24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Twins in the garden
Born this spring
Tunneling with Mum
Under the barn
Out on their own
One at a time
Impossible to know
They were sibs
Well and bouncy
Soft autumn brown
Munching on new
Green summer grass
Tempted to name them
Wood and Chuck
Alas I am made of
better intentions
Anthony and Cleo
I don’t think so
I have more respect
For nature’s nursery
A warm sunny day,
with a walk in the backyard.
We collect —
the petals from red roses,
the new lime green leaves from off of a trumpet vine,
a collection of clippings from the lawn.
Bring out the crayons, to color in the sky, the grass, the trees, the bright yellow sun;
a black cat, made as special as a 4-year-old can do it.
Then the watercolors—
One brush means girls must learn to take turns.
The rinsing cup gets more color than the white letter-sized paper.
The black cat turns dark green.
The water in the cup turns chocolaty brown.
Monet would be envious.
.Next glue down the petals from roses, the leaves from the trumpet vine, and the grass clippings,
and last, pretty colored feathers.
Papa tells the girls these are special—
from the wings of beautiful magical fairies.
He gets a hug from his little red-haired four-year-old.
Time to let it dry in the sun while we have fun in the park.
Little two-year-old sister walks hand in hand with her Papa.
Big sister rides her scooter all the way there.
The red slide is too hot,
The helical green tunnel slide is just right.
Time for the youngest to learn to be more independent.
Papa sits by and lets it happen.
The cool morning day is dipped like a painting with—
new memories of a happy watercolor day,
pressed beneath the weight,
of a1909,
Webster’s New International Dictionary.
The weight of time presses down on
fairy winged memories.
I open the front of the book to see a black and white lithograph—
Noah Webster looking back at me from more than a hundred years.
I am sure—
this wordy old papa would have smiled more
if he could have had a watercolor day of his own.
I look into the night
An abyss and a revelation later,
A vision dawns over the cityscape of dust
The particles of the universe begin to shine through.
As i wait at the bus stop that morning,
Light wedges its way out of me
Until i am the blazing sun
looking down at the bus stop, at me, waiting
For another eureka moment to arrive.
Love Doesn’t Wait for the Morning
What? Trying it on for size?
Trying to act surprised
that touching someone unlike you
feels so nice.
You’re guessing again
and it’s so simple my friend.
When loves comes,
it never knocks twice –
It just comes in.
Afraid? What will people say?
Running to far hide-a-way places
to bask in the joy of each other’s faces
In the dark? Subtle traces
of what is surely to be uncovered in the day
Ahhhhhhhhh!
You are placing wonder in a box
as if you are a child at play.
Ashamed?
But love is not a childish game.
Is being with the one you want,
rejected by the world, a strain?
You would rather please
the maddening crowd,
than experience the pain
of standing for your soul
mate and to the world
Shout it out loud!
Love doesn’t wait for the morning,
Neither does it hide at night!
Love is perfect and entire
and casts out fear
whether timing is bad
or just right.
Take hold to love – own it
before love is your
“Once upon a time!’
Refrain:
When your eyes meet
Know that it is love.
When your minds speak – Listen
No other power can defeat
The power of love.
in terms of design
I describe my sadness
Skyscraper high
head into the clouds
sifting through self to feel more
besides needle prick pain
I want to feel something
now
stress spreads me thin
and my patience short
Periwinkle dreams
are the only things
keeping me afloat
Lab Report
After school I took the stairs up to the third floor,
the chemistry lab, to finish the project.
The hall was empty this late
and I was the only student in the classroom.
I mixed what I had to mix, wrote down results.
The teacher came out of his small office
and watched as I soaped and rinsed
and placed the tubes on the drying rack.
I picked up my books, held them across my chest
as girls did and turned to say goodbye.
Wiping his hands with a rag, he said,
You’re very sheltered, aren’t you.
I had no idea what he was getting at.
I was a gabby girl but I had no words to answer.
Yes, I had watchful parents, my mother once
about to call the police because I didn’t call
from my friend’s house after school.
Was that what he meant?
What exactly did he want me to affirm?
I said goodbye sir and remembered
how much easier it is to walk downstairs then up.
But it wasn’t only gravity that pulled me down.
I am the river and I am the shore, uncertain and afloat
Tumbling in the dark, and well
They say I’m only twenty-five
So how can I fall, when the sun has just arrived?
It’s so bright, I should be able to see into the horizon
The sunlight that flies in
Into my eyes, well now I’m blinded
And reminded,
That there’s no reason for my fears,
Cheers!
The realization, did not seem to remove them
Neither reprove them
And so if there’s no illness, there’s no cure,
But my soul, is still trapped
Wrapped, in a dark cloud of doubt,
And no matter how many pills they come out
With, none work because I am not ill
Only ailing
And the road, through hardly assailing,
Is not a friend,
With no end in sight, I turn around and
And now another year has gone by,
But I’m halfway through
And used to the dark cloud
Long after you were gone I still policed myself
To fit your expectations. I couldn’t
Shake the feeling that this was another test.
So I behaved and repressed so I
Wouldn’t have to feel your wrath –
Long after it was clear you weren’t coming back.
Now, I just hope you treat him better.
It gives me some solace to think that maybe
I was the guinea pig you tested the limits on,
that I saved another from all of this trauma.
I’m still learning how to not blame others for you.
To not see pieces of you tucked in their smile
And clam up, immediately conjuring up what
Always came after that smirk. I can’t quite explain
The ways in which you made a smile seem dangerous.
How that rewires the brain in the worst way.
I can only hope that at least something good
Came out of all the pain – that you know now
Breaking point of a person, and you’ll never push
Anyone else quite so close to the edge.
that late afternoon cloud refusing
to boil up to a thunder storm
or
the jonquils near the front door
every spring the tight little buds
turn brown and wither
or
the one misshapened button
on my red blouse, the one loose
shingle on the neighbor’s roof, the
one french fry under the driver’s
seat
or
one spring a bull frog took
residence in the neighbor’s pool
he croaked and crooned all night
harmonizing with an orchestra of
friendly crickets, but I didn’t have the
heart to tell the little critters that
the bullfrog only kept them around
in case he needed a quick snack,
because, you know, there’s one in
every crowd
Invisibles
No, we do not walk alone
There are invisibles walking with us
Friends or foes, they’re there —they really are
When you’re spared from the jaws of death
You’re only a hairline from its snap
And the snare fails to have you trapped
When you fail to show up for a flight
The flight you’ve spent days waiting for.
You may or may not be sick
Yet you miss the flight, not by your own choice
You stress until you hear the demise of the quick machine
When you’re home and have no reason
Or intension to be out
Until you find a reason to drive around
Or pick from the store that which you really need not
And it becomes “Had I known I would have stayed still this day”
How do you go from saying farewell to a loved one
And therein find the one to soothe your pain
Coincidence –no, no, think again
As sure as God’s fresh air keeps us breathing and moving
Invisibles are with us on both sides of the aisle