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.  

What a loss!

 The oncologist and I sit eyeballs to eyeballs—mine frozen 

in fear as if he’d pointed a gun at me and cocked it—and 

His lips keep moving:  It’s too small to bother about. 

Pop, pop, pop! This man’s words! 

Too small too small . No spider webs! 

What a rush! 

As if robins hatched in the hidden 

nests of my body

and the doctor and this white room fall away

and I see the sky is blue and I cannot 

find enough words.  

This body is mine again, returned whole

from the morgue! 

A tiny black comma on your scan. Go home. 

Run, baby, run! 

I will! I will!

Every hair on my head, my arms, brows,

inside my ears--

feels like a bee sting!

I am not dead! 

There is a sudden intrusion of sunlight

into my grave, now empty.

So this thing has gone from nothing 

to everything

to this!

The weight of me changes again.

All my frantic notes to friends—

all that needless suffering,

And looking back to my near death,  

I admit to a freakish excitement, 

a kind of shocking sense of new adventure. 

I will be dying soon, I was thinking,

and all will be known.

What a loss!

What a sensational loss!

The virus

Every day she measures the sugar 

      and gluten--she is so careful.

Every night she mixes petals and seeds 

      and blends them with the unsweetened blood

            of a pomegranate. 

Every noon she comes down on her knees

      and palms into a down-ward facing dog

and the 33 bones of her spine from her skull

      to her coccyx curl then straighten 

like a ladder directly into the arms of

      long life--longevity belongs to this body. 

It ferments in her seeds, her tailbone,

      her sour blood-red juice. 

All would have grown stronger day by day,

        drink by drink, 

               downward-facing by downward facing

had not that virus, that thing both dead and alive,

      not awakened in the darkness under

            her diligently examined breast.

Practicing

After the late night shower,

by morning these leaves look exhausted 

but content in their graves,

shiny too with clear pools 

in their centers no bigger 

than tears. 

Whatever yesterday laid flat 

and bruised in aridness 

now gains a second wind 

in the rain, a final taste, a gasp 

that returns blood to their veins, 

makes their brown spots shine

as small wide eyes.

I like this large maple leaf 

in the center of mud 

and not far away two thin eucalyptus leaves 

whose edges were nibbled on last night,

seem now recovered, stretched out 

on a neighbor's back, a small seed 

hanging like a bell from its spine. 

I mistake a red leaf for a feather 

and place it on the belly of a fallen 

chunk of bark, 

dark as espresso, 

arrange them all to my liking 

and remove my camera from a pocket. 

Part of me is always watching,

practicing their dying

Though I still feel 

far away from my undoing.

Yet for a moment here,

it seems not so bad a thing 

to one day lay down flat 

on the great heart of  this earth.

Looking

 There, look, I say to me, 

and I look. 

I see blue, lavender—life. 

And stare 

      at that horizon's calm gaze. 

Like leopard eyes. 

Bright and then brighter

      and then dimmer and darker

as clouds part 

and re-gather . 

I promise to stay 

     here,

in this moment of clouds 

and swells 

not in the last moment, 

     not 1000 moments past,

nor in the next.

I will not squander this moment

      with its music of wind chasing wind, 

bird calling bird, 

water washing rock. 

yes .... yes I can do this, 

      I will, do this.

I will kneel at the altar 

     of this moment. 

 
No other. 

Don't ask me how I'm feeling.

  Don't ask me how I'm feeling.

       Just don't ask.

Because I'm reeling.

No, no ask me...please.... ask!

     Because I’ll tell you

even if  you don't inquire,

even though I'm drained

of all routine desire.

I want to tell you. I really do.

     I don't want to be alone

emoting so much blue.

 I need to report it.

     Or should I say, deport it.

What is the right word

     for all my anguish?

What explains this weeping?

     This mood unrelenting, creeping

as a shadow 

follows me around

from my bedroom to the kitchen,

     From the market to the plaza?

I know the diagnosis—it is Gaza. 

Privileges

I start the day by eating toast 

with avocado instead of egg 

to begin a new ritual in my new 

moss green kitchen 

where I hang a gold and blue image

of Our lady of Guadalupe 

to save me from misfortune 

because I have always been superstitious 

and now grateful 

that I don’t live anywhere near

Palestine, Ohio 

where a homeowner with a bad cough 

took a microphone and told the

CEO of Norfolk Southern 

that his company stinks. 

I too have a right to feel wounded 

by miseries bursting from pipes 

and potholes and cracked sidewalks 

across my state.

 

Inside me a loud cry

will not cease 

for I know there

is no savior, no path away

from slumped bodies tossed  

under feeways by big owners.

of everything.

The smoke of small fires drifts out 

from the underpasses 

so we cannot forget 

who sleeps there. 

But I have avocados, sonnets, 

leaves from Lake Chabot, a grandchild,

a plane ticket. 

I can look but not get

away.