A Little String of Lights
What is needed. Here to there.
Not to feel extra, for one thing.
A confidante, for another.
I’ve lived here my whole life.
August. Cicadas start up.
The roses are in their glory.
There is no consolation, otherwise,
and not much sympathy.
Store clerks are bored too.
We talk kindly. No occasion.
Or I walk down streets I used to know.
Many beautiful evenings.
Mornings, the grass is tamped down
where maybe an animal slept.
I use my imagination.
What I don’t need I forget.
Desire and doubt. Trust.
I’d rather not repeat myself.
A question is forming for you, also.
Stars come out while you think.
* * * * *
What Is Poetry and Why Do You Write It?
Finally, the sky calms down.
And a voice I love comes around a corner.
Or the air is pink, like time.
Or, evenings, last light on that hill.
Minus its leaves: the shape of the tree —
I remember how my first husband told me no.
Out of disbelief, I gathered myself.
It hardly matters now what I wanted.
* * * * *
Boundary Hedge
I feel sorrow, but no urgency.
Faster, better, prettier: treasure-hunting depends on the hunter.
I’ve kept my father’s hairbrush, and look at it sometimes.
Alliances that come from no choice are no good.
I don’t like gossip for that reason, too.
Margaret Atwood has a fine poem about this. Have you read it?
I do my best thinking in the garden. Mull it over.
No one bothers someone who is weeding.
If I had my way, there’d be a low stone wall right here.
Think back. I almost always can.
Long ago has such appeal. Occasionally I see myself there.
I practice what I might say.
The sky like super faded denim. Soft like that too.
I’m so lucky, really.
Some things I can’t shake — is this it? is this all? — but still.
* * * * *
Hold My Spot
Those who are berated and those who berate: I think about this.
Just low-grade everyday stuff, but every day.
Some tantrums have captive audiences. How come?
I fuss alone.
I pretend the dappled willow says she will listen,
but that’s just more nonsense.
I think too of my father’s loneliness.
He spoke of it, but not much. He was wistful, imagining just a bit more.
Being in the world takes some getting used to.
Same with the butterfly house, seems to me: so much at once;
nothing quite as planned.
I’d have done that differently says nearly everyone always, tiresomely.
I uncrook my smile, best I’m able.
Lilacs in bloom: more purples than we have names for.
Aren’t there other things you’d like to talk about?
What was it Charles said about ruin? The moment you move away …
I’d like to think it might be ok to fall in love again.
Day’s end, I don’t always know how many steps, ok?