The Poetry Marathon

Unapproachable?

The barriers are set in place,
I see no one,
and none see me . . .
well,
one,
but I don’t look up.

The phone is in front of my face,
I call no one,
and none call me . . .
well,
one,
but I don’t answer.

The hood is pulled down all around,
I hear no one,
and none hear me . . .
well,
one,
but prayers don’t count.

Do they?

Gentlewoman

In former ages I would have been discreetly labeled a gentlewoman,
that creature of the growing middle class that could not be defined,
dabbling in domestic arts and essentially unoccupied
but for the supervision of the education of my children in the delicate arts
of how to be essentially unoccupied gentlemen and gentlewomen.

In reality, I am gardener, maid, cook, housekeeper, arborist,
chauffeur, medic, recycler, repurposer, thrifter, hauler, economist,
budgeter, secretary, clerk, cleric, chronicler, photographer, author,
biographer, daycare specialist, and all around domestic engineer,
an essentially unoccupied housewife.

An Old Home

By American standards our home is old,
created from old growth forests of oak and poplar
on site one hundred and seven years ago,
while the war to end all wars raged on foreign shores.

Its wooden floors slope gently downhill,
spiderweb cracks trace filaments in plaster,
no door or window settles plumb into its casing,
and not a single closet exists.

Nooks, crannies, dormers, and cupboards in eaves abound,
the architectural precursors for closets in homes of later years
exist in all corners, on every level, charming spaces
and reading places are everywhere, but not one closet.

We did not bend it to our will, rather it changed us.
Wardrobes and attics, outbuildings and sheds,
crawl spaces became our norm. Our lives now,
in this sweet old home, are simple, slow, and warm.

Bewitching

Death came for Mother dear,
when I was trapped one day.
Death, the trickster devil,
had lured me away.

At long last I was freed
when another took my place,
alas, too late for Mother,
and Death left little trace.

I raced off after Mother,
hoping to set her free,
a bent grass here, a broken twig,
I followed through the trees.

The path, it narrowed winsomely,
a tunnel carved from leaves,
beguiling to my grieving heart,
my senses were deceived.

Yet on, still on, I followed,
through forest glade and glen,
until at last I caught them,
Mother’s body and the Raven.

I brought forth Old Man’s golden dome,
crafted of sun and rain,
Death, he could not abide it,
this shield from mortal pain.

Mother’s eyes, they opened,
her body drew its breath,
the witchy glen grew golden,
a space now free from Death.

Many years have passed now,
Mother and I are free,
we live on in our forest glen,
forever young, and happy.

What is Love?

For generations in Switzerland,
sick, injured, and heavily pregnant cows
have gotten free helicopter airlifts
from upper mountain pastures
to lower, warmer valleys,
flying through the Alpine skies
at winter’s onset, no cow left behind.

They are brought to safety and warmth
by Swiss dairy farmers making their home
in the Alps with their animals for hundreds of years.
They are grateful to the cows that provide the milk
from whence their famous cheese is made,
as good an answer to the question
“What is love?” as any I’ve yet heard.

The Old Hunter

The hunter peeled the cinnamon-skinned hide
away from its flesh before parsing the parts
among his containers, the beet red blood
pooling and freezing into the frigid earth.

Yellow jacket wasps crackled angrily
like electric shocks around the containers of meat,
and an oily bucket of entrails shimmied
as a tremor from palsied hands shook his elbow.

Back in the bayou he called home at last,
the hunter unloaded his kill.
He’d traveled far for the elk,
all the way north to Alaska’s tundra.

The naked, dangling lightbulb
overhanging his open carport
lit the winding path to his tiny shack,
a return to the early fall warmth of home.

Ode to a Soldier

My love is a wondrous man,
devoted and kind,
bold in his love for us,
yet gentle in his approach,
as we were all as skittish deer
when he arrived in our lives.

His humor unlocked for us
the hilarity in our hearts,
laughter trickling first tentatively,
then permeating, saturating our home,
good feeling that will live on in its beams
to the next family it shelters.

He taught our sons to be men
that could love and be loved
both in strength and in wisdom,
our daughter to trust in good,
and her own steely determination
that could neither be bent nor broken.

He lives in constant pain,
pervasive exhaustion, and yet
not a word is spent in complaint.
A legacy of service in times of war
left its mark on his body,
but strengthened the resolve of his mind.

I am blessed to receive all
that his generous heart bestows.
My days are golden
because we have found each other,
pieces slotted into personal puzzles
we did not know before were incomplete.

I’m Alive

It’s summer, and I know I’m alive.
I used to endure it, dreaming away the days, as summer has no filter,
its brazenness abashes more timid souls,
cowering from its bold and sweaty hand
away into air conditioned, cool, dim interiors.

My garden burgeons beyond my capacity to gather, but
it’s summer, and I know I’m alive.
Quart and pint glass jars filled with what I’ve processed
glimmer in jeweled rows on my kitchen shelves, despite exhaustion,
summer’s bounty and abundance to be decanted on a winter’s day.

I lay in the grass like I did as a child, transfusing sunlight
through skin into my core, just as then, because
it’s summer, and I know I’m alive.
My hairs stand at attention as ants march across me,
the grass stitching criss-cross patterns in my flesh.

Birds gather by twos, tens, twenties around feeders
I provide, a learned dependence that delights me.
Squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and opossums find shelter here, and
it’s summer and I know I’m alive
in company with these many in my secret walled garden.

I lived for years avoiding summer’s brassy intrusion,
retreating from its sweat and buzz and bother.
Living away from home in Texas, I longed for cold, but I’ve aged,
I keenly feel my body slowing as time passes, but for now,
it’s summer, and I know I’m alive.

Be as the Butterfly

During the sacred Sun Dance, closed to the outside world,
the Lakota people celebrate the union of the great green bowl of the earth
meeting the great blue bowl of the sky, the Sun overhead,
and the union of the people in the unending Great Plains,
the horizon line unbroken, unabridged, a perfect sphere
in their meeting bisected by the Sun Dance central pole,
just as we two-leggeds traverse the earth, upright and unafraid.

Much may be learned in two-legged travels
from the animal companions surrounding and participating
in the journey. Their lessons must be learned
if a warrior may one day reach the horizon’s line
and step beyond to the spiritual plain.

From Buffalo comes abundance, the meat to feed,
the skins to clothe, the bones and sinews to create a home.
From Eagle comes power, tenacity, and healing,
the opportunity to fly above worldly sorrows in the company of Great Spirit.
From Dog is learned loyalty and protection,
the devotion to family and to personal truth.
From Rabbit comes the knowledge of fear and humility,
the ability to move through adversity and travel on.
From Deer comes gentleness and compassion,
an embodiment of Great Spirit’s love for all.

When one extraordinary warrior is connected to all
that the animal spirits teach, has mastered all they embody,
he will reach yet one more lesson, the Butterfly,
most delicate in form but strongest of all.
Butterfly transforms, transfigures entirely,
old cells traded for new to become a wondrous creature,
a splendor to behold.
Butterfly breaches the horizon line, flies beyond
and over the edge into the spirit unknown.

Be as the Butterfly.

Candy Terrorists

The sheriff’s car pulled up on the side of the road, lights flashing and siren wailing, beneath the railroad overpass. Spiced gumdrop candies lined the road, evenly spaced from each other in a ten foot by ten foot square. Two small hooded figures could be seen ducking down in the gravel next to the tracks, silhouetted against the burnished and shimmering summer sky above the road. The sheriff stepped out of his vehicle with dispatch radio in hand, prepared to apprehend the perpetrators responsible for such heinous domestic mayhem. “All right, boys, come on down,” he squawked through his loudspeaker to them, and they reluctantly scrambled down the embankment, knowing resistance was futile, the law would catch up with them one day. He escorted them into the back of his patrol car and delivered them home to their mortified parents. Yes, the candy terrorists, reported by a passing motorist to the sheriff’s office as “two boys throwing rocks at cars” were apprehended and the public safety was upheld, only discovering afterward that the two were me and my best friend, Val, bored on a summer’s day and making color patterns from above with a bag of candy from the local IGA. The worst chastisement I received that day? My indignance at being mistaken for a boy.