I'm Wavy, You're Alf
Dad gave me a photograph a few years back,
and I rediscovered it today in the back cover
of a book of poetry. It was a black and white
picture of his grandfather and great uncle,
Wavy and Alf, when, I would guess they were
a little bit younger than we are now- two guys,
late 30's playing guitar, sitting on wooden
folding chairs in the yard outside the farmhouse
that I remember my great-grandmother lived in
until she had reached her late 90's.
I remember she grew rhubarb and green beans
in the garden outside her kitchen
where we would eat on weekends
when we would come to visit from town.
I remember her furniture, a time capsule-
the shimmering red and chrome of the kitchen chairs,
the imposing expanse of the burgundy couch
that looked like gangster movies to me,
the rifle rack above the guest bed behind the curtain,
the door that shut away the front of the house
where Great watch Lawrence Welk on Saturdays,
the brittle pages of the calendar forgotten on the wall.
I remember playing outside on warm days,
fascinated by a world so unlike my own,
expansive and dusty. The gravel road and the fields,
the smoke house, the shallow well with its iron pump,
the barn, riddled with holes, where they hung tobacco.
It's strange to me that this picture includes
the same yard, the bushes I remember. It might
have only been taken forty or fifty years before
my visits. It's strange that people I didn't know
told stories or jokes, lived lives that I can only see
in a form that is black and white and fading.
Consider that it is amazing that this picture
was taken at all. Two guys playing their guitars
sometime in the 1930's, maybe 40's, I imagine
after church, and passing the time before dinner.
Who held the camera and decided this scene
was worth saving? Wavy and Alf, in their white
short-sleeved dress shirts, working through
the mechanics of a song. What happened
to those guitars? What song would they have sung?
And that's what made me think about you
and me and the hours we've spent, guitar
and harmonica, lyrics and harmonies,
making music as a form of conversation
with no reason, really, for anyone to take our picture,
but now I wish they would. I wish they would
capture this moment, you and I around a table,
working a song like homemade dough.
Imagine someone printing that photo
and taking the time to write our names on the back.
Imagine one day, that person's grandchild
sliding our picture from the album, reading
our names and wondering how lives
are defined by our furniture, our clothing,
the way we draw our water from the well.
Imagine them examining the broken path
that connects them to the past.
Friday, January 18, 2019
Poem: January 17, 2019
You Know What I'm Talking About
I love that moment, usually at a table,
with people working on a project or
planning a vacation, when one of us
shares an idea that at first glance
perhaps has merit because it is
different, even, surprising, but that
has little detail, like a formless
astonishing lump of clay right there,
suddenly, in the middle of the table,
and at first, everybody reaches for it,
pokes their thumb in deep, or rolls
it between their hands, or flattens
it like a pancake before folding it
back over on itself, and there's
at least one of us who maybe makes
a mustache of it and presses it
under their nose, and we all laugh,
and then there's this perfect pause,
and that's when the moment happens
and someone says, "You know what would be cool..."
I love that moment, usually at a table,
with people working on a project or
planning a vacation, when one of us
shares an idea that at first glance
perhaps has merit because it is
different, even, surprising, but that
has little detail, like a formless
astonishing lump of clay right there,
suddenly, in the middle of the table,
and at first, everybody reaches for it,
pokes their thumb in deep, or rolls
it between their hands, or flattens
it like a pancake before folding it
back over on itself, and there's
at least one of us who maybe makes
a mustache of it and presses it
under their nose, and we all laugh,
and then there's this perfect pause,
and that's when the moment happens
and someone says, "You know what would be cool..."
Poem: January 16, 2019
Gumbo
The first thing you need to know is that Gumbo
is a place to go, a journey, a place that only the locals know.
It can be a quiet road that's slow and winding, a long
hot walk in the dusty sun, a heavy stroll toward home.
And you can take that road like a meditation.
You can close your eyes and hum real low, and
fill your lungs with the great green air and
get to know your footsteps, steady, heel and toe. You know
you'll get there, and your shadow will, too, as the sun
makes its way, light peanut butter to chocolate roux.
You've got the time for the Gumbo that fills the holes
that life digs in you. Stir the pot and you stir your soul.
Now there's another way to Gumbo that you should know
because some days are buzzing before you start and you
can't go alone on days like those. No, you'll need some
sizzle, a little Zydeco. So throw in some extra pepper
and take the road that's lined with porches and open
doors. Just follow the sound of the drums and horns.
Fair warning, this road is just as long, but when you go,
your crowd goes, too. A little more shade, a little more
room. You won't feel your feet when you dance down
this street to the Gumbo music by the Gumbo moon.
True, there's the Trinity and the roux, but there's
andouille and okra and Tabasco, too. Some days
you need the neighborhoods and some days the pews.
The first thing you need to know is that Gumbo
is a place to go, a journey, a place that only the locals know.
It can be a quiet road that's slow and winding, a long
hot walk in the dusty sun, a heavy stroll toward home.
And you can take that road like a meditation.
You can close your eyes and hum real low, and
fill your lungs with the great green air and
get to know your footsteps, steady, heel and toe. You know
you'll get there, and your shadow will, too, as the sun
makes its way, light peanut butter to chocolate roux.
You've got the time for the Gumbo that fills the holes
that life digs in you. Stir the pot and you stir your soul.
Now there's another way to Gumbo that you should know
because some days are buzzing before you start and you
can't go alone on days like those. No, you'll need some
sizzle, a little Zydeco. So throw in some extra pepper
and take the road that's lined with porches and open
doors. Just follow the sound of the drums and horns.
Fair warning, this road is just as long, but when you go,
your crowd goes, too. A little more shade, a little more
room. You won't feel your feet when you dance down
this street to the Gumbo music by the Gumbo moon.
True, there's the Trinity and the roux, but there's
andouille and okra and Tabasco, too. Some days
you need the neighborhoods and some days the pews.
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Poem: January 15, 2019
#Goals
You can be as patient as a predator,
as enduring as an ache,
as effective as the guillotine,
as bold as those who take.
You can be as clever as an ambush,
and as useful as a knife,
as honest as a fist,
but you won't enjoy your life.
Better to be honest as a kitten
and as useful as a pen,
as clever as the solution
missed by other men.
Be bold as sugar maples
and as effective as applause,
as enduring as the ocean
and as patient as a pause.
You can be as patient as a predator,
as enduring as an ache,
as effective as the guillotine,
as bold as those who take.
You can be as clever as an ambush,
and as useful as a knife,
as honest as a fist,
but you won't enjoy your life.
Better to be honest as a kitten
and as useful as a pen,
as clever as the solution
missed by other men.
Be bold as sugar maples
and as effective as applause,
as enduring as the ocean
and as patient as a pause.
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Poem: January 14, 2019
Mental Exercise
Imagine that we have a person before us, any person-
the kind you might stand in line behind at the pharmacy,
for instance- male or female, old or young- doesn't matter.
It would be best for our purposes that he or she not be
someone with whom you are familiar. Better if they be someone
anonymous, if slightly annoying. Someone you would have
questions about, or who you might talk about later.
Let's start with the clothes they are wearing. It's possible
they selected them this morning based on hundreds of considerations-
the weather, their wealth, their faith or sense of style-
but let's not assume. Instead, let's just strip the clothing away.
In fact, let's do the same for jewelry, makeup, tattoos.
Just a body undefined. Except we know that's not true.
Your person might have a certain haircut or really long fingernails.
Mine might be too short to reach the top shelf or be missing an eye.
Skin color, scars, a third nipple, green eyes, facial symmetry
all distinguish our people from one another.
Lives lived in those bodies are influenced by those bodies
in strange and subtle ways. I burn. You tan.
And we see the prospect of a pool party differently.
So we will need to peel back the bodies if we are to make progress.
Remove the skin that contains, the musculature that enables
the actions we choose to perform- putting on sunscreen,
holding someone in our arms, digging in the dirt, or pulling a trigger.
Remove the architecture of the bones as well,
and the pipes and tanks and filters and pumps of the organs.
Pause for a moment though and leave just the eyes, tongue, ear drums
sinuses, the tips of the fingers, the nervous system and the brain.
Lay out the parts of our subjects that connect it to the world,
give it a sense of other- a kiss on the cheek, the smell of lavender,
a scream in the distance. It's obvious in this state
that the specimens we are studying still diverge- the electric
impulses in their brains still routing and rerouting
in uniquely personal ways. We will have to carve away more,
isolate a single strand of DNA, place it under the microscope.
Is this the common denominator? That which makes us
make sense to one another? The helix that is not-dog, not-bird,
not monkey, fern, kangaroo, mushroom, or velociraptor?
A code not shaped by one person's experiences,
but by all people's experiences over and beyond
the entire span of human history- the map of our urges,
our preferences, adaptations, defenses, and taboos?
The universal and incremental squirming of nucleotides.
Is this the basis of our understood we?
Or are there even deeper definitions- atomic, subatomic-
that could reveal the most essential, common self?
Suppose we go further, releasing every atom attached
to the thing before us. Suppose we achieve a transcendent state
that our own senses aren't equipped to provide.
Imagine a point of energy alone in a void until we open
our metaphysical doorway. Imagine opening the door
and discovering something so pure it can only be loved.
Imagine you could hold it in your hands. Feel your heart
race as you delight in its pulsing potential. Imagine
its light is un-corruptible. It cannot be destroyed.
It can only change like the grain of sand at the center of a pearl.
Imagine that since you opened the door, the pure object
has changed every moment- it cannot be otherwise-
by your touch or by the absence of your touch,
by the form it takes as it gathers the pieces of the universe
to itself, by the spaces it begins to inhabit beyond the door,
by the resources it manages to find and the danger it encounters,
by its successes and its mistakes, by what it gains and loses.
Imagine this perfect heart amassing self like layers of dirt, like walls.
Remember its unburdened original state and wonder at its patina.
That is your mother busy at the sink, your child sneaking her first kiss.
That is the man who weeps in anger and the woman who rises to her feet.
This is each student in your class, separately, differently, each one,
every soldier marching on every side of every battlefield,
and all the celestial reshufflings we will become.
Imagine that we have a person before us, any person-
the kind you might stand in line behind at the pharmacy,
for instance- male or female, old or young- doesn't matter.
It would be best for our purposes that he or she not be
someone with whom you are familiar. Better if they be someone
anonymous, if slightly annoying. Someone you would have
questions about, or who you might talk about later.
Let's start with the clothes they are wearing. It's possible
they selected them this morning based on hundreds of considerations-
the weather, their wealth, their faith or sense of style-
but let's not assume. Instead, let's just strip the clothing away.
In fact, let's do the same for jewelry, makeup, tattoos.
Just a body undefined. Except we know that's not true.
Your person might have a certain haircut or really long fingernails.
Mine might be too short to reach the top shelf or be missing an eye.
Skin color, scars, a third nipple, green eyes, facial symmetry
all distinguish our people from one another.
Lives lived in those bodies are influenced by those bodies
in strange and subtle ways. I burn. You tan.
And we see the prospect of a pool party differently.
So we will need to peel back the bodies if we are to make progress.
Remove the skin that contains, the musculature that enables
the actions we choose to perform- putting on sunscreen,
holding someone in our arms, digging in the dirt, or pulling a trigger.
Remove the architecture of the bones as well,
and the pipes and tanks and filters and pumps of the organs.
Pause for a moment though and leave just the eyes, tongue, ear drums
sinuses, the tips of the fingers, the nervous system and the brain.
Lay out the parts of our subjects that connect it to the world,
give it a sense of other- a kiss on the cheek, the smell of lavender,
a scream in the distance. It's obvious in this state
that the specimens we are studying still diverge- the electric
impulses in their brains still routing and rerouting
in uniquely personal ways. We will have to carve away more,
isolate a single strand of DNA, place it under the microscope.
Is this the common denominator? That which makes us
make sense to one another? The helix that is not-dog, not-bird,
not monkey, fern, kangaroo, mushroom, or velociraptor?
A code not shaped by one person's experiences,
but by all people's experiences over and beyond
the entire span of human history- the map of our urges,
our preferences, adaptations, defenses, and taboos?
The universal and incremental squirming of nucleotides.
Is this the basis of our understood we?
Or are there even deeper definitions- atomic, subatomic-
that could reveal the most essential, common self?
Suppose we go further, releasing every atom attached
to the thing before us. Suppose we achieve a transcendent state
that our own senses aren't equipped to provide.
Imagine a point of energy alone in a void until we open
our metaphysical doorway. Imagine opening the door
and discovering something so pure it can only be loved.
Imagine you could hold it in your hands. Feel your heart
race as you delight in its pulsing potential. Imagine
its light is un-corruptible. It cannot be destroyed.
It can only change like the grain of sand at the center of a pearl.
Imagine that since you opened the door, the pure object
has changed every moment- it cannot be otherwise-
by your touch or by the absence of your touch,
by the form it takes as it gathers the pieces of the universe
to itself, by the spaces it begins to inhabit beyond the door,
by the resources it manages to find and the danger it encounters,
by its successes and its mistakes, by what it gains and loses.
Imagine this perfect heart amassing self like layers of dirt, like walls.
Remember its unburdened original state and wonder at its patina.
That is your mother busy at the sink, your child sneaking her first kiss.
That is the man who weeps in anger and the woman who rises to her feet.
This is each student in your class, separately, differently, each one,
every soldier marching on every side of every battlefield,
and all the celestial reshufflings we will become.
Monday, January 14, 2019
Poem: January 13, 2019
Riley
I’m in my office which was recently your bedroom reading
Donald Hall’s White Apples and the Taste of Stone, and I
am surprised to find your name (in this case a reference
to a horse), but there you are- my son, a young man out
making his way, never near enough, but a welcome visitor.
I struggle to put into words what I mean here, which is
precisely the point. Does it make sense that I carry
a long story, imageless, that only grows in its untelling?
A mute space growing outwardly. A ticking pause.
It’s easy to write a poem about the girls because
the contrast between us is more immediate. I stumble
across them. I can place them in a setting. I see them
and I say, “Look. There they are- not me. This is what
I think of the spaces they are filling.” Our connections
snap into place. I know where I am relative to them.
Writing about you is staring into a mirror, and at first,
seeing nothing, not because of your absence, but
because of the functional blindness of an over-familiar
story I’ve internalized. The experience of arriving home
but not remembering the drive. The unconscious chewing
of a pencil. But then, also the knowledge that this
blindspot has substance. It is something to grasp, peel away.
I suppose I am describing the infinite chain of other
worlds that are lined up, mirror to mirror, father to son,
man to man. Separate but the same. Yours, mine, my
father’s, one day your son’s perhaps. Each of us
standing opposite one another, looking through
an unnecessary string of closed windows. Glass
to tap on but not breach. A vacuum of words stretching.
And I remember a letter my father wrote to me
when he dropped me off at college. He hoped
that we would stay close, that we would write letters
to one another, a final reaching through the glass. Now
I wish I had kept that letter like an artifact upon which
were written the words I have forgotten how to express.
I know I could have used them as we dropped you
off at Florida State. I remember that morning that felt
as if we were setting you adrift. Could any words have been
enough to leave the door between our worlds propped open?
What vocabulary could I have passed to you, what Rosetta Stone?
What space could I create for the two of us that could
ever contain us both? That could accommodate all that goes unsaid?
Most days I carry this shapeless thought in my mind
like an assumption. Of course, this is who we are.
Time passes because it does. We live our own lives and love
as people love. But then, I see you in a poem and you
are eight or nine, skinny like I used to be, we lie
side by side in the grass on a warm day in the park and laugh
and this is everything that I could never say.
I’m in my office which was recently your bedroom reading
Donald Hall’s White Apples and the Taste of Stone, and I
am surprised to find your name (in this case a reference
to a horse), but there you are- my son, a young man out
making his way, never near enough, but a welcome visitor.
I struggle to put into words what I mean here, which is
precisely the point. Does it make sense that I carry
a long story, imageless, that only grows in its untelling?
A mute space growing outwardly. A ticking pause.
It’s easy to write a poem about the girls because
the contrast between us is more immediate. I stumble
across them. I can place them in a setting. I see them
and I say, “Look. There they are- not me. This is what
I think of the spaces they are filling.” Our connections
snap into place. I know where I am relative to them.
Writing about you is staring into a mirror, and at first,
seeing nothing, not because of your absence, but
because of the functional blindness of an over-familiar
story I’ve internalized. The experience of arriving home
but not remembering the drive. The unconscious chewing
of a pencil. But then, also the knowledge that this
blindspot has substance. It is something to grasp, peel away.
I suppose I am describing the infinite chain of other
worlds that are lined up, mirror to mirror, father to son,
man to man. Separate but the same. Yours, mine, my
father’s, one day your son’s perhaps. Each of us
standing opposite one another, looking through
an unnecessary string of closed windows. Glass
to tap on but not breach. A vacuum of words stretching.
And I remember a letter my father wrote to me
when he dropped me off at college. He hoped
that we would stay close, that we would write letters
to one another, a final reaching through the glass. Now
I wish I had kept that letter like an artifact upon which
were written the words I have forgotten how to express.
I know I could have used them as we dropped you
off at Florida State. I remember that morning that felt
as if we were setting you adrift. Could any words have been
enough to leave the door between our worlds propped open?
What vocabulary could I have passed to you, what Rosetta Stone?
What space could I create for the two of us that could
ever contain us both? That could accommodate all that goes unsaid?
Most days I carry this shapeless thought in my mind
like an assumption. Of course, this is who we are.
Time passes because it does. We live our own lives and love
as people love. But then, I see you in a poem and you
are eight or nine, skinny like I used to be, we lie
side by side in the grass on a warm day in the park and laugh
and this is everything that I could never say.
Poem January 12, 2019
I Feel That
Only the snowman
left, melting on unraked leaves.
Carrot on the ground.
Only the snowman
left, melting on unraked leaves.
Carrot on the ground.
Friday, January 11, 2019
Poem: January 11, 2019
Snow Day
The forecast calls for snow tonight-
four to six inches, starting around nine
out of the southwest. I can track it
if I want to on my computer or on my phone.
I could triangulate on the details,
using multiple sources, radars of varying types,
monitoring the situation like a student
with an assignment due tomorrow, assessing
the odds, running surveys on social media.
When I was in the classroom
and the first flurries began to drift across the windows,
I would play my students by saying
that I had just gotten word from the office that
they were going to send us home-
wait for it- at 3 o'clock. So fun
to watch the rise and fall of their expectations.
A snow day is a magical disruption,
the hand of God flicking away our routines.
We act like we are still as helpless to prepare
as my grandparents were in the 20's,
like we'd have to crank the car
and put chains on the wheels to check to see
how the neighbors are getting on, like we
need to check the provisions in the root cellar.
We're sure to hit the store for eggs and milk
on the way home. Everybody does.
It said up to six inches, after all.
It's silly that we are this excited. It's Friday,
I have all wheel drive. The grocery store delivers.
But there it is. You can smell it in the air.
The forecast calls for snow tonight-
four to six inches, starting around nine
out of the southwest. I can track it
if I want to on my computer or on my phone.
I could triangulate on the details,
using multiple sources, radars of varying types,
monitoring the situation like a student
with an assignment due tomorrow, assessing
the odds, running surveys on social media.
When I was in the classroom
and the first flurries began to drift across the windows,
I would play my students by saying
that I had just gotten word from the office that
they were going to send us home-
wait for it- at 3 o'clock. So fun
to watch the rise and fall of their expectations.
A snow day is a magical disruption,
the hand of God flicking away our routines.
We act like we are still as helpless to prepare
as my grandparents were in the 20's,
like we'd have to crank the car
and put chains on the wheels to check to see
how the neighbors are getting on, like we
need to check the provisions in the root cellar.
We're sure to hit the store for eggs and milk
on the way home. Everybody does.
It said up to six inches, after all.
It's silly that we are this excited. It's Friday,
I have all wheel drive. The grocery store delivers.
But there it is. You can smell it in the air.
Poem: January 10, 2019
E is for Everyone
What do you expect? It is, after all, a public library. This
is the place that is who we are as much as any. As we are
without, so we are within. Literally and figuratively. The library
is a wild garden, tended, yes, but with deference to what chooses
to grow there, a nurtured microcosm of a more feral whole.
Each room is a menagerie of thousands of multicolored spines
arranged in the unruly lines that Dewey set forth,
to be happened upon, or sought. Selected or not. A democracy
of plantings to be put to use or left fallow. Thousands of hands reaping and sowing.
This place is a great compendium, an anthology of our community,
separate stories, shared histories, questions with answers and without.
Titles that stand on their own occasionally combined in a patrons arms
form new poetry: The Poke Cake Cookbook, Becoming, Geek Dad,
The Princess Saves Herself in this One...
We are in the pulsing heart of the chaotic, conflicted
body politic where you are as likely to find Rush Limbaugh as Rumi.
In fact, this place is its own story woven of the stories we bring. For me,
the sanctuary where I brought my children when I was recently divorced, so poor
that I couldn't afford cable, and terrified that I didn't know how
to parent alone. What do you do when you realize the apartment
you share with your only two treasures has become the box
you don't know how to escape? You find the place with many doors.
Years later, and we still return to this place like a home town
made of familiar avenues, open spaces, neighbors, and new construction.
This is the place where we find ourselves reflected and others introduced.
The library is not mine defined, but ours unedited. Inhabited
by the homeless mother, the professor, the mechanic,
the knitter, the immigrant, the drag queen, the child,
the patriot and the activist. The broken and repaired. Us.
Not by consensus, but through the challenging confluence
of our geography. The terrible, beautiful force of shared space.
The parts of our hearts that we run from or chase.
What do you expect? It is, after all, a public library. This
is the place that is who we are as much as any. As we are
without, so we are within. Literally and figuratively. The library
is a wild garden, tended, yes, but with deference to what chooses
to grow there, a nurtured microcosm of a more feral whole.
Each room is a menagerie of thousands of multicolored spines
arranged in the unruly lines that Dewey set forth,
to be happened upon, or sought. Selected or not. A democracy
of plantings to be put to use or left fallow. Thousands of hands reaping and sowing.
This place is a great compendium, an anthology of our community,
separate stories, shared histories, questions with answers and without.
Titles that stand on their own occasionally combined in a patrons arms
form new poetry: The Poke Cake Cookbook, Becoming, Geek Dad,
The Princess Saves Herself in this One...
We are in the pulsing heart of the chaotic, conflicted
body politic where you are as likely to find Rush Limbaugh as Rumi.
In fact, this place is its own story woven of the stories we bring. For me,
the sanctuary where I brought my children when I was recently divorced, so poor
that I couldn't afford cable, and terrified that I didn't know how
to parent alone. What do you do when you realize the apartment
you share with your only two treasures has become the box
you don't know how to escape? You find the place with many doors.
Years later, and we still return to this place like a home town
made of familiar avenues, open spaces, neighbors, and new construction.
This is the place where we find ourselves reflected and others introduced.
The library is not mine defined, but ours unedited. Inhabited
by the homeless mother, the professor, the mechanic,
the knitter, the immigrant, the drag queen, the child,
the patriot and the activist. The broken and repaired. Us.
Not by consensus, but through the challenging confluence
of our geography. The terrible, beautiful force of shared space.
The parts of our hearts that we run from or chase.
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Poem: January 9, 2019
Steady
I return to the photograph more often than you might think-
my favorite image of us, reminiscent if Kahlil Gibran's description of love.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fourteen years have passed so quickly, so it is easy to return to Perdido,
to retrace those original paths along the shore, the distance between
our separate footsteps opening and closing. I sometimes remember
the ocean turbulent and rushing, sometimes peaceful like today.
Here my hair is still brown and the edge of your smile
is visible even though we are kissing, and you are nearly out of frame,
like a mystery to be explored or an oncoming storm.
I can see your amusement as you decide, and that is what I love.
Our chins are touching, and my nose is pressed
against your cheek. Between us, though, a glimpse of the surf.
We stand at the edge of this ocean and through some trick
of the camera angle held at arms length and shot blindly,
the horizon line is tilted, slanting to the left as if the ocean
was emptying itself somewhere beyond the limits of the frame.
I like to imagine that the world is thrown askew even now
every time I lean in for a kiss, and our lips touch like the reach of the tide.
Imagine the power to empty seas, to shift the physical world around us,
while we two hold stead in this moment. Face to face.
I return to the photograph more often than you might think-
my favorite image of us, reminiscent if Kahlil Gibran's description of love.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fourteen years have passed so quickly, so it is easy to return to Perdido,
to retrace those original paths along the shore, the distance between
our separate footsteps opening and closing. I sometimes remember
the ocean turbulent and rushing, sometimes peaceful like today.
Here my hair is still brown and the edge of your smile
is visible even though we are kissing, and you are nearly out of frame,
like a mystery to be explored or an oncoming storm.
I can see your amusement as you decide, and that is what I love.
Our chins are touching, and my nose is pressed
against your cheek. Between us, though, a glimpse of the surf.
We stand at the edge of this ocean and through some trick
of the camera angle held at arms length and shot blindly,
the horizon line is tilted, slanting to the left as if the ocean
was emptying itself somewhere beyond the limits of the frame.
I like to imagine that the world is thrown askew even now
every time I lean in for a kiss, and our lips touch like the reach of the tide.
Imagine the power to empty seas, to shift the physical world around us,
while we two hold stead in this moment. Face to face.
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Poem: January 8, 2019
Learning Architecture (my answer to my own question)
"If you were to commission a school to be built and wanted to inspire the designers, what poem might you write? What guidance would you give? "
A welcoming space to all, open like the agora,
a place to gather in light and clean air,
a place that invites wandering, and quiet reflection,
and sitting comfortably together in quiet counsel.
A place that celebrates and learns from the natural world-
the power and energy, the pulsing dance of fire,
the fluidity and forgiveness of water,
the aspiration and the inspiration of the sky,
and the steadfast roots of the earth.
A place that buzzes and flows and beats
with the tempos of our bodies.
A marketplace that mingles with the senses,
strange, ghostly aromas that pull us for a passing moment,
the crescendo of music and laughter,
textures, colors, patterns, shapes, fabrics, beads-
a palette to bring together nations.
A rich mosaic of experience
in which everyone finds their reflection and new facets of themselves.
An open door to the world. The origin of a thousand paths.
A world big enough to contain mysteries, a womb of discovery.
Doors to look behind. Drawers to unlock. Artifacts to unearth.
A setting that tells a story and in which new stories will be told.
A place that shifts as we shift. A universe of perspectives
with reflective surfaces, fluctuation, phases and cycles.
A place as large as a stadium and as intimate as a grotto.
A castle and a treehouse and a submarine and a library.
A colony in every deep corner of the cosmos.
An abundant home to all who enter,
where no one is without, no one wants, no one has not.
A garden that anticipates and drives the creative mind,
the curious hands, the voice that leads.
A place to compose, tinker, mould, and mix,
to deconstruct and reconstruct. To repurpose.
A workshop with tools to grasp, canvases to fill.
A place to hold ideas in your hands
and to launch them like birds into the wild.
"If you were to commission a school to be built and wanted to inspire the designers, what poem might you write? What guidance would you give? "
A welcoming space to all, open like the agora,
a place to gather in light and clean air,
a place that invites wandering, and quiet reflection,
and sitting comfortably together in quiet counsel.
A place that celebrates and learns from the natural world-
the power and energy, the pulsing dance of fire,
the fluidity and forgiveness of water,
the aspiration and the inspiration of the sky,
and the steadfast roots of the earth.
A place that buzzes and flows and beats
with the tempos of our bodies.
A marketplace that mingles with the senses,
strange, ghostly aromas that pull us for a passing moment,
the crescendo of music and laughter,
textures, colors, patterns, shapes, fabrics, beads-
a palette to bring together nations.
A rich mosaic of experience
in which everyone finds their reflection and new facets of themselves.
An open door to the world. The origin of a thousand paths.
A world big enough to contain mysteries, a womb of discovery.
Doors to look behind. Drawers to unlock. Artifacts to unearth.
A setting that tells a story and in which new stories will be told.
A place that shifts as we shift. A universe of perspectives
with reflective surfaces, fluctuation, phases and cycles.
A place as large as a stadium and as intimate as a grotto.
A castle and a treehouse and a submarine and a library.
A colony in every deep corner of the cosmos.
An abundant home to all who enter,
where no one is without, no one wants, no one has not.
A garden that anticipates and drives the creative mind,
the curious hands, the voice that leads.
A place to compose, tinker, mould, and mix,
to deconstruct and reconstruct. To repurpose.
A workshop with tools to grasp, canvases to fill.
A place to hold ideas in your hands
and to launch them like birds into the wild.
Monday, January 7, 2019
Poem: January 7, 2019
Curriculum
Science is born of wonder,
our ache to make sense of our senses,
to understand the patterns of birds,
the romance of water and air,
to know the smallest pieces of self
and the pregnant distances beyond our reach.
Science is drawn to the hidden places,
the edge of the map or the unexpected sound in the dark.
Science is a question that will never be satisfied with an answer.
Math is our instinct that the world can make sense.
It is order and placement, definition and points.
With math, we say there are rules that apply,
and with them, the clean comfort of our place.
Math pays the bills on time, counts calories,
can quantify success and account for loss.
Math is the belief that everything fits,
that balance can be achieved,
that God is one hell of a clock maker.
Math is faith that every question has an answer.
History is our love affair with ourselves.
It's the story we repeat and revise in every setting-
family dinners, taverns, group therapy, commencement.
It's the way we check ourselves in the mirror,
straightening our tie, checking our teeth,
practicing our expressions as we say, "Did I ever tell you..."
It is the certainty that we have value and are worthy of note.
History is the ceremony we perform for ourselves,
the answer to our darkest questions.
Language grows from us like tendrils.
It is the hopeful act of asserting and seeking truth.
Each of us broadcasts I am, I see, I feel, I know.
Each of us receives broken messages of the same.
Tendrils seeking tendrils, hoping to find common experience,
something to affirm that our reality translates.
Language is thought given body, perception given form.
It is the cry that crawls toward eloquence
and the comfort of our mothers arms.
It is a question, yes. And an answer as well.
But it is also the space between.
Art is our longing for immortality,
our insistence that we can live more than one life.
Art asks, "What if..." and concedes that the alternative is possible.
Pursuing art is taking confident steps on shifting sands,
the creative force of God in human hands.
Art is a mile marker, a microscope, an open window, a punch in the chest.
It is the laying on of hands, cross-dressing,
and the transmigration of souls.
Art is the question with many answers.
Music is the sensual pleasure of our bodies released.
It is all fingers and throats, rhythm and notes.
It is our primitive pulse escaped from rocking hips.
Absurd and vital and lingering,
Music lives in a universe beyond questions.
It is the answer to the question that didn't need to be asked,
or perhaps to the question that always was.
Science is born of wonder,
our ache to make sense of our senses,
to understand the patterns of birds,
the romance of water and air,
to know the smallest pieces of self
and the pregnant distances beyond our reach.
Science is drawn to the hidden places,
the edge of the map or the unexpected sound in the dark.
Science is a question that will never be satisfied with an answer.
Math is our instinct that the world can make sense.
It is order and placement, definition and points.
With math, we say there are rules that apply,
and with them, the clean comfort of our place.
Math pays the bills on time, counts calories,
can quantify success and account for loss.
Math is the belief that everything fits,
that balance can be achieved,
that God is one hell of a clock maker.
Math is faith that every question has an answer.
History is our love affair with ourselves.
It's the story we repeat and revise in every setting-
family dinners, taverns, group therapy, commencement.
It's the way we check ourselves in the mirror,
straightening our tie, checking our teeth,
practicing our expressions as we say, "Did I ever tell you..."
It is the certainty that we have value and are worthy of note.
History is the ceremony we perform for ourselves,
the answer to our darkest questions.
Language grows from us like tendrils.
It is the hopeful act of asserting and seeking truth.
Each of us broadcasts I am, I see, I feel, I know.
Each of us receives broken messages of the same.
Tendrils seeking tendrils, hoping to find common experience,
something to affirm that our reality translates.
Language is thought given body, perception given form.
It is the cry that crawls toward eloquence
and the comfort of our mothers arms.
It is a question, yes. And an answer as well.
But it is also the space between.
Art is our longing for immortality,
our insistence that we can live more than one life.
Art asks, "What if..." and concedes that the alternative is possible.
Pursuing art is taking confident steps on shifting sands,
the creative force of God in human hands.
Art is a mile marker, a microscope, an open window, a punch in the chest.
It is the laying on of hands, cross-dressing,
and the transmigration of souls.
Art is the question with many answers.
Music is the sensual pleasure of our bodies released.
It is all fingers and throats, rhythm and notes.
It is our primitive pulse escaped from rocking hips.
Absurd and vital and lingering,
Music lives in a universe beyond questions.
It is the answer to the question that didn't need to be asked,
or perhaps to the question that always was.
Poem: January 6, 2019
Epiphany
We are taking down the Christmas tree,
packing away the silver ribbon, the ornaments,
the lights and the tree skirt.
Each December we fill our house with curiosities
that represent time and accumulation and home and family.
The whole ordeal grows each year-
a real production, a strange annual nesting habit.
We delight in the unwrapping,
the careful placement of artifacts,
the communal ritual of it all.
The purpose, I think, must be to make the house feel full.
We are constructing the rich, comfortable cradle of our years together.
Then, on 12th Night, we begin to deconstruct.
We put away the gifts, the stars and stockings.
We box up the Nativity.
And there it is.
The pleasure of empty spaces.
We are taking down the Christmas tree,
packing away the silver ribbon, the ornaments,
the lights and the tree skirt.
Each December we fill our house with curiosities
that represent time and accumulation and home and family.
The whole ordeal grows each year-
a real production, a strange annual nesting habit.
We delight in the unwrapping,
the careful placement of artifacts,
the communal ritual of it all.
The purpose, I think, must be to make the house feel full.
We are constructing the rich, comfortable cradle of our years together.
Then, on 12th Night, we begin to deconstruct.
We put away the gifts, the stars and stockings.
We box up the Nativity.
And there it is.
The pleasure of empty spaces.
Poem: January 5, 2019
Second Semester
Dropping you off today in Bloomington,
I knew you had found the confidence of home,
which is to say the confidence not of place,
but of yourself in space.
The limestone buildings echo
who you are here, your casual
certainty of forward motion,
your readiness to press Start.
Who wouldn't delight in you?
The first shoot of spring,
a force that stretches out, colorful,
with immeasurable potential.
What father would not wonder at
a daughter bold like limestone,
and what father would not be jealous
of the opportunity to run with joyous strides
down unimaginable paths?
Aging, I have come to learn,
is the unsteady practice of celebrating loss.
Dropping you off today in Bloomington,
I knew you had found the confidence of home,
which is to say the confidence not of place,
but of yourself in space.
The limestone buildings echo
who you are here, your casual
certainty of forward motion,
your readiness to press Start.
Who wouldn't delight in you?
The first shoot of spring,
a force that stretches out, colorful,
with immeasurable potential.
What father would not wonder at
a daughter bold like limestone,
and what father would not be jealous
of the opportunity to run with joyous strides
down unimaginable paths?
Aging, I have come to learn,
is the unsteady practice of celebrating loss.
Friday, January 4, 2019
Poem: January 4, 2019
Taking Notice
Love, you are my vibrant shadow.
October sunlight cast through sugar maple leaves
like stained glass, indirectly on the skin,
a momentary brush with 'more than' and 'enough.'
A space that invites me to walk or to pause,
happy either way.
Or you are the steady, restful breath of the ocean,
the surf and the play of seagulls,
a school of dolphins at the horizon,
the scallop shell I hold and smooth between my fingers.
You are the world being the world around me.
You are the shifting reach of a campfire,
the deep green shift of an open window in spring,
the hush of rain just before sleep,
and the impression of color in my memories of the places we've been.
You are my habitat. The habits I inhabit.
The place I never leave, but return to nevertheless
through an act of unburial, intentional or not.
A freeing of the senses to find the long pleasure,
the familiarity of a well-chosen life.
Love, you are my vibrant shadow.
October sunlight cast through sugar maple leaves
like stained glass, indirectly on the skin,
a momentary brush with 'more than' and 'enough.'
A space that invites me to walk or to pause,
happy either way.
Or you are the steady, restful breath of the ocean,
the surf and the play of seagulls,
a school of dolphins at the horizon,
the scallop shell I hold and smooth between my fingers.
You are the world being the world around me.
You are the shifting reach of a campfire,
the deep green shift of an open window in spring,
the hush of rain just before sleep,
and the impression of color in my memories of the places we've been.
You are my habitat. The habits I inhabit.
The place I never leave, but return to nevertheless
through an act of unburial, intentional or not.
A freeing of the senses to find the long pleasure,
the familiarity of a well-chosen life.
Thursday, January 3, 2019
Poem: January 3, 2019
The Business
We're adopting a kitten we've named
Mr. Emerson Business III, Esquire
(for our various reasons).
The first time we met him,
he entered the room fully-charged,
his black and white fur standing,
it seemed, casually on end.
An effortless, soft explosion.
He was an uncontrolled tiny
tempest of continuous frenetic motion
like an untied balloon released
into the shelter room until he landed
somehow in the plastic trash can,
then paused, remembered himself, reinflated
and shot out after a shoelace, a shadow, a cell phone.
Absurd, really, and unpredictable.
An energy we miss when we see it suddenly.
Suppose this was our mission statement:
To create silliness with such abandon
and to give it to others as an unexpected gift.
We're adopting a kitten we've named
Mr. Emerson Business III, Esquire
(for our various reasons).
The first time we met him,
he entered the room fully-charged,
his black and white fur standing,
it seemed, casually on end.
An effortless, soft explosion.
He was an uncontrolled tiny
tempest of continuous frenetic motion
like an untied balloon released
into the shelter room until he landed
somehow in the plastic trash can,
then paused, remembered himself, reinflated
and shot out after a shoelace, a shadow, a cell phone.
Absurd, really, and unpredictable.
An energy we miss when we see it suddenly.
Suppose this was our mission statement:
To create silliness with such abandon
and to give it to others as an unexpected gift.
Poem: January 2, 2019
Water Color
Sophia, my artist,
bends over her canvas
at the kitchen table,
her 10-year-old hands
gently, precisely applying
the dabs and strokes of watercolor
that bring into our world
the sky-blue bicycle
with its baskets of flowers
on the gray cobblestones
of an old-world place we've never been
but that we feel, we recognize
as perfect, real, universal.
The joy of flowers collected
and bicycles pedaled
and art supplies
and 10-year-old hands.
So much depends upon
the stories we tell,
the moments that break through.
Sophia, my artist,
bends over her canvas
at the kitchen table,
her 10-year-old hands
gently, precisely applying
the dabs and strokes of watercolor
that bring into our world
the sky-blue bicycle
with its baskets of flowers
on the gray cobblestones
of an old-world place we've never been
but that we feel, we recognize
as perfect, real, universal.
The joy of flowers collected
and bicycles pedaled
and art supplies
and 10-year-old hands.
So much depends upon
the stories we tell,
the moments that break through.
Poem: January 1, 2019
Daily Cosmology
In the beginning...
Nothing. An empty page.
Possibility.
Or
Everything. Chaos.
Possibility.
Name one thing-
Pen, Zero, Circle, Sea-
Any one idea can grow roots
And define itself through comparison.
Black pen, greater than, concentric, raging.
Then,
Systems, relationships, hierarchies, symphonies,
Lifetimes.
Order. A full page.
Selecting is deselecting.
Everyday, the task of taming possibility.
In the beginning...
Nothing. An empty page.
Possibility.
Or
Everything. Chaos.
Possibility.
Name one thing-
Pen, Zero, Circle, Sea-
Any one idea can grow roots
And define itself through comparison.
Black pen, greater than, concentric, raging.
Then,
Systems, relationships, hierarchies, symphonies,
Lifetimes.
Order. A full page.
Selecting is deselecting.
Everyday, the task of taming possibility.
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