Getting ready to move

not knowing if i could depend on anyone else
i took up the power drill myself
to fix the rack in my
closet

after all
i’m the only one who
can fix my own heart

it’s easy to leave it
broken like the closet rack
hanging precariously
unable to sustain weight

but the sun is out
and i got email
– you thought of me from so far
away and long ago –
so i replaced what was broken with a new part

ten thousand memories flooding as

i pack up my winter clothes
take out my summer clothes
thirteen times

now this last time
in my house
up for sale

each time the same, but slightly different
i know i’m older each year
april calls for spring

 

what if i cast off anything worn or broken
extraneous
half my high-heeled shoes depart
keeping only what works
will i change

will it be easier to walk

february to march – two poems

february morning

sunday rain
a week’s worth
of snow
unfixed
loosened and
unleashed
waves of
washing water

 

i get wet

 

Saturday march 12 2011

9:30 am
day-light savings time’s
overcast belies
a higher angle
unseen sun’s occluded
brightness

hope of oncoming spring

I see blue crocus in winter’s leavings

life renewed

after the dinner

red light rain
late winter afternoon gray
me feeling
drained from the day

i remember
last evening
my house
our attentions aligned
your gift
bottle of red zinfandel wine
green olives
white cheese
tasted
together

now knowing
alone
our
unraveled edges need
constraining
head and heart
patient
restraining

taking time
for
convalescence’s
cure

shifting on green
world through a scrim
rain and remembrance
image of our parting embrace

what is it like
for you

my mother’s needles

my mother’s needles
hold memories
her
now two years passed on
i learn to purl

under over
knit  purl
i move these knots
casting on and off in patterns newly understood
imagined

staying up late
stitching
fabricating
inheriting yarns

dinner theater dancing

invited to the waltz
stopped in my tracks by doubt
unused to these shoes

i don’t remember where
to put my hands
or how to dance

how do i recall
what seems completely new

guide me by texture
double-breasted wool suit
pressed
lightly into silk blouse
high heels
now knowingly glide

room rounds as
we
others
tables dishes napkins glasses bottles
chairs coats handbags
all
musicians singers performers

flow
one living thing
under the
tent
in the warm electric night

twisted thougts

Knight’s Move Thinking

linking tangential ideas

off-putting to some

comes naturally to me.

Isn’t that where new ideas come from?

Don’t poets and artists build

bridges

between otherwise disjointed ideas

to let others cross?

awakening

january 16, 2011

twelve past four in the afternoon
winter light leaving day

i see

my feet standing on

water streaming over

gravel driveway

surrounding mist
thousand tiny rain drops

dropping

wetting my face
hair
hands
my shirt and pants

waking me up

what was that dream of grief

i reclaim my life

now

noticing the world is still here

Time for reflection – from cross-ties – one of my favorite blogs

Time for reflection.

Ultimately – or at the limit – in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes. ‘The necessary condition for an image is sight,’ Janouch told Kafka; and Kafka smiled and replied: ‘We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.’ (Roland Barthes: Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography)

I love this post… do I write, and make art in order to forget – to clear my mind? Am I driven to share in order to forget?

saturated

rain falls
melting

long frozen sorrows below the
snow

frost heaved furrows open
soft earth

saturated
ground

loss

mid-winter slanted sun
shines the north slope
clean

while

my unseen face
faces

snow
sheltered in southern shadows
clinging perfectly to the branches and twigs

frozen still