24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Keeping the river in mind
I swim to you through
time and across the miles
to tell you I’ve never forgotten
you. And I’m so grateful for
your tutelage—even though
I grew up with a different father.
I heard what you said coming along
the river, words clear as mountain
sky. I love you so, dearest father.
The amygdala fires primitive, an untaught call to flight.
Spiders spark reptilian brains, urging us to fight.
The cortex fires a rational, well thought out disgust.
A spider simply cannot love, so killing it is just.
My brother coaxed me to replace my enmity with care
he taught me, a reluctant child, a spider’s life to spare.
Today my brother called me, and he is very ill
Now all I ask is mercy and I cannot bear to kill
A spider on a floating leaf fell in my pool today
I scooped her up and rescued her and let her walk away.
remember
the inconsequential,
notice cuts, shades,
new heels, rings,
enquire of the once there, plan,
note delays, absences –
just don’t be seen
hoping you’re the answer
Between our porch railing lives little Ben.
His web bridges two rod-iron spokes bringing in gnats and flees.
Little Ben is a patient hunter—so tiny but so spry.
Each night, as I sit in my porch chair sipping a sunset beverage,
watching the lava glow over the horizon, little Ben is spotted
gliding over the orange flow—with ease—no fear at all.
My little Ben, crawling over the crimson ball—
a radiant silhouette.
spiny arms and legs
you lurk
hiding in corners and basement stairs
perhaps you were made to creep
and scare even the bravest of men in the dark
In One’s Nature
The wind knocks
and his gossamer trap
is torn asunder –
he wakes, and rebuilds.
A boy on his way to school
tears through the fine filaments
of hexagonal brilliance –
she spins, anew.
The couples yell and break
promises; webs of lies leave
destruction in their paths –
they separate, and walk away.
Tears with held
Pain suppressed
Day and night filled with worry. Contemplation accompanied by lack of rest
Everyone oblivious. While I cling to anonymity and borrowed happiness
An unusual spider, pure white it was,
came to our garden this year
and spun a web, a cloud hung in a carrageenan hedge,
a late snow that fell during a night
when words weren’t enough. And as you paced alone
you recalled an offered bouquet of white roses,
white the color of forgiveness, he’d said, and you knew then
something precious was about to disappear
come morning.
Something New
VCS
Darkened hallways
Turn darker still
The last lights of what was
Are dimmed and gone
The wind has stopped
Rustling the leaves
Only evil beasts still caper
Through the bowers of the trees
What is
What was
It is no more
I can’t recall ever working so hard
To get rid of something
That I loved so much
The bitter pain
Gnaws at me of losing the potential
Of the life that was never had
But holding on hurts exponentially in score
And now there is time for something more
Something better
We deserve to have something good
Not poisoned by the ghosts that lived here
Before we were ever born
and the angry spirits that came after
Yet here we linger
On the edge
Of a new adventure
Where it goes
The path that shimmers
Into reality before me
Is all still shrouded in mystery
But what I know
Is that those old halls
are darker and smaller
than ever before
Life has fled these paths
And it is time for something
Entirely new
Just me and you
Red wheel barrows, ice-cream emperors
And Lucy half-hidden by a mossy stone—
English majors don’t live by bread alone.
Engineering pays more than half our rate,
But Humanities more than compensate.
Overlook those part-time jobs adjuncts fill.
Our imaginations are rich as well as our will.
But I digress—try justifying a federal loan
With a Ph. D’s salary in English to live upon.