Tonight there was, like then
a gilded room with
two grand staircases
this one on a tv screen
the swish of silk and gardenias
turning through candlelight
time waiting a beat
for their smiles to sail by
And you were gone
my dearest friend,
when I wanted us to
remind each other of
waltzing with our beaux
dark haired young blades
in decorations and tails
before you all began
to leave, one by one
and me alone to remember
for you
For Lisa Young Donely
I didn’t know I loved the spirit in soil
deep under reed marshes
connected to it through my bones
a vision of roiling life
I didn’t know I loved to sing
that song could make me cry
joy a quick moment on the backs of notes
voices together light to dark
I didn’t know that I loved sense of place
color memories until they were gone
layered goodbyes in dim sunlight
dusty motes on gray air
I didn’t know I still loved touch
thought it dried and done but not forgotten
only to find a fire so ready lit my blood sang
even as I would cry aloud
I didn’t know that I loved words
that they would fill every empty place
pull me with them words from my eyes
words from unheard thought
I didn’t know how much I loved my life
sweet along with sharp and hard
rushing in over tidal flats escaping just as fast
that I could cherish it not just live it
____________________________________________
This list poem came out of a short poetry workshop taught in 2015 by the poet Doug Anderson. We read Things I Didn’t Know I Loved by the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, and were prompted to write our own list poem by the same title. This is the revised version.
We were long split atoms
even then the possibility of us
had ricocheted into echoes
competing thoughts composted
into a white sound mask.
Inexperienced, I flung my satin stole
of certainty over each shoulder
and stormed away, convinced
I was right, but too young
and wrong headed, ignorant of
the deeper dance of lust and love
that finally shook its head
and left to visit other lives
Leaving behind memories of touch
by tantalizing milkweed silk
of hearing a fluted thrush note
fading every time I would have
ventured back
____________________________
for S
Perhaps the stars hold memories,
diamond pinholes punched in winter black,
life stretched across infinity, expanding
overhead, even as my focus
might be squeezing in and
only looking back, no counterweight
to shrinking time.
Well nuts to that, I’ll take
the milky way with thanks,
refusing blinkered days
or thoughts, and will not shut
all possibility away.
This heart and soul are
slated to remain
open for business
indefinitely.
there are trees here too
grown out of deep soil pockets
heads above the hardy root dug
mountain friends of home
this gathered woody host a nest
to hold a house containing
every one I love
still sleeping as the light
creeps up all cloudy
through the rain
a christmas only minds eye white
no clear skied sunrise
catching tree tops
by surprise
red bronze briefly
glistened by those gone ahead
dropstrings of love and memory
beams creak awake
almost the hour
for letting loose small bodies
counting moments since last night
behind me thumps and sighs
two sets of eyes meet mine
my patient dogs
the first gift of the day
belongs to them
and we are kitchen bound
_____________________________________
a small gift of words, a time filled with more love than things, christmas as it should be. my heart is very full.
Today you are here
Memory washing over thoughts
In my heart always
_____________________________
Day 25. The onset of spring always brings him back to walk the peaks. The dogs sit with me.
In this old house
the winter night
is many things,
but not deep quiet,
never utter stillness,
both conceits of
humans in retreat.
With us at rest
it moves and breathes
in darkness.
Sighing wood and stone,
the whine and snore of dogs
feet twitching gently
as they dream,
Small colonies of mice
sensed more than heard,
Remnant memories
within its walls
merge with the energy
of word and color
line and shape,
collected and held close
to make this much loved place.
And so I head for bed
the last light gone,
leaving the plants looking out
at the night
to watch the snow fall.
Life With Horace