A Sampling of My Poetry
I Must Be Dying
I am awake in early light,
light that paints prisms
in the liquid crystal
of morning dew.
Dawn’s illumination
gently brushes grass
to say, “Wake up, sleepyhead,
it is time to welcome the hummers
and chirpers and buzzers -
wake up!”
Day is a heartbeat away.
I am so still with knowing
that one move, one breath
will shatter the world.
I think I must be dying
because I have never felt
so happy and so sad
in one golden moment.
Under a Blushing Sky: Poems About New Beginnings *2020*
Phone Book
I read the local phone book once.
It was more interesting than you’d expect.
The first name listed was Aamot
and I wondered if they’d made it up
just to be first, perhaps having come
from a long line of people not first at anything,
and maybe that was the case
for the second name too, only
they’d missed the mark. Again.
There were 246 entries for Smith.
I thought some of them should have
made up names to stand out or
maybe they had, I mean made up Smith
in a quest for anonymity, unlike
the Aamot family.
Were those at the end, the Zylstras and Zylickis
shaped by all the times sorted
in alphabetical order, to be more bold or
quiet? While the rest, residing on pages
in between, never pick up
a phone book, have no idea
on which page they fall, miss out
on all the imaginings inside.
Bramble Literary Magazine *Winter 2020*
A Place Past Cold
The flag by the bandstand is quiet,
the breeze nearly absent
except the left side of your face
is slightly colder than the right,
but no finger snap rattle from tree branches
or forgotten wind chime’s telltale call.
Behind you, indoors, a hearth well-employed
and still you stare out over the frozen bay,
wonder how far the ice extends,
wonder if the bones of men and lost ships
are ever really beyond the feel of cold.
Jade Ring Contest Honorable Mention *2020*
Other Doors
If I forget to breathe
I am briefly inhabiting
another room, another life,
so fully engaged in mind
that body is suspended.
You see me here, but empty,
as I explore possibilities
no longer open to me.
Listen for my next breath.
It will tell you if I mourn
this closed door
or if I have locked it.
Through This Door, Wisconsin in Poems *2020*
Baggage
She talks to herself,
I think.
There is no one I can see.
Above scruffy canvas shoes
toothpick legs extend
to shorts, then summer top
covered by unzipped hoodie.
Drenched in ninety degree sweat
I marvel at her disregard
for heat.
The handle of a rolling suitcase
fills one hand,
wheels objecting
to straight lines.
In her other hand
a tire.
She walks the middle of the road,
the one above the embankment
descending to the Pasadena Freeway,
chain link fence to hold it back
lest delusions of grandeur
coax it into interstate traffic.
I make up stories.
Why the tire?
Why the suitcase?
Why the middle of the road?
With more strength
than size warrants
she flings the tire
over the fence.
I lose sight of it in the tangle
of growth on the hill.
On she walks,
like the tire never was,
like the middle of the road
is her beaten path,
like we all tow baggage.
Front Porch Review *July 2020*
Soldiers
He stands in the lane,
you in the rubble,
rage your only weapon, words
that lie in wait on your tongue.
But you see his face,
forlorn, like yours.
His hands by his sides,
ten fingers, like yours.
Dark smudges under his eyes,
purple shadows, like yours.
He imagines himself
far from here
in his mother’s kitchen,
washing the berries
she will put in a pie,
sunlight on
the pink of her cheeks,
but he is here,
watching you imagine
you bask in the blue
of dining room walls,
sit at the table with your father
as children race
up the gravel path,
sticky with juice of apple,
and pear and joy,
but you are here,
searching for memories
in bits of your attic
now scattered on cobblestones.
You and the soldier,
both longing for home.
Poetry for Ukraine, Robin Barratt, editor
Absence
The swallows are gone.
No farewell or forwarding address,
just a feeling too strong to ignore
that time had come.
No one circles the weather vane,
perches on silo rungs,
celebrates simply being
with aerobatics.
I hope crickets sang them off,
and bees hummed,
and the bullfrog added notes
the others couldn’t reach.
The farm is subdued
but not sad,
knowing these things come
and come again.
Today my knowing is only
the swallows are gone.
~ Echoes of the Wild, 2024
Dear Girl
Dear girl, I say to myself,
though I don’t hold myself
dear, and perhaps that’s
why I say it now, as if
the hearing of it will inspire
a pause in language
less kind. Dear girl,
don’t let disappointments
of your childhood cause
you to set a low bar.
Let go of expectations
born from the misguided
acquisitions of others. Make choices,
make mistakes, make amends,
make a life. Whether you have
a thousand minutes or
just one,
there is time.
~Bards Against Hunger, 10th Anniversary Edition, 2023