Heart-shaped rocks underfoot all around on the grassy path and sand dune from here to the shore and at the water’s edge
(dare I say even in the palm of the Garçon at the pâtisserie whose smile needed no translation)
Hearts!
There was a time I would have come home with enough heart-shaped rocks to border a banister, fill a bowl and basket, lined them up to show the Garçon in the morning with coffee and croissants
but I am content now to find moon stones instead translucent round and easy love in the stars, the sky, the universe enough
In a persistent effort to weave a web the spider imperceptible casts her silver filaments from the uppermost spire of a wintered beach plum one thin budded branch from which a hundred casts arc and fall arc and fall her small labors shimmering in afternoon light prayers of possibility glittering
There is a slice of ocean outside my window and in it the world from a view just above a confluence of birdsong and whalesong the mechanics of the day juxtaposed to sweet, sweet silence.
There’s this photo in which he stares at the camera and I remember we’d already begun by then; made plans, talked for hours, fallen in love, even by the look on his face; I remember that day, our chairs pushed together, sharing our lunches, scribbling notes to each other like school kids; but we were hardly that, hardly so fresh to all of it; I wish my camera had focused more, had adjusted its exposure to show the shadows, the rough edges and hidden details, to find the nuances in the full picture I see so clearly, now.
This is Reverend Scott on the valve in the belly of Poseidon. Quint in the jaws of his worst nightmare. Jack and Rose at the Titanic’s stern. Eowyn and the Nazgûl. Harry and Voldemort. Bruce Willis on the asteroid careening through space.
This is the battle scene. The climactic moment. The death scene.
This is before the denouement. Before the resolution. Before the credits roll.
This is the moment that needs you. That demands faith. That requires courage. And sacrifices.
So hang on tight, baby, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride…
Grizzly Bear and Goldilocks (that’s not my name, she says) are discussing the merits of cinnamon applesauce and whether or not I would eat her, instead, barbequed with ranch dressing but before I can answer in my gruffy harumphing voice we’re off to gather sticks for our make-believe fire pit and the s’mores we’ll eat later because right now she’s making breakfast pancakes with maple syrup? bacon and strawberries I love bacon! which we eat while she laughs that the syrupmakes my fur sticky so she cleans it off my hands thank you then we pretend-read a book before going to bed and I snore as loud as I can until she wakes me up ten seconds later to sit by the fire (just one more round, she asks) so I can’t possibly leave and why would I ever want to? there are s’mores, after all, and a backyard afternoon that is just right.
I have seen her one hundred times since she died in crowds and corners when I least expect and last night in a dream again looking fabulous and forgiving all my tears waited until I was done so we could step into the space of time allotted that glorious dreamspace where everything is as it was and we do as we used to do for hours unending until I wake no longer feeling quite as alone.
If these walls could talk these shelves and set-aside spaces you might think I love her and I do one hundred times I do and have for so long I no longer remember first glance, first conversation first spark of friendship but this and this and this tell our story — part of it most of it the sum of it — easy to turn pages in this space and remember the miles we traveled, the endless stories, the memories gathered in pockets to take home for safe keeping.
The morning thick with sound spring sound a humid hovering of birdsong and flowersong buds on trees whispering and soft soil separated by anxious green almost ready for the ministry of bees and butterflies soon to be tending and tittering a symphony of what is this moment and what will be at any moment soon.
Sleep has been merciful these past three months, arriving early from exhaustion staying late in fellowship with the dreams that wax nostalgic for simpler nightmares and harmless ghosts.
But this morning, I’m awake at 3, my familiar and I like old friends sharing space beneath the spring moon, waning in its sixth phase, while one lone peeper keeps time as sharp as the second hand on a clock.
We have not been together in this way — the moon and morning and me — since the monsters took over, since their cacophony of destruction, the sinister palpitation of days, and all of us wondering what or who will be next.
This morning is a gift of quiet comfort, the marsh frog a beacon which seems to say Here! Here! Here! over and over and over, it reminds that even in the age of monsters, once can find solace in the soft, dark edges, calm in the promise of cycles and phases, of spring and worlds ever spinning.
sit up straight the napkin goes on your lap elbows off the table tines down tines up left hand, right hand, tip the spoon away don’t slurp don’t shovel don’t talk with your mouth full
To the Starlings who have moved into the Privet Hedge on Short Beach Road,
Welcome.
Please stay as long as you like.
Help yourself to the bugs and slugs in the front garden. Enjoy the spread of sweet clover and violets in the lawn, but watch for the mower who arrives every two weeks on Friday.
There’s always shade under the boxwoods, if you need, and rain water in small pools along the mossy brick path.
In the back, you’ll find a bird feeder loosely tended, but often full of seeds, and an endless dance of bees among the honeysuckle by the old dogwood.
We have resident squirrels, a family of five jays, and a chipmunk who resides just south of the bird bath which we keep filled all summer long.
The pond out back offers the companion of frogs and turtles, crows and owls, a flock of your brothers and sisters, and at least one hawk for balance.
Pay no mind to the cat. She never goes outside, but does love her spot on the screen porch. Feel free to watch her watching you, that could go on for hours!
Now mind you, I do have one request.
What I ask only in return is this: please do not cross the wide wild way, west of the hedge. It’s fast and merciless. If you, out of instinct, fly that way ever, please stay high and alert.
It occurred to me this morning, while I held tight to old dreams, that someone, somewhere was also waking to this day, but opening eyes to a present they recognized: the familiar sun though curtains and the routine of Sunday laid out in front of them with no need to pretend otherwise; the photos on the shelf of old friends smiling, the bucket list taped to the refrigerator door, the piggy bank promise of new adventures somewhere and someday still shimmer in the early light of their morning, there; should I tell them? remind them to hold fast live in the moment for god’s sake everything is fleeting, tomorrow might already be a memory.
Thoreau, she tells me, was tended to by women. Meals and laundry — a side of the story I’d missed, hadn’t even thought to think about; his cabin in the woods? his solitude and simplicity? my dream! my escape! my alternate ending! and who considers practicalities when we’re having a transcendental crisis? I am disheartened and disappointed and then…delighted! The solitude of the woods? The simplicity of sojourn? And a community of women to soothe and support? Life Goals times one hundred!
It’s the robin’s trill that most often calls him to mind deep from the arbor of spring azalea and its cotton candy blooms, the privet hedge shoulder high then two stories up in an instant of memory, a wooden screen door slam bees and clover and Pappy lifting me to the sky whiskey on a breeze, the rough chafe of whiskers, “chirp chirp” he says as a kiss against my cheek then sets me on the ground to tangle in the blossoms one more time before we leave for home.
There’s a ghost standing on Mountain Park Road I spy her from the highway as I scream past at seventy She might have waved but had no need to I saw her knew her remembered all of the layers of time, there on the overpass at Mountain Park Road and I wondered briefly if she knew me here now this apparition this shadow of who she used to be in a blur of recognition a moment frozen in time the all of us in overlap here, there, then, now on Mountain Park Road
This morning I stayed in bed squeezed my eyes shut and begged for more more sleep more dreams more anything than what waits: that 21st century disappointment and the cold blank stare of what comes next
It was already hard enough to live with the stark comparison of hopes and dreams versus real world, the daily effort of just keep swimming just keep swimming
Now there is just this THIS every day THIS good lord THIS
Once, I told a therapist that I was considering a long slow drift in ice floe silence, and she sat aghast asked if she should be concerned so I dialed it back and laughed like I was joking
Concerned is such a funny word — To Whom It May Concern we have concerns but it is of little concern
Yesterday, at a protest, I danced with strangers and felt free in a way I haven’t since my best friend died seven years ago and I thought: she is better for it dead before THIS all of this with no concerns no need for persistence or resistance or a clever exit strategy disguised in a poem.
All along the highway a brutal massacre agony and destruction jagged edges claw the sky not even the grace of a clean cut no time to spare for the scream of chain saws the equal labor-to-labor dignity of tree felling the man-versus-nature earth shaking victory (the silent apologies) we are now machine-efficient cost-effective and ruthless with stands of trees laid bare twisted to their breaking point ripped and torn delimbed, stripped, shredded sun burning shaded places raw spaces for the taking
Somewhere in the ebb (of the work day) and flow (of the springtime woods) a page turned and laid itself gently across the path like a vignette filter on this enchanting afternoon and there beneath my feet…
A single spotted wintergreen rises up from the ground…Spotted wintergreens are the flowers that grow from longing.
The sun has warmed the alcove of cedar, so I sit for a while to consider the flowers, the swan, the osprey, the character who calls to me from across the pond who? who?
He turns and stops, his head tilted towards the ground. He stands there for several seconds, staring at the spotted wintergreen…
Am I dreaming? Then he carefully pushes his hands into the soil next to it and a cardinal flower punches through the surface…Cardinal flowers grow from frustration.
Perhaps dreaming or remembering? Surely there is magic about, even the Owl agrees watching now from above, as I sigh and adjust and…
Kneel beside the cardinal flower and touch the Earth, a purple cone flower rises to greet me.…the perfect flower for apologies.
We add to our conversation, wildflowers taking over the dirt…and so much spotted wintergreen, longing everywhere…
We see each other. I think we always have.
How long did I sleep? I don’t recall. Time stood still there by the pond beneath the trees that whispered and sang and soothed us — the Owl and I — for a moment or hours or maybe perhaps a lifetime.
A new flower punctuates the end of our conversation – a single iris to say he loves me.
A shadow crosses my path and I am at once only that over which the heron has flown — of no other consequence — with only a regiment of lilies to bear witness how small am I to his eye? I wonder as I step across a stream apologizing to the startled swans and bowing to the osprey watching warily; there’s a blush in the tree tops and across my humbled face the all of us in awe of this magnificent spring day.
the Mystic says to reenvision my life story to purge the inessential elements and exorcise old ghosts this, just days before the Healer reminds me that old stories are just old stories are just old stories
old stories that say “we don’t have room for you” right now, anymore, again “for reasons of space and other limitations that have nothing to do with your merits” nothing to do with you right now, anymore, again “but thank you for your interest”
so when a friend says she is taking the YES steps all I can see is the surgically precise removal of my bloodied ego, its clots and cartilage forming bitter words on a page that I’ll turn into kindling soon, remind myself that forgiveness and an open heart (healing and self-love) sometimes mean putting down those old stories and walking away leaving them to fend for themselves deep in the dark woods of the past
their smoldering incense wrapping around my wicked incantations while I dance in the freedom of letting go…YES!
“Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, families, and — of course — poets, marking poetry’s important place in our lives.”
My favorite way to celebrate is to join with the thousands of poets participating in NaPoWriMo — NATIONAL POETRY WRITING MONTH —in which we write a poem a day for the month of April.
While NaPoWriMo is celebrating 22 years this year, I’m happy to say this will be my 11th year attempting to write 30 poems in 30 days! Here we go!
moon stones round and white translucent fearless in their devotion to tides the pull of their namesake reveal all and nothing in one full breath of a shimmering wave their stillness a talisman of strength and awakening
Ain’t nothing more Roughneck than a man who castrates bulls with a rope he pulls from the backseat of his pickup, whose hard gravel laugh makes you stand taller, wipe a tear from your eye and matter of factly explain yourself and that goddamn car — you swear for affect — fold up the Damsel with neat corners for her next distress, today you’re a Warrior no more than inconvenienced, a firm hand on the blade tucked in your front pocket and eye on the ironwood stick you keep in the back seat for walking (or wounding, in a pinch).
To my left the great star sets while to my right the full moon rises in between nothing but this odd appendage of land jut out into the sea and I think for a moment that if I stand tall and wide and step one way or the other I might instigate some universal force to move them
up and down
back and forth
at my command
I am Rose on the bow queen of the world ancient goddess who commands the fulcrum
While watching whales, wondering: do they laugh as they breach, squeal in delight, exalt the air with fins and tails and tittering, or is the entirety of joy contained in the ooomph! and huzzah! spouted for all to see?
How are you a ghost here when you were often only a conversation words on a keypad our ethernet tethers and ideals someone I barely knew save for a soft, full kiss on tiptoes and the perfumed promise of again and more on a day that never came
but here, in Truro now, your ghost whispers daily of bourbon and dunes the curve near Longnook a family I never met
and Cassie at the Lobster Pot you, even then, a shadow of what might have been those air wave words “whatever she wants” you told her paying the price from two thousand miles away
Poetry comes sometimes in precious drops hard won from a tea bag saved by the sink folded in foil for a second cup at lunch with saltines and butter — if rations allowed —
her whole life, my grandmother’s, was that spent tea bag, all of its elixir steeped for someone else with none left to spare for her own self rationing every bit so brittle she broke too early
rare glints of love and laughter that peeked out through the folds like poetry almost, or should have been
her sparce, beautiful life a poem, really, that not too many could read
They tell October tales about these things, the damages and injuries, the unforeseen consequences when humans think they control beasts.
It’s why we kept them under beds and in closets, in heavy chests with wrought iron keys and secret words.
Everyone knew the rules: what not to open, where not to go after dark, what should never be said out loud, and what to wear on a strand of string around your neck at all times.
Then they evolved. They made themselves small enough to live in pockets. They lost their tails to roam more freely. They learned to talk to us, to answer our questions. They paid attention.
But we did not.
We loved their companionship, the immediacy of their response. We needed to feel connected and important. They made us seem relevant and center stage.
So now we all have a monster. It tells us where to go and what to do. It knows exactly where we are and where we’ve been. Its shorthand directives — the beeps and dings and whoops — lead us around all day, call us back when we go astray. It monitors our heartbeat, our sleep cycles, and just how fast we can run.
If we could think about it, it would be terrifying.
Her first husband was a rogue too young for what she had in mind but it was high-school sweetheart love and her parents insisted in a Roman Catholic sort of way his too, it was a good investment that soon included the benchmark 2.0 kids in a house-and-white-picket-fence world but he was prone to outrageous fortunes and accidental accidents that practically left him speechless her too, most nights, waiting by the phone so she gave herself a Divorce for Christmas and never, ever looked back.
But he did. Retraced his missteps relived his worst nightmares (and mine) hit rewind and started over with a nimble bride the same age his first wife had been though a better investment this time consented not contrived with two more dividends and a house on a Dream where he sometimes smiles that scoundrel smile to his reflection in the mirror a flash of wicked conceit for an endgame so very well played.
Poetry like the maple’s seed demands fertile ground but more than that temperature and location, location, location clear days and rain but not too much then patience, perhaps room to put down roots figure itself out bide its time pray it’s not interrupted
I’m livin’ on the edge these days distant cousin twice removed from almost everything
Twilight zone or outer limits
or this someplace where everything in between — the meat and cheese of the day — are too much to bear
lettuce pray
I feel crazy, almost, just enough to be scary or raise concern but only if I start talking
and there’s no one to talk to thankfully, maybe on the edge of night and day except the cat
which makes it even madder
I’m considering a nocturnal existence here on the dark side of the clock leave the decision making and negotiating to the day walkers who don’t burn hot when the sun rises
do the birds only wake to the dawn or are their insides flaming like mine wondering what comes next in these unpredictable days
Pay no mind to that man behind the curtain he only thinks he controls his days
every day is unpredictable, darling you’ve just had the blinds ripped off the rug pulled out from under your wings clipped
This too shall pass she thinks with a wicked laugh and what comes next will, too so round and round we go until we, dizzy, die
I feel thin, Bilbo said, stretched like butter over too much bread.
The path to Wit’s End starts wide and unexpected, beckons you with promises of Hope Ahead >>
There are steep hills built high on Anticipation followed by dark valleys of Disappointment that eventually lead to a narrow rocky path marked Just Keep Going >>
eerily dark day or night, its brambles making forward movement near impossible its Switchbacks and Turn-Arounds keeping you sufficiently dizzy enough not to notice you’ve arrived
Wit’s End
breathless heart pounding Fight or Flight muscles glistening
wondering do you follow This Way >> one more time or jump?
She is a peculiar cat full of spice with an innate determination and confidence Said “I am here” the first day without qualm and has been persistent since
I wonder sometimes how she came to me what wheel was spun in the great Cat Distribution System that put two and two together to make she and me here at this particular moment in time that demands my own resolve and fortitude asks me to lean in hard like she does, often, insisting I belong here too.
I am most envious of the cat sleeping who knows not the long lists or burdens besides the particular angle of the stranded string its shadow enough to contemplate for this day.
Or: When a Writing Prompt Takes You to a Battleground
The poet’s skin soft from age (perfumed in Calvados perhaps) knows the pulse of waves beneath her feels how they beat within, too remembers well the stories and great heroics of trust and love walks now a gravely path to an expanse of cratered lawn where ghosts commune in whispers and tears are only memory reflected in the morning rain where sharp wires — a final kindness — keep her safe from another fall.
I sit on a Noble bench in the woods it’s barely 7 — the shy ones’ hour we come early to this place the humming bird at the apple bough the rabbit among her clover the timid turtle poking its head from the pond to see who and what is about so I respond with a whisper We’re safe to float in Eden a little longer as two herons fly overhead and it’s so quiet we hear wings beat, heartbeats even this morning before the fray.
It’s been a long time, love — my inspiration — since we’ve enjoyed such leisure, these moments before the sun and you, noting birdsong, the call of waves, our morning folklore or you, calling me to the yard, to feel its damp grass underfoot, stare into the night’s stars while you run your finger along the moon, those cloud myths etched in dreams transcribed and holy, somehow, these long, sweet days of April, and I am more grateful than you can know.
I have lived in this house they called New Eden for 25 years on a quarter acre lot around the corner from Long Island Sound.
There’s a claggy pond out back, and a nature preserve just a stone’s throw away.
It’s Heaven, really, never mind the state road on the other side of the eight foot privet that keeps the peace.
The day I moved in, two bright green parakeets landed on a branch of the great old Maple in the back corner of the yard.
They seemed as auspicious as the lilac, beloved since first sight, blooming at the edge of the driveway.
Every year, I pray the lilac will bloom again, that the Maple will survive another storm to keep company with her resident squirrels and raccoons. And me.
She and I wept together when the grand Oak came down, and we still laugh at dusk when the rabbits come out to play.
Seasons come and go here at a predictable pace,
the sublime hush of winter steps aside for spring birds who sing in sparks of poetry usually lost in the busy buzz of summer
before the breeze of autumn shivers the knotweed and startles the monarchs who make no tracks, but the field mice do
tiny footprints criss-cross with bird notes and the straight firm steps of the coyote
turtles come and go, too, snakes, hawks, owls, and once a frog so big I thought he might be a prince!
this sweet spot has revealed its secrets for ages — snowdrops bloom where never planted, a robin’s nest appears beside a window, and salamanders tuck in by the bird feeder
just last week I discovered a small sliver of ocean just to the south, in between some saplings, hidden from view until now
No wonder the ospreys fly so low, and waves sometimes wake me from dreams.
There’s an archnemesis on the playground and devils at the pulpit, people are afraid of words words! ideas, thoughts, stories
the holy rage through traffic to get to their entertainment complex
pass by the street beggar praying he’s not gay or trans or black or blue or whatever their god teaches them to hate this week, this century
and history repeats
I had an archnemesis once she threw rocks at my face and called me a whore but names will never hurt me
it’s the rage I worry about the everything-that’s-old-is-new-again-rage fueled by the mouths of demons and poor pages of books tossed in the street, there next to the beggar who picks one up and reads
“He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.”
In my next life, I want to live here in this crazy loud city where everything feels iconic and ordinary all at once, where pavement steps aside for flowers and small spots of cool grass, and trees carry the sound of musicians and pigeons, where the ordinary walk side-by-side with the out-of-this-world and I, anonymous, don’t care about reflections in buildings made of glass, where everyone arrives at the park by noon and it doesn’t matter who or what you are, because you leave soon, for a few bucks careen through the underworld, arrive somewhere else entirely, like magic, knowing where you were, and every place else, goes on without you.
I promised you a diamond he says of our courtship, but never a ring — and he laughs with that smile, like I’m in on the joke. We make a contract — verbal, never signed, then I invite them in and tell them my stories.
I’m charming and kind, in just the right ways, endearing and fun everything they want, until it’s time for me to leave. That’s the hardest part, as they forget the agreement, so I do it slow to start.
I pack up my interesting bits, then take back my affection, I pull at the threads of what’s left until there’s nothing to hold onto. That’s when they leave — THEY end it and the contracts breaks by default.
He sees me crying then and shapeshifts to the one I remember, pulls me to his chest and holds on as tight as that first embrace years ago, the perfect fit, the smell of old books and cedar, then a devilish laugh and I wake to the sound of tears pouring down, midnight thunder and wicked, wicked lightning.
This is to be expected. I don’t come with a pedigree or a PH.D. I don’t wear laurels or titles well I haven’t kissed ass (or any of you), and I know, I know I should have bowed low and deep before the queen but I’ve never been one to follow the rules or jump through hoops of anyone’s making but my own.
You’ve got a bit of hate there stuck between your teeth
cover up that weak mind, it’s embarrassing
not cool dude more wrong side of history than team spirit or patriotism, even
maybe patriarchy
kinda red car nuclear missile escalation compensation
if you ask me
which you didn’t
and wouldn’t
because you know already everything I didn’t say
and you’re gonna wear it like a badge of honor proud and defiant full of fear and lockstep down a path towards an epitaph that dogma won’t ever resolve
and the people went thirsty and the animals died and the viruses spread and the innocent suffered and the kids were slaughtered and the fires raged and the books were burned and the idols were worshipped and the empires crumbled
and the people argued and the people took sides and the people hated and the people judged and the people fought and the people cried
My path along the ridge this morning gives the impression of sky walking the fog heavy in branches that burst in cumulous tufts of the palest spring green like clouds, to be expected here meeting eye level with birds who suggest I should be singing
Val-deri, val-dera Val-deri, val-dera Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
randomactsofwriting.net 