The Poetry Marathon

Racing against time and myself to complete
promised deliverables with enough time to take hold,
enough care to survive, enough space to grow
and expand into meaningful connection

I think of the daughter who plans
each moment of her classroom day, goals
and activities devised to stretch young minds,
teach them to think, link facts to reach meaning; and the other

her focused attention on the dog before her,
each practiced movement precise, intentioned,
a sequence learned like a dance, its results beauty
and satisfied clients; and how my son yearns

for distraction when he contemplates
the task at hand, to complete credentials
to plan a meaningful future for himself and family.
What is it about our relationship to time,

to process and ultimately produce
that makes us tick with different beats,
move forward and back within the pendulum
of time, measured or not, and yet succeed?

Like Penelope, I unweave my stitches
again and again, as if I did not want to finish
the project so eagerly begun. And yet
I have learned, it’s important to work well;

not to be free of mistakes – after all,
the flaw proves the humanity, the meaning –
but because there is joy in a job well done
and lessons to be learned along the way.

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we were so young, one of us petulant in the extreme
refusing to remain in the car backing downhill, or
picking at food offered with nothing but reproof

the other two of us younger still not yet teens,
entranced by the smells at corners we named
on our daily walks to the sea – lavender, beer

and urine – little understanding the import
perhaps, but nonetheless loving the feel
of the exotic. It was an other world for us both,

getting sun poisoning and needing to stay indoors
under cool sheets in the dark for long hours
while her older sister went about her day

alone; or the time we huddled together
to watch “Some Like it Hot” from the stone-edged
window of the hall’s only bathroom, much to the outrage

of their parents and other guests; and how
could I forget the tortured hot-sun march
uphill under the father’s strict glare

while we chanted COLD – JUICY – PEACHES
both to keep us motivated and remind us
what awaited at the greatly anticipated end

of the climb. This was summer, early 60’s, on the island
of Hvar off Split (then Yugoslavia), with family
friends (German) and us two younger girls

so innocent. Who would have known then
that another decade or so hence I’d revisit
the same town with a different companion,

from whom I split over disagreements
concerning food, travel and lodging,
the prevailing custom being to choose,

on arrival by bus or train, the most appealing
person offering a bed for the night. Not much to go on
but proximity, since  bags were on us.

I spent two nights with a grandmother
who got up every hour to use her bedpan;
and another with folks I met along the way

still too young in my 20’s to understand
what was before me, let alone within; and now
nothing of that time or place is left to return to

but a handful of memories newly prompted
to which I shall gratefully return.

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The slow drizzle of gray-turned-rain
laps gently on the canvas covered deck
tapping its own rhythm to the quiet continuo
of Corinthian chimes muting the wind

the slow drizzle of gray-turned-rain
sliding off branch and rail, soaking
the thirsty ground as yellow finches
and the occasional hummer in search of food

lap gently on the canvas covered deck,
the day’s rhythms of hunger and its filing
marking the passage of hours, staging
the shape of a day. Downhill the new house rises

tapping its own rhythm to the quiet continuo
of our life here, its shape and pace
undisturbed by change, though
change unfolds all around us.

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she walks toward darkness
as surrounding sky deepens
into night, her path unclear without
the familiar to guide her; yet within
her spirit blazes alight with trust
in what lies ahead.

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i would sing
its myriad moods
a choppy conglomerate
neither soft nor raucous
measured nor clipped
with open mouth and searching eyes
above a rolling continuo
of ocean surf

its full-throated harmonies a dance,
beat, bursts of symphonic grandeur
and quiet string trios, a gentle burbling brook
and sun seeping into cool rock
most reverent hush of whispered prayer

a crescendo speeding up
a flight of notes,
not quite a trill
yet building, rising
to a sudden stop –
a     long        drawn     out       silence ….

a grateful exhale.

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no fire can warm these chilled bones
impenetrable as powdered earth
beseeching water to quench its thirst,
for wind to deliver it here.

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