first winter night

I was cold
so I stood
in the rain
for a while

standing
on the edge
of the step
rocking

laundry day

there is a smell to sleep
perhaps it is the remnant
of dreams that cling
to my night clothes

unexpected evening

"and with that, jam night begins"
keep your head down and
concentrate on the liquor

this is the only moment
that will ever exist
(it is possible to come back)

you gotta reap just what you sew

my bed has been filling up

this morning i added
a radio to the
computer, files, letters, notebook,
pens, not to mention
the books -
a novel, poetry, dictionary, erotica -
bookmarks float about
surprising me under the covers

my old self lingers
some nights I hold her
we think the bed is not so empty
nevertheless, she fades
folds into me
I know I will not miss her

gentle presence

the sun is bright
it hangs over the roof tops
slants in through the window
plays on my fingers

gentle presence, it dances
with the music all right

i've been foolish

what is that there
in my middle

where my spirit rests

it is time
to risk the return

no assumptions

not touching you those days
are hard memories to bear
I was, what, saving it for later
like the stationery given to me when I was 12
that I'm still saving for that perfect
inspiration

at first i thought it was another lesson
in things having broken,

my underwear, all of it, had developed
inconvenient holes

then i realized it was likely
a lesson in renewal

but when the 'n' fell off my
typewriter's print wheel last night

i could not figure this
part of it

weekend in water

I smelled like my bubble bath
as I sat at the reading
tired from the laps that I had swum
I dozed in the words

"that was great"

morning
swimming again
floating
underneath the roof window
nothing to see but gray
clouds getting ready to rain

sometimes

after a freeze
it takes
a conflagration
to begin the thaw

nothing

but new beginnings
from here on out

identification

this afternoon i identified
that elusive emotion -
humiliation

this evening
i had no trouble
knowing it

first frost

late October walk
in a quiet early morning
Sunday town

it takes a moment
until my feet
can tell me
I am walking
on frozen grass

some things I've learned in the past week

locked myself out of the motel room

I've been leaving things
here and there
shoes
jammies
my dignity















Trio, The Grass is Blue, Cowgirl's Prayer, New Favorite

These things have been sustaining me.
Perhaps I need to rethink things.















if you want freedom
don't mistake circles
for revolutions
-d. a. levy


we've been here before
surely you recognize it
(though I had to be reminded)

I don't want to come back
here again, I intend
to find the true path this time

for Janice

(thank you)

It is all right
to be sad.
It is, indeed,
appropriate.

transfer

did you get any rest there, gal?

the voice of my father speaks to me
through a chinese horse

today

i will be a stranger in my own house

"you don't know what a chance is until you have to seize one"

empty, no direction
but moving north

winding around back roads, too hard to drive
with the notions in my head

one more effort to assess my status
to have a body of understanding (I’ve mentioned it before)

i knew he’d be there, know just the right things to say and do:
leave me alone, listen, wonder and hold me

and he was with understanding beyond reason
beyond what i deserve, just exactly what i needed

knowing when to lay me down, let me sleep
care for me, think ahead when i could not

i am not often on the receiving end of this kind of care
and there is nothing i have to give him back

for this incredible kindness

morning

new morning
first morning
sun rises
unseen sneaking up
between buildings

no notion of tomorrow
but that it'll be here

library

he sings

"prayer
just like any other
nothing more nothing less"

sleeping sitting up

i just awoke
from a little sleep
sitting at my desk

"honey, you're gonna have some set backs"

unknown

It is odd to be in limbo and not in limbo all at the same time.

So...if it is possible.

I need to think in colors and not in different shades of fear.

knew it was coming
had to leave the room

didn't want you to know
how that song takes me out

lays me down without
any secrets

talking about bluegrass gospel with you made me remember

it was a surprise
(my hillbilly genes overpowered my atheist nature)

this afternoon I walked to the river
didn’t wear orange because I just didn’t feel like
putting myself into that snug fitting orange sweatshirt
on such a heavenly day, everything was just right
socks and boots included
(there I go again, listening to the moans)
didn’t wear orange because I didn’t want to be as
aware of my breasts as that orange sweatshirt makes me
not today when I might get distracted by them
hold them the whole way down to the river
forget to look around
forget to listen
just forget

but this has nothing to do with my breasts or
the orgasms that I had earlier this afternoon
lying in the sun, letting my mind rest
with only the occasional foreign word
(eventually I was still with the book lying over my face -- it left a mark --
my knee in the air and filling bladder so I didn’t slip too far into the rays)
it has to do with what happened
later in the afternoon
after a walk with the dogs
and a brisk walk all my own
while I was sitting on the river bank
in the spot where I’ve been going
to watch, to listen, to throw sticks and stalks into the current

a shot had echoed up the river a little earlier
on this extra day in the deer hunting schedule
and I knew from the feel of the sound that it had traveled a ways to get to me
that the gun was not near me, no fears of being mistaken for a deer
though many, most, times, I practice the quiet walk
the listening walk, deliberate and engaged

after a few pages of notes during which I realized
there is only so much I’ll hear in these waters
I was sitting on the chilly mud and a shot rang out
closer - from this side of the river
I spent some time looking for orange and also a little time
wondering if I could outrun bigfoot and then
cursing my decision not to slip that sweatshirt over my body

knew that I should stop acting like a non-human animal
so I decided to sing
it was a desperate decision, though important

you know, I’ve been working on this for hours
and it must mean there’s something I’m not willing to accept
I’ve been trying to get it out, trying to admit it and
I’ve just walked away from the whole thing over and over
the thing I’m trying to acknowledge
is that when my back was up against the wall
I started singing hillbilly gospel
and it didn’t matter that I couldn’t quite remember the words
or sing the tune

excision of my heart

only now
do i understand
somehow
i've managed to remove it all

it must've
taken years
to discharge it
so completely

what part of my
irredeemable soul
held the knife, i will not know

took it up to cut out
anything with life

"you are like a rock"

and I know this is right
I know my heart is in the middle
and cannot escape

Gauguin

I just had a little
welling emotion erupting
from the unacknowledged

emerged as only a few tears and a
chest full of sadness

all because I didn’t have someone
to love and hate and love as much as
Gauguin had Vincent
absurd -- I want to be sustained
not murdered

disambiguation

there it is again

it is written to me.

"The nostalgia is sometimes as overwhelming as the beauty of the music."

and it reminds me of my recent bout with nostalgia
it was unexpected, though isn't that always the way
like the surprise of finding a bundle of letters
you'd loved beyond reason then deliberately forgotten

my truck broke down, full of stuff for the warehouse
a good distance away, the brakes started to stick
it was the smoke that made me stop, pull into a small lot
I sat in the hot sun for a long time

listening to Reading Lolita in Tehran,
eating mint chocolate chip ice cream, and
when my mind and body were full
finally flopping in the sun listening to a Grateful Dead tape
(it had been a gift from my friend)

that's what did it, the combination of
good live dead music and the sun
it opened a door at the bottom of my spine
filled me with youthful sunshine









"It makes your words softer to see them handwritten."

this touches me
makes me wonder why

am i so hard?
and i know without thinking

that yes
i am














"we repair"

i wait

i cannot sleep
there is a further threat of rain

i cannot sleep
for it all might wash away

i did sleep through a flash flood once
at the cabin

i was fortunate that we didn't get
dragged out into the river

the girls and I would have floated
all the way to New Orleans

beginning of the day

waking with the ache of mind and body
my brain hurts, yeah, my brain
hurts

eyes won't stop watering

i cannot find Ganesh
i cannot get my arms around it all
to hand it over anyway
i am drowning

it is beyond night
and beyond morning
i am in those impossible invisible hours
the relentless rain brought me out of the dreams
of my tired and aching body the pressure
changes have brought that ache back to my joints

it is the remnants of a tropical storm
blasting its way over us
the rain hasn’t stopped for a couple of days
at times like these the intensity increases
and I am convinced the water is rising to this second floor
sweeping down the hill taking the house with it

it seems that if i lie back down
it will sneak in through my ears
slip over my body
tuck my head under its surface
and drown me

Ivan knows the way but he's not telling

Hey Elvis,

Fifteen years ago I started to think about writing to you. Writing for you. Writing for us all. But it became overwhelming. Or I am a coward. Or both.

Nevertheless, it is time.

the day the rain finally came

Until the past few days, we’ve had a very dry spell. Too many months. Lots of the grasses and many trees are brown. All of the hemlocks (not the conifers) are dead. The lack of rain has affected us all. Emotions ran close to the surface - mostly desire. The smallest gesture rippled across our surfaces. Day after day I carried water to the garden. My back and my time made me a thoughtful water bearer. I could not carry enough to the trees and I only hope that they will remember other lean years. I have tried to write but the drought has taken away my words. It is like a period of celibacy by choice and then by chance and then by mishap. Each cloud caressed with increasingly cruel gestures. Day after day the clouds would flirt with us, linger on the horizon. Foreplay beyond reason.

the day the rain finally came

i stood outside
had to take off my clothes
with my arms to the sky

alive
feeling
cold
rain
drop
on
my
skin

mid-day on a Sunday in July

I’m waiting for the sun to move from its most intense spot in the sky. There is work to be done in the garden. The letter to California that is being composed from The New York Times is carefully resting in pages all over my office. It is waiting for me to affix its pieces. But I’m not feeling much of anything is permanent at the moment so resist. The Queen Anne’s lace that we picked last weekend has begun dropping small dried petals on my desk. The pungent green walnut, from that same walk, has lost the most intense of its odor and has begun to get small brown spots. I wish it were possible to bottle that first odor of the walnut. I wish it were possible to bottle the whole experience. A walk here on a Sunday afternoon in July Ohio. Down the hill, past the cistern with the fish and the frog looking over its many eggs and bees drinking from the small overflow. Bees drinking, ain’t that a kick? Stepping from the sun into the dappled light through the trees to the field. Some of the wild flowers are tall - reach over our heads in spots. {I don’t know what it is exactly that tells me these plants know the descent has begun. The loss of daylight has become almost palpable.} The path winds through the field, skirting the tree line turning turning past the inadequately explained hill. A small newly dead animal was lying near the corn field. {No blood, no external wounds and I wonder if the red-tailed hawk dropped it. He’s been sitting in that big nut tree and hunting our yard.} Butterflies on the path work their way from flower to flower to rotting waste. They linger. Progress slows and thankfully so does time. It is impossible to resist touching the yarrow and turning face first into the sun. The heat and the humidity somehow make the body buoyant. Back into dappled light down to the oxbow. The dragonflies are thickest here. Shimmering with impossibly delicate wings. There it is. A bright green inviting walnut. The perfect size to hold in the palm with the fingers wrapped around it just so. First instinct is to inhale. It feels like it smells good. Get it? You can feel that smell in your hand. The first breath of the pungent emanation reaches deep into the body. It makes the heart pause in salute to this intensely alive object. All you can do is walk swiftly back up the hill with it held to your face, gratefully ushering in the living breath.

disambiguation

whisper onto my lips

no patience but no choice

sweat puddled behind my knees
dried and smelly under my arms

i cannot think until that hour has passed
the last hour with the warm breeze

i wait for the delicate tongues of the night air

it is early morning and these are the things

in a comfortable delicate breeze of a cool summer morning

no machinery no humanity
just birds -- that's right
no exaggeration
just birds
at least six different calls
birds unseen and many many many
one spectacular call
from the wild cherry

I planted outside my window a flower bed
right in the middle of the yard
for my soul this very morning
the clematis is a thick blanket of deep purple
draped over the trellis with orange zinnia at its feet
the past few nights have been so chilly that I've
been sleeping under that blanket
and dreaming of the bee balm and daylilies
that have just begun to burst and
the buds that are growing seen and unseen



often it is overwhelming

New York City

I didn't mean it.
I'd like my words back now.
I lost them in those rivers of yours.

bluegrass letter

"how mountain girls can love"

weeding the garlic this afternoon
i snapped a leaf in my fingers
pungent thoughts rushed to my head

"i must journey all alone"

my body is sitting in my favorite jeans,
polka dotted underwear and pink lacy bra
and it could have worked harder today

"it's relentless and I'm defenseless"

i was the rain in the garden today
I tried to be more than just the barest
of essentials - tried to sustain

"lord teach me how to speak"