Sending poetry to the world
Wake up! Wake Up! There is so much
To do! Watch the trees, flush with green,
How they open their sun catchers
And breathe just like us. There are ripples to create and
Secret worms to unearth.
Come, test this messy black dirt
With your bare feet and count the many
Grains of light on your tongue.
Wake up now, small one, and find your life in the dawn.
Lemon in my hand has such soft waxen rind,
the smell is citrus, light, acidic, clean.
I am now 8 years old in a world of sand, sucking lemon juice
through a peppermint stick, a grandparent’s treat.
Then, I am Positano, a lemon of such giant size, and my family
together watches rain wash candied terra cotta roofs clean.
Once more, I’m at lunch in a blue room with my great aunt
squeezing a distracted, thin slice into a diet coke.
Always, a small bit of juice finds a crack in the skin and stings.
Tomorrow, we’ll roll the pulp in sugar and have a sweet lick.
how quickly childhood hours wash ashore and recede.
we, left behind, are simple whispers of salt and foam.
in dreams, we jump waves gleeful, until time, a gentle hand,
closes our eyes for a nap, our breathing steady, slow.
you don’t have to remind me of that
orange and brown
soft knit afghan quilt that
matched nothing
in our house
but in theirs —
the olive green
and the hanging plates
and that day
laying on the hardwood waiting
no games, no pick up sticks
only a new jewelry box
and my reliable Alley cat
in a house creaking with grief
dismissed
gathering stones
in the drain pipe
that felt like a river bank
little sister in hand
knowing more than they knew –
quilts always warm.
take a knife
sharpened good
slice my head
and pull back
like an old tin can
of Campbells
creamy mushroom
that made the casseroles
of tuna and cheese
remember eating it
in straightback
wooden chairs
in a kitchen of panels
and country style.
smalll bony legs crook’d
over a driveway of shale
“here’s one!!!”
to a fossil, and our cousins
visiting…
“let’s go!!”
tossed aside, then
scampering off to that place
where rotting wood is our
breakfast – in our fort,
a few saplings
leaned to a trunk, first creep inside
“Snake!!!”
racing fast to the river,
there a high crossing keeps
out intruders and
Indian-style
we eat pockets of winesap
apples, ruddy green
red
like that one pesky leaf
floating downstream
throw a rock, watch it sink….
we discovered
the game “d” —
one patch of crab grass
and one special phrase
–to the next world!
but don’t tell those
younger ones
waiting on the porch–
it is so secret
you have to whisper.
i’m still a dancer
behind
a dark velvet stage,
a ballerina,
peeking anxious at a
curtain opening slow,
still in tutu, tights,
straining to find
your eyes
reflection
from breathless
wooden chairs.
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