Found poems

Willa Cather wrote that the poem arrives like the storm, and she would rush for her pen

For me, they leave just as suddenly

Those I have committed to the page are strangers when I encounter them

recognizable by me as my own work -- who else could know these details? --

Yet entirely foreign

Like the woman at Tara's wedding

Who insisted we'd met

"you were starting a farm near frederick"

Indeed, that must have been me

"You don't remember? My dog peed on your foot!"

The memories float in through the Lyme haze

As if a scene from a movie I watched once

Halfway, dozing, there is the faintest glimmer 

of recognition.

Crab

cancer is the crab
scuttling in sideways
unexpectedly biting your toe
the salty sea stinging your eyes
smelling hotdogs and sunscreen.

It is the clumps of hair in the bathtub drain
the laundry list
cucumber, english muffins,
haagen dash ice cream
(it has more protein)

It is the clean slice
crisp as the air on a winter day
the sun shining bright and weak

It is the tea bag
salty with your teardrops
left on the coffee table
in front of the fire

do we really go dust to dust?
or sea to shining sea?

I saw you this morning
Driving up first street
You looked like you might be turning
When I looked in the rearview, you were gone

Of course,
It wasn't you
Couldn't be you.

But perhaps in this pandemic moment
When the living cannot travel
The spirits are reveling in the free airways
Touching in for quick visits,
Exploring new places.

I'm honored you came to see this place.
I imagine you floating on thermals
High above Dehradun
Rising up Pack Monadnock
above the brilliant foliage

Or your fiery spirit
burning down the patriarchy
or fighting the New England chill
with a spicy hand blended chai
or a cognac

Maybe I can call upon it
The reformer of the advocacy cohort
calling on your courage
your passion
calling out injustice
and calling in the movement

as you welcomed so many
asking the questions
that felt so hard, they were unimaginable

Thank you for sharing
the sweaty incongruities of Cuba
Joy mixed with frustration
The stillness of the monastery
The anger of a cultural trip poorly planned
And the grace of forgiveness
Your house and your kitties, Little and Big
Your faith and your doubts
Belly laughs and hot tears
And above all
Your fiery loyal friendship

Dream Visitor

You came!
        ¡Volvió!

I awoke full of delight
at 3 am
I could see the sea of stars
from the back of the airstream
bobbing like glowworms in a cave.

Of course you visited here,
this hillside made more sacred
by these last twenty seven years
of stewarding heirlooms.
The place where I've been
closest to the land this last year.

Of course you visited now
International Women's day,
just after your birthday,
On a night where an unexpected snowstorm
had iced the landscaped in sparkles
so that the land reflected the starry sky.

Of course you visited, as you were,
In the hospital,
Your body a maze of IVs and ports.
Present to every moment as it came.
Ready to explore each piece of life.

"How is it, to die?" I ask.
"What is that transition like?"

You raised your left eyebrow in thoughtful contemplation.

"I can't tell you," you said.

"There aren't words."

"It was incredible."

and with that, you gave me one of your exceptional smiles.
The crinkles of your eyes sparking joy,
And as always, you astounded me
with your capacity for wonder and delight.

And then you hugged me.
Tight; fierce,
I could not understand how you could hug so hard
through the needles
across that distance
Love is that bridge.
Until the next time, friend.

dot dots, a poem of friendship

Brewbakers and a bag

A sudden storm one July 

And your stomach was turning 

From the baby just a flutter

After the sitting and the walking 

The breathing and the singing

The blueberries drip into the pond

As the dragonflies trace trails over the water

Years later we walk on that water

Turned solid

As everything in the world had improbably turned topsy turvy

We stand in a silent circle around the beaver lodge 

Suddenly landlocked

Sap to syrup to candy

A warm winter day we watch the snow sublime invisible

The the reverberations of your life echo outward

And your wave folds back into the ocean.

The longest sunset
(a found poem)

I look back, toward the Chesapeake
a blue blush splits the sky blue pink
of the clouds kissed by Baltimore's evening sun.

I saw that sun this morning
broken into a fractal of waves
within waves
each forming and receding
itself, distinct for a moment before going back
to the mother ocean.

Now the sky ahead beckons
the light blue of civil twilight in St. Louis
as we fly high above the clouds
spread far below like a crinkled baby blanket
with a lone pink puff of cotton candy
catching the sticky summer sunset above.

I watch the staccato conversation
between two neighboring thunderclouds.
The cotton candy is now a glowing golden mesa.
A banking turn reveals a fiery red cloud
edged against a flat yellow sky.

The mesas are now snow-capped mountains
Popo and Izta, as if seen from Puebla.
Above them, a sliver of a waxing moon stands her watch.

A thin flat cloud divides the blue sky above
from the neon orange of the sunset
above a full sea of cottonball clouds
evenly dispersed.
Popo and Izta continue to erupt in intermittent lightning.

This is a new season
Too warm for autumn
too dry; the teardrops leave
a desert of salt on my cheeks
Too late for summer
runs in the park in shorts
The sun setting at 4:45
jars my internal clock, which proclaims
I'm overheating!  Something is wrong!

This season of fear.
of seeing things.
things I have seen only in the old movies
that showed the hatred still visible
during the civil rights era.
But they didn't end then.  They went underground.
Like the yawning mouth of the cenote
where the river flows back into the earth.

Pie de leon and cempasuche
flower here on Dia de los Muertos in this false season
But there is a time to live, and a time to die.
even the genie knows
bringing someone back from the dead
it's not pretty.

Today is backwards day! the children proclaim!
how else to explain that the cubs won
and we have woken up to news
that cannot exist
except now in this new unnatural space
between seasons.