In praise of mothers

Praise mothers who stand guard around 

the merryground of our children’s lives 

for as long as we are able. 

Praise our moods that bob up and down 

with our kids‘ own happiness 

and praise us for the love we stubbornly give 

and for all the new languages

we must learn 

to keep up 

with their evolutions

Praise us for showing up for duty 

as often as the stars

 in the Milky Way

and for seeing the light 

in our kids‘ eyes and 

helping them to dream

praise us for accepting their strange desires 

and relearning our own courage 

Praise us for letting them run barefoot 

and shirtless

For being the oar guiding their boats, 

for teaching them how to get good deals 

at the markets, obey speed limits, 

pay their bills on time 

And for not saying 

Damn I told you so when 

they fall for a scam the first time 

knowing how hard it is to live 

well in the wild

Praise us for waiting in the dark 

for them to come home from

those parties—whether or not we snapped 

Praise us for the good lies we tell them 

when they ask, Do I look fat in this suit? 

and for helping them create— like a snail

 —a protective layer

and praise us for not drowning in the sea 

of their reproaches, refusals, tantrums 

Praise us for knowing the world finds its way

in no matter what we do

Praise us above all 

for when there’s a warrant out 

for their arrest and 

we don’t erupt into flames

Praise us for tiptoeing out of their lives 

when it is time—quiet as dusk— 

but praise us--for leaving 

the porch light on.

The powers of my olive trees

The olive trees have stood here 

far longer than I have 

and likely will outlast me 

by centuries.

The arborist who stops by doesn’t want 

to trim them. I ask why and 

he looks up at their leafy limbs and 

shakes his head 

with reverence, 

Because they’re beautiful

and I’m an arborist!

But I’m a worrier, and so is my neighbor, 

who sees their sprawling arms brushing my roof 

as kindling for a wildfire.

The arborist chuckles: 

No, no. Olives hold water.

In a fire, they’ll sneeze

Or burst into juice!

I hadn’t known that olive trees have such powers, 

or that if burned to the ground, 

they resurrect from their roots. 

Wonderful. 

They remember who they are.

When we moved here in 1995, for a few autumns, 

the kids pluck olives, fill baskets with their tout skin, 

each a bitter blessing 

till cured 

with salt and vinegar and hidden 

in our dark garage for months. 

The kids help until growing up becomes 

distracting and then the baskets 

are put away.

Now, every autumn, the olives drop uncelebrated

to the ground and 

vanish into the leaf blower.

There’s grief in that. 

A splitting in me, like bark under stress, 

when I recall the simple joy of gathering

and curing—rinsing off the bitterness, 

tucking the jars away. 

Watching bitterness turn edible

And now to see the fruit so wasted. 

And the kids have long moved on and

never mention these trees.

They speak now only of what they lack. 

Want. 

Some nights they feel like vines coiling 

over me—not out of malice, 

but of need. 

Tonight I light a candle on the porch.

The flame wavers gold and 

everything’s transfigured: trees, shadows, 

the deep womb of my heart. 

I remember their joy. 

Mine too. 

And in the flickering candle light, something 

that feels holy returns.

This is the darkness olives need.

The cool, quiet dark that draws out

bitterness, 

that softens and sweetens. 

And preserves. 

The miracle

The little tomato plant a realtor left 

on my porch is thriving

in the bigger pot of an old orchid 

     for whom 

the clock stopped ticking

during my monthlong wandering when 

the G-son forgot to water it and 

instead drowned 

      two fake palms. 

In just a week the tomato branches burst 

upward a good inch and 

look much greener and brighter 

than that wimpy slice of life looked 

      on its arrival.

Of course this is all nature‘s 

chemistry but chemistry is such 

      a miracle.

The plant turns sun, water--thin air 

--into food, hormones 

that make the leaves grow bigger 

and all that radiance burst

into red delicious jewels. 

     What a trick!

That same trick going on in me though

 in the opposite direction. 

Every cell in my body now whispering, S.O.S! 

I didn’t imagine being a widow. 

My man knew it. Said, this will be all yours to handle alone

      some day.  

He meant these four kids. 

This large house without them and

       him. 

He didn’t wish that on me.  

But saw it coming. 

      That lightening bolt. 

I think of him at unexpected times. 

Tonight during a program about oceans 

when I hear the long moans of whales, 

not the bright notes of his trumpet 

that shriek like a dolphin rising, easy and free, 

      on the breeze.

No, the whales sing low and slow

about the end of time, about 

     their grief, wild and 

breaking silence, stalking 

     like hunger.

For Fracture Zones Exhibit

Written in response to the topographical images in Andrea Guskin’s “Fracture Zones” exhibit that features large scars deep beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean forming fracture zones. To create these images, the artist crunches, pushes, and smooths metal and then mends the fractures with threads. 

How peaceful they look in their wooden frames—

our earth stories 

written in folds—long, raw seams where 

the crust split open, where 

the earth tore itself to make 

     something new. 

Eons of cracking open and settling again 

for yet one more upheaval, 

another strange, relentless explosion

     into being. 

How humbling to know that such accidents 

and flukes, valleys ripped apart, 

such molten heavings—

all that beautiful violence

of change 

had to be exactly what it was 

     to get us here. 

These are not scars. These are records 

of becoming. 

     They are birthmarks. 

And this also is the story of the soul 

when grief and love crack us open. 

Then too the earth tilts and 

the heart splits along a fault, 

everything warm spilling out.

  

We too are stitched from rupture, 

shaped by cracking and settling

for yet one more confusing explosion 

into rebirth,

carried along on waves of chaos and 

 accidental grace. 

We too carry golden threads 

that bind 

     our broken places.

And that is our inheritance.  

The fractures we live through,

the messy, glorious breakage that 

make and remake us.

Our ground always moving 

in its deliriums. 

Because nothing is ever

     finished. 

Chasing the blues away

Watch the moon roll
down the hill
of sleepy moles
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 them all away.

All the wrong role models

Tolstoy,  Michener, Dreiser,  Hollywood

—my mother

they all led me on with exuberant tales
of abnormal adventure. 

As if surviving a war were

a necessity

to a life well lived

As if just one or two lovers were

a squandering

of youth

as if each love must make you feel
as if your heart were a cliff

collapsing into the sea

as if you must wake up each day
in an ancient world capitol

and adventure about the ruins all day
as if you lived in an opera

as if the world were a stage
and you must play a part—
a part far from the middle of the road,

your heart flying right

into a typhoon's belly.

That’s how my newborn nerves

got fired up with unquenchable longings

and how they were sunk, too,

because something always weathers

every gain away

making unhappy endings—

          but the ending too must not be average—

there must be an orchestra, enemies,

          a great speech to the masses

—something you can take a final b
ow for.   

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.