels

      light the San Mateo bridge—

my heart trips—a soft bobbing 

      against my ribs, legs turn to silk.

My arms swing wide out to the side

       as if I might alight.  

So drugged am I by the great expanse and 

      strong evening breeze, 

and the sky ablaze as if heralding 

      a great triumph, a great gratitude.

Forgotten is this morning‘s walk 

     as the widow,

teary on a muddy trail 

      between a steep hill and a waterless creek

who stops beside a brown leaf dangling 

      rag-like beside the fresh green newborns,

who follows the deer tracks 

      to the edge of the lake,

who waits for a breeze to nudge her 

     to the next moment and

cries because crying 

      gives her something to do 

about this thing 

      that nothing can be done about. 

It’s eternity— eternity is the problem.  

      It falls out from under you 

like a sink hole.

My man who loved me with a 

       mother's patience is no more. 

His green eyes far from light.

       His comb, wool socks--

      

the closet full of things 

      that outlive him. 

 Death is a crime. 

       If you are alive and glad to be alive, 

 death is theft, a mean assault. 

And if you have no faith, there's no appeal. 

       No one rises from the grave. 

But he is dead, my dearest, we've been 

      disconnected by every measure.

A box of bone bits centered on the table, 

      the one he passed every day for years— 

now his altar. 

So while he is nowhere, detached from me,
      in measureless space,

I prepare for the rain that's forecast, 

       plant the bulbs he meant to plant, 

make his dog stop sniffing his shoes. 

Between the branches

My grandson wants to bury our black lab’s ashes 

       in the west corner of our yard 

under the Manzanita tree that leans on

       his bedroom window 

until he remembers we plan to move to Alameda 

      and worries we'd have to dig her up 

           and bury her in our new yard.  

I propose that Ruby would want to stay

      at the home she spent her life in,

          her bones nurturing the tree that shades

               the room she shared with you. 

And you know, I add, that tree stands high 

      above the house

          and so all of the San Francisco Bay

               can be enjoyed from every branch 

and when we take our walks along the shore, 

      we will be in the tree’s view 

          and it will always find us 

               if we want to be found.  

I would love that. I want to be found,

     my grandson says and because he is only 8, 

          we hug with extravagant affection.