Thursday, May 17, 2007
A few more lines I really hate to put
up on my blog but that’s the choice I’ve made.
I find it hard to write this way and not
make cheesy rhymes, and thus sound very lame.
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Controlled Burning
There used to be a house across the street.
Now there’s a clearing, centered between pines
where deer graze the new grass with shallow roots
that sit on the foundation of a life.
Toxic mold condemned the house to death.
The vacant lot was bought up by a group
of hunters from the city, and their shots
are heard as I sit by the pond and look
for herons, or a muskrat’s shallow ‘v’
to trail across the water to his safe
burrow. They burned the couch and bedrooms first,
most flammable, the fabrics of a life.
We watched the windows flicker like a show
a show you think you’re not supposed to see.
The address was the final thing to fall.
It stood, proud posted, by what used to be
the front door, where I’m sure they greeted guests
and repo men. It had to be knocked down
or chopped off with an axe, I don’t recall.
We scavenge willow branches from the lawn,
plant them in water, bravely they grow roots.
We’ll have a tree like that to weep with us
to keep us safe, to buffer us with shade,
where we can sit and watch deer graze our grass.
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It’s finally warm and half the pond is green
an algal bloom has popped up over night
we need some fish but what’s a girl to do
unless she can locate a fish rescue?
It’s hard to focus once the sun is up—
the bunnies hop, the dogs are soon to bark
and husband sleeping—he’ll work late tonight
to write a poem seems a selfish lark.
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Goose Poop
The geese go bobbing down my long driveway
the babies heads are higher than the grass.
Are they teenagers now? Or young adults?
How long does it take goose babes to grow up?
Their feathers all have changed from green to brown,
a little yellow lingers by the ears.
(Do geese have ears high on their heads like us?)
They’re still cute now, but I know what this means:
more grown-up goose poop in the yard to clean.
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I dream I am longwinded, I can talk
for hours about the government in Spain
or whether some new half-synthetic cloth
is better than the last one that they made.
But in reality my words are short,
and said with caution, weighed & overweighed
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I smell things that aren’t there, it is a sign
of worsening depression, I must be
careful not to let it take my mind
I need less sleep, more time for poetry.
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Like Love
The bunny grooms his bunny-wife, and she
sits loaflike there and lets him, like a queen
until he starts to hump her, though he’s been
long neutered, and his wife she is long spayed
Does springtime make the bunny want to hump?
Are hormones in the buckeye tree outside?
Or did the cleaning of her little cheek
remind him of the fun they used to have?
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Also Like Love
My house is kooky, and has hybrid trees
that grow half apple, other half cherry
a weird quirk that was probably quite hip
back in the seventies when it was built.
But in the springtime it looks beautiful
when apple blossoms mingle with the plum
and upright cherry branches stand above
the weeping cherry branches spilling blooms
Their symbiotic thing is just like love:
one tree in two. What happens when one dies?
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I find it hard to write this way and be
concise: there’s extra space for extra words
Perhaps by line 800 I will learn
to make each count, and not just sound absurd
I’d like to write a sonnet, I will try
to write one every day, though they’ll be crap.
A sonnet every day? No, that’s too hard.
To try a thing like that would make me snap.
I’m more than halfway there if I keep up
my silly ramblings on this silly task
7:19am, is that too soon
to ditch the tea, go up and grab my flask?
A sonneteer alas I’ll never be
I’d be content with you to warm my tea. ¶ 8:34 AM
