Category: Northwest poetry

Friday’s Poem: The World My Granddaughters Will Learn

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com

What worlds we map and traverse,

the darkness and light, opacity and

transparency, tender feet brushed by grasses

and villanous boots laying waste.

I muse on my balcony, safer than too many,

but I know what’s out there.

Wounds of risk, thrill of triumph,

and that silence so deep it swallows itself.

The world has taken me, pitted me

against myself, at times released me

but these days I am allowed to

sit within luminosity or its cool absence,

satiated by kindnesses, stilled by weariness.

My thin-skinned hands are full.

*******

I consider my granddaughters:

brazen in play, each leap

a display of trust, minds and fingers

creating/remaking wild/wondrous stories,

echoing voices a spectacle of beauty or swift complaint.

Twinned at igniting of life, they call

to one another when separated,

embrace in a rush upon reunion.

They know their ways around home and

ways of tentative half-leaving but

not enough to seek the far edges.

I will not be here forever to snag

their reaching hands in mine,

share stories they want or need.

Every moment is prelude to growing up

and it must be done.

Societal bounds will be set in place;

so much reality is designed by others

it is as if it was long since planned.

But they must define their own.

I did not have this world as a child;

I imagined myself a free spirit and God

my benevolent caretaker. Knew it was so.

I didn’t suspect all that came next.

But learning to improvise is how it’s done.

To divine hope like water in the desert,

to plant and reap delight, to build

stamina and courage that sheltered or

pulled me back to my feet.

Well, I would give everything except my soul

to be at their sides all the days and nights of their lives,

those splendid girl persons.

See to their unfolding, protect their

incandescence that sweeps every space.

But they will do what they will do and

influences will pester them,

and then fences, the chasms, the judgments

and yet they will shine, shine.

Life as it happens cannot be avoided but

shining cannot be, either.

*******

It startles me awake when I feel moonlight

crisscrossing the walls then tracing my skin,

an ethereal, orderly power made evident

in the smallest things:

night’s radiance sifting through windows.

Not just the surprise of a mayfly’s life,

but the entirety–holy moving molecules,

energy that transfixes, infuses, enlivens

every being and thing everywhere.

It thrums along sinous rivers, cacaphonous streets,

deep forests and quiet corner rooms, my chest;

it is hidden or revealed, both create similar designs.

I cannot get enough of this.

But how much longer is it mine?

*******

I open the blinds to find a large nightbird on the sill.

It tells me secrets made of vanishing clues.

I am dreaming, perhaps, or it dreams of me.

In the morning, I have forgotten much.

It is only when the children run to me,

laughing and shouting

Grandma, Grandma,

guess what? guess what?

that I recall in a flash:

only love is real with its ways and ambassadors–

that’s the whole of it, backward and forward.

And there will come the time

that I will put on my own deft feathers

and wait upon the twins’ window sills

to watch over and remind them:

remember, remember the secrets

you brought into this world to carry you on.

Friday’s Poem: Coming To/Coming Back

It’s not the time of suffering that lingers.

Like all animals who fall, wounded,

I acquiesced to the howling lameness

that demanded laying down

my bones and sinew.

And, then, again.

Again. Again. Every step a boobytrap.

But it is incremental, the resurgence of life

juice trembling in my anemic blood.

I watch the black-red iron drip from

pouch to vein and pray for power returned.

It is rarely the shock of the earliest days

that chases me in daylight

or permeates my dreaming.

It is this rolling aftermath of

complications, the coming to, coming back

as mind and soul are prodded to more work.

I peer into the long blue line

of the distance, looking for myself.

The leg that was strong has been hobbled.

Can I recall its nimble sleekness as I danced?

The strength that carried me deep into mountains?

The boldness when making a trail where there was none?

Before the carving out of my own-ness

and replacing that with titanium–as if

I wanted my knee to outlive me.

But if it must be a balancing act,

foot to ground, hand to heart,

it is what I will learn to do. Blast those days before;

this is what I have, what is given.

It’s the present that inhabits me, directs the way;

the deficits, progress, minute degrees of change.

I will seek my body singing.

I will own and praise it.

Take to smooth or rutted trails,

walk off the ache and embrace the views.

I command my knee to bend,

my leg to swing out, up, down.

Imagine myself a whole woman,

a woman welcoming herself,

better than yesterday,

as good as before:

I am still a traveller on a pilgrimmage.

I know how to root out truth and brook no lies.

The bare facts of living here and now set me free.

Yet it is like this: flailing forward

as if through brambles then having to pull back,

then striking out again even as

each blackberry scar softens, fades.

The ones left by the surgeon’s robot

chill me even now: the things that

happen beyond our control.

How was I remade into someone unsure?

Not born afraid but curious.

And so I am going, watch me try to go

unnoticed, not missing a beat.

Just a part of the moment,

a brush of wings into leaves and light.

So there she is/I am, the river’s breath

ribboning my hair, voluptuous flowers

bobbing as I pass, and the leg that is

not my best leg (but begs to be mine entirely)

rising up, stomping through swirling pollen,

that sky as potent and open as God’s Eye,

my body listing, leaning into the bravery

that comes with summer.

This body shimmies, strides, stumbles.

My awkward crooked salvaged leg

is alive at every juncture of the path,

will become more itself right down to the marrow,

and in these gaps between desire, hope and healing.

Friday’s Poem: Making Things

Beads of glass, yellow, purple, gold, teal, red, silver:

enough or too much to gather into love?

I palm the metal geometrics, crystals,

varigated stones, ceramic spheres, hemp cord

and luminous silky floss.

Later at a fabric store two sharp-eyed saleswomen

prod me: what am I making, and I likely need this, that.

The experts press against the counter, piecing

their ideas deftly from my heap and jumble.

My lovely fat quarters of cloth; I pull them close.

I pick them up, considering the visions

I took from the warp and weft of happy dreams.

Nothing can mar the mental surface tension

beneath which deeper things stir like fishes;

ideas gather momentum, about to break through.

Patience is my way for this creating; I see, gather, wait.

I have no schematics for success.

My craftsy friend who brought me here

smiles indulgently. But I am not making

just any holiday project.

These mounds of colors-textures-shapes

are meant to reflect five hearts, ones that help power my own.

The tiny trinkets and beads rustling in the bag

will be stitched and knotted in praise

of the vivid lives of my children.

Just as when they first arrived as blood and bone–

each tenuous (as it was hard for me to make children)

but charged, triumphant, embraced–

I will consider these bits of beauty, discover more patterns.

I still am learning the ways of each soul. I am guessing as I go.

There will be forms and colors, whatever feels needed

and what might be desired.

My hands will work as the light scents

of cotton and stone, silk and copper calm me.

What my fingers can make–

these aging fingers full of lines, splits, callous–

will be true to what I know, and bright with hope.

If I do not fail to bring inspiration to fruition

there will be five wall hangings, at best unschooled,

even clumsy, madcap–yet strung together as

small collections of care and delight.

And perhaps they will bring them close

then hang them up,

gaze a moment and think,

there it is: love.

.

Friday’sPoem: Learning a Friend

The grass and trees glow beneath generous sky

as we lean at the table and talk.

Someone sits alone, lips of plumminess

that do not smile back at us. We shrug

though I wonder about the what and why of her.

Sunlight flashes on our narrow hands,

a dose of heat that dispells the chill.

Not everyone knows what we know–

your dangerous dawn races, our history of men

who ruin and rescue, the interpretations

of X-rays, snow and Saint Saens,

the terror of repeated infant alarms,

and how to live as if without pain.

But this is good–tender pastry, dark wash of coffee.

Words that crease and smooth the air.

Is it a hint of winter that urges us to

speak of what is not simple?

Of what can be lost, what may be accepted,

what is fought for and against without

ceasing as if we have superior skills?

Perhaps we know something small: even the brave

will rest, reassess, grab onto a hand.

We get up, jackets close as wind thins last heat.

You charge ahead, an adventurer;

my bad knee embarrasses with slowness.

The wind gives up songs kept to myself

with most everything else.

I will practice leaving solitude;

I will keep up when the surgery is done.

And how is it that people find each other?

We head back home.

Friday’s Poem: The Rain and Home

The rain. Blurry cloud-springs of it.

The symphony of it repeated from sky

to ear pressed against the screen.

A permeable canopy covering hillocks of earth

as our slight human lives bulk up

for coming winter. Water so holy in scorched land.

Downpours reflect and shadow the pallid light

as our nests are resettled with comforts,

a ritual of expectancy.

This season is a promise and a kind of partition

before rain sharpens into sleet–

we labor, hunker down, forecast.

I try to separate possible fates of the world from home.

As if they can be so different. Sometimes, still.

Nature weighs in, from all perspectives:

splash drench stir cool carry away trash

***

Yesterday as I opened blinds to let in

a sunnier moment you stated an intention

to fly out to see our parents but

noted a problem: where did they reside now?

I pressed my lips together. Address: cemetery.

Said gentler words as I have before, matter-of-fact.

Your lips form Oh and that brings Mom and Dad

here and now, to your deep heart and mine.

When you ask after the others, I must count

the dead as I’ve done dozens of times

until you know it’s truly so, til next time you forget.

It may be in the next moment.

I swallow, pet your good dog.

I am getting better with this roll call.

Your memories are stolen out from under you

in plain sight. I recall lovely times so

you can borrow mine. I know they won’t keep.

I want to cry out,

take them all so you can return to me, sister.

But you are sitting beside me, yourself.

We color pictures in brilliant palettes,

flashy mandalas of joy.

And sing “Stairway to the Stars”, one verse

that we half-create. As we talk, you

stare at a photo of my twin granchildren

in strange, gorgeous homemade masks,

and this triggers balloons of your laughter.

It obliterates every

single

point of pain.

It is how we do this.

It’s raining again, I say, pleased with it, with us.

Oh, is it? you answer with a dreamy gaze.

***

Meanwhile much later in the dark

the rain pummels and drips.

When I can’t sleep and there is a lull in showers,

I turn on a soundtrack of murmuring Northwest rainforest.

Like outside my windows, it whispers Home.

The banket and quilt are re-shaped, made welcoming.

Into my dreams arrive those who are gone,

then the living burst in and it’s a mad gathering;

we go exquisite places, do impossible things

and make a simple stone house out of ruins.

The rain pulses against shingles, softens thoughts;

it swathes sorrow, reveals wisps of light.

Nature cannot know how much I need this

(or can it?) after a firestormed summer.

Celebration rains are for other creatures,

cracked piney dirt, all that has struggled to live.

But, too, for this woman who in the morning

stands in slow drizzle, hands and face turned up

to sky’s sweet baptismal power.

Twisting leaves in bronze and cinnamon

amaze as they drift and skip to earth,

slick and shining as they pass.