Poem: February 26, 2019

Eating In

Food is so much better when it comes with a story.
The cheap white wine we discovered in the cabana bar
in St. Pete that really takes off two bottles in,
or the jambalaya and bread pudding we learned to cook
in New Orleans, or drinking sazeracs at the Roosevelt,
and oh my God that dress you wore that foggy night
when we drifted through four courses at NOLA, or
the word play of the filets and manhattans we consumed
at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in (where else?) Manhattan.
Or the berry tart from Artist Point that we shared
on our anniversary that has become a staple for nights
when we gather with our families or friends.
Or the aebleskiver recipe Annie and I learned and
that you now request every Christmas morning despite
the mess and the likelihood of burns from the process
and the necessity of the special pan and the time it takes
to even make them, and it's best if enough time passes
that we forget how much extra effort is tied to that request.
Or the recipes I return to as representatives of when
I was so poor, I was just happy to provide at all.
Or the recipes we've concocted ourselves over time,
our culinary canon: your meatloaf and mashed potatoes,
my gumbo or pasta salad or cornbread stuffing,
Dirck's and my andouille sausage and 6 alarm chili,
Mom's flank steak and pilaf and candied noodles.
Our whole lives reflected in food, collected and kept
in binders and on index cards or scrawled on paper.
Food that functions like bookmarks for our memories,
or like the poetry we return to when we're tired
of all the easy and empty calories we consume.

Poem: February 25, 2019

Inside the Mystery Box

It's a little bit awesome keeping a secret,
having the self-discipline to refrain from
sharing a shining bit of your inner life,
to maintain your silence and keep the cat
securely in the bag, to enjoy a private
narrative and watch its possibilities play
out in an array of hidden scenarios.
Suppose, for example, that I were to save
all my extra cash, stashed away in a box
or sock drawer for the day when I could
pay for the entirety of an unplanned for
vacation with my wife and kids, and day
by day, I have this happy space made
of my many fantasies- the accolades,
Dad the amazing provider and husband
of the year, and all the destinations,
the whole world laid before us if only
I save long enough, have the will to delay
gratification- Italy, Greece, Antartica!
And every delicious moment stays
delicious as long as it remains unsaid,
my own magnanimous oasis in my head.
I can be an insider, in on the inside joke,
walking past folks and showing no sign
that it's only a matter of time until I bring
down the house with my big reveal, or
delight my audience with the plot twist,
the narrative flair I've hidden in plain sight.

Poem: February 24, 2019

Seasonal Affective Disorder

It's been a while since the sun's been out,
so I enjoyed a pleasant moment yesterday
as I crossed the street from the parking lot
heading into work at 7:00 AM and noticed
like a sudden spark the sense of sunlight
on my skin, and there's really no other way
to say it: I had the experience of blooming.
My body lifted itself, opening up under
the warm, dry, bright yellow breath of the sky.
I opened like a beach umbrella brought
out from the basement. I shed the heavy
wet grime of three months and found
my way back into open air, unpacked
and shaken out like the patio set, and
I don't actually care that the forecast
for this weekend includes a chance of snow.
This morning, my daughter said she could
hear the birds singing outside the kitchen,
and the green fingers of the perennials
are pushing through the dead leaves
that have gathered in the flower beds.

Poem: February 23, 2019

Make and Believe

I remember lying on my stomach on my bedroom floor
and driving the Adventure People in their safari Jeeps
and their motorcycles through the landscape of my room-
the caverns beneath my bed, the hills and valleys of pillows
and comforters- a terrain of LEGO bricks and orange
Hot Wheel tracks and all the plastic elements of the various
toy universes that filled the gaps between Saturday morning
cartoons. The colorful, sweeping vistas of the heroic milieu.
It's interesting now to reflect on how adeptly the child me
could switch between tasks, between the acts of building
exotic spaces in which dramas naturally unfold, and
understanding the limits of its inhabitants, the mechanics
of the light saber that extends through Darth Vader's arm
or the maximum reach of a fully stretched Armstrong,
and the weaving of extended narratives that might include
an alligator and an X-Wing fighter and the $6,000,000 man.
How do we not notice the competence of children to play
their many complex and simultaneous roles- actor
and director, hero and villain, lost and redeemed, God.
How have we missed as adults the lessons of play:
that our stories are collections we assemble and construct,
that the consequences of narrative can shift with context,
with the deliberate movement from one spot to another
of this Lincoln Log or Tinker Toy or Super Ball or with
the introduction of some unexpected item that flips
the script from imminent failure to sudden success?
Why do we come to forget that the world is ours to mix?

Poem: February 22, 2019

Up High

I'm sending you a virtual high-five.
You can decide what it's for.

Maybe you filled what was empty
or emptied what was full.

Or maybe you imagined
the exact right thing to say

and maybe you had the good sense
not to say it.

Perhaps you were the only one
who saw it hidden in plain sight.

Or was it that the right numbers were down
or that you found that twenty in your wallet.

If you finally solved the puzzle
or went one more day without a drink,

I'm holding my figurative hand in the air,
up high, to the side, don't be slow.

Poem: February 21, 2019

The Good Life

I get it.

There are awful broken people
who do awful broken things.

And they do them to the people we hold at night,
or to the people we just had dinner with on Tuesday,
or to the guy who was just minding his own business,

or to our daughters.

And even the possibility is an ache
too grim to take.

And our brains, for God's sake,
have developed to see strangers
for the dangers they might pose.

And to see what is unique and new
and exotic as the red freak flag
that we would take extra steps to escape.

And we can justify our guns and locked doors
because have you seen what those lunatics
are saying on Facebook?

And our anxiety is our evidence of vigilance,
our warning that we are aware and prepared
to defend and stamp out and draw lines and resist.

And we teach this:

The world is not a safe place.

It's the prison we're making the most of.

But don't you long in your walled spaces
to have more than you've inherited,
to discover a missing part of yourself
and hold it to the light?

Poem: February 20, 2019

Raw Learning

for Krissy Venosdale

To go to school should be to step through the looking glass,
to find a forest at the back of the wardrobe, to join a fellowship,
to have a door crash down and discover you're a wizard.

Our education should require our entire being, our minds
that hatch the ideas that catch our breath, that ask the questions,
our hands that wrestle the world, feel the resistance of the tape roll.

Teaching should be an act of service to hundreds of daily wonders,
to our students who carry their lights in their open hands. We should
see the flickering ambition, the dancing self and ask, "How may I help?"

Every classroom should call to mind the magic of a dandelion,
the satisfaction of a barn-raising,  the tethered ache of friendship.
A classroom should be raw and unpredictable and as serious as life.

Learning should be the rooting through of caves and the crossing
of creek beds, and the solving of riddles, and the fashioning of tools,
and the listening to silence, and the wiping away of dust to discover oneself.

Poem: February 19, 2019

Prayer

A bunch of people are praying for dad
since his heart attack and the surgery.
And it's not that I think he would mind
so much. He's a grateful person and
he understands that praying is how
a lot of people interact with the world,
so I'm sure he's not mad about it or
confused by it, and maybe I don't even
know. I mean it seems like he wouldn't
put much stock in the sentiment, being
a rationalist and scientifically-minded.
It seems like their prayers might be met
with the same head tilt and forced smile
that he reserves for right-wing claims
and pop culture references, like he
gives it the courtesy of space, but not
too much space, in the conversation.
And I really can't blame him because
the last people who said they were praying
for me also said that they had lost
all confidence in my good judgement,
and to pray for me was, it seemed,
a way to suggest that God could be made
to tilt the scales, to place a filter on life,
to correct what we find personally distasteful.
And really, wouldn't that be the best?
Wouldn't you love to live a life in which
everyone could command the power
of the almighty to save a life
or to put out a fire or to feed the hungry
or to keep drag queens from reading to kids?
But here's the thing. I bet dad gets it.
Heart attacks and surgeries are hard business.
We cast the spells we need to cast.

Poem: February 18, 2019

Family

I like it better when you are home
visiting with the lives you have taken
in your separate directions in tow.

Look, here you are, returning
for the festival of the open weekend
or Spring Break Eve like pilgrims

who make a lovely trek of remembrance.
And you settle in well enough to what
was your bed, but isn't now.

You are vacationing here
in a familiar place with familiar attractions
and the must-do activities

and meals that become the story, the history
of the place that is home and not home.
And we repeat the pleasing patterns

of past visits: past questions,
past laughter, past games, past problems.
The circular act of re-creation

is both less and more than I imagine it will be.
A reiteration, rather than a new verse.
A favorite recipe written in ink.

No one could be satisfied to stay in place
or to become a museum collection. I know.
But look how happily I gather you,
how easily I return you to your place.

Poem: February 17, 2019

Family History

You can't stop your brain from thinking the terrible thoughts
that you wouldn't want to say out loud, especially now,
with you split open on a table in the operating room, and mom
sitting here at three in the morning, fidgeting, making lists,
and silent, all of us, silent because any conversation can lead
to you, and so I don't say out loud, for example, how ironic
it is that we were just celebrating your birthday five hours ago,
but that was the thought I had, right there, in my brain.
A useless thought that wouldn't do anyone any good. Maybe
it's our desire to fill empty spaces before they are filled
with something worse, something we've all agreed not to look at.
So I don't break the silence, and instead, I think about
the last time I was here in this hospital, in the emergency room
where you started tonight, and I remember the lights being
exactly that bright, and the invasive noises of a hundred crises-
the high-pitched beeps, the assurances behind other curtains,
the breathing machines and squeaking wheels. I remember
the strange, efficient tempo of people on the clock.
But even before that I remember collapsing on a Sunday,
after a day with the kids at the pool, and now alone
in the apartment, rigid and doubled over, a sense that my
torso was full of broken glass, a stabbing in my back
and vomiting in the bath, honestly not sure if something
hadn't burst, but paralyzed with indecision, unsure
if I should call someone or 911 or if it was already too late
and I would die, just an hour after the kids had left, and
who would find me and what does anyone do, then,
but call their dad and try to sound rational, but Jesus,
is this it? This quick? With no discussion at all? But you,
I remember, you were calm. You asked the questions that I
have learned to ask myself to identify a kidney stone:
Has there been blood in my urine (it looks brown, not red)?
Are the spasms localized and on one side? Am I hydrated?
I can only explain how your voice and authority had opened
a shut door. Your father says he has seen this, he has been there
before, and his voice wipes away the panic so the pain becomes
something that can be wrestled with long enough to make it
to the hospital and the morphine and the strange, distant tempo
of being outside myself and given over to the professionals.
It must always be terrible to wait when someone you love
is behind a door you cannot open, to trust that the gloved
and sterile tide that pulls them away will return them back
to your shore. I wish I had found some soothing words
to say, to tell you I have seen this play out, and you will be okay.

Poem: February 16, 2019

How to Be Good at Teaching

I used to say you weren’t doing teaching right
until you had made a student cry.
Here’s what I meant by that: I still remember
the tears that quivered at the edge
of Samantha’s lower eyelids. I remember wondering
if they were going to fall or just sit there.
She wasn’t alone, but somehow had become
the spear tip of the class’s frustration.

“I don’t understand. This is how I was taught
to write. This is how an essay works,” said Sam.

“Okay,” I conceded, “You were taught that structure,
and now it has yielded an average paper.”

And I knew what she wanted, what all of us want,
for excellence to come easily, for a recipe
to follow that earns us praise. To do the work
and earn the paycheck, but also to be loved.

I told them that the rules they’d learned
for essay writing had been functioning
like training wheels to keep them stable
and off the ground. Stay in place if you want,
but no one’s really impressed.

“But without the rules, what does an A paper
look like?”

“I can’t tell you that. It will be unique to you.
I’ll know it when I see it, and honestly, you will, too.
But it won’t happen because you followed instructions.
The rubric can only describe a C.”

“What does that even mean? You’re asking me
to walk in the dark without a flashlight or map!”

“Yes. Learning is a struggle. We decide to be excellent,
or we prefer not to try.”

“So what’s your advice? How do I get there?”

“Two things: Observe and Experiment.

First, read a lot and listen. Great voices stand out
and are easy to find. Some of what is theirs is yours,
and some of what is theirs is mine. Be willing to be shaped
and to borrow, to become familiar with the many voices
in the chorus, and attempt to hear your own.

Then, write a lot and listen. Your voice will emerge,
and you will notice that it can be wild and uncontrolled.
It will say things you regret or that fail to capture what’s in your mind,
that cause your audience to drift away, or cringe, or cross their arms,
and you will learn that language is social, that your voice
can be tuned to context, can have moments of eloquence,
and flashes of inspiration. You will have music, in time,
that you can use as a tool to cultivate gardens,
raise armies, inspire questions, and master fear.

And you will write A papers and not even care.”

Poem: February 15, 2019

Thoughts on a Friday Afternoon

I wonder what it's like to live in a castle
and what it's like to be a cat.
I wonder what happened to my purple bike
and what my childhood friends remember.
I wonder how hard it would be to build
a wooden boat that I could take out on a lake,
and I wonder which lake it would be,
what I would pack, who else would come?
I wonder if I'll ever publish a book,
or learn guitar, or visit Norway,
and if I did, I wonder if I would like it.
I wonder what women think when they see me
and how their opinions change after we've talked.
I wonder if I'll ever see war or the fall
of democracy or the rise of a tyrant. I wonder
if I did, what role I would have played
and how I would react and could I be
the tyrant, and if so, what brought this about?
I wonder if I am wrong about the nature
of God, and I wonder if that matters.
I wonder if we live many lives or
just the one or if life is eternal
but somehow consciousness isn't.
I wonder if life is life without consciousness.
I wonder if my mind is actually located
in my brain or if it can be moved.
I wonder who sang the first song and
who told the first story and who drank
the first fermented drop of wine. I wonder
what makes the air smell like an oncoming storm
or what makes the sound of rain so calming.
I wonder how we will heal one another
and what it would mean to be fearless.
I wonder what it would be like to live
without plastic or the Internet or fast food,
and I wonder if efficiency ought to be valued.
I wonder what's buried in my back yard
and if it would be worth it to look.
I wonder what my children think at night
before they go to bed. Do they worry?
And I wonder if I knew, could I help,
and if I helped would it do more harm than good?
I wonder what my students learned and
whether my teachers ever think about me.
I wonder what will surprise me next,
and what will make me look more closely.
I wonder what makes me wonder at all,
and is wondering better than knowing.

Poem: February 14, 2019

Love Is

Love is forgiving the messes we make,
the spilled wine on the upholstery,
the hair in the sink, the overdrawn account.
And love is the accommodations we make
for one another. You try to hurry up. I try
to wait patiently until, one day, we have
defined time differently for ourselves
and in contrast to others. Love is
our erosive effects upon each other, your
ocean to my shore or my wind to your plains.
Love is telling our own stories, yours
and mine, but intertwining them, finding
the places where we meet, our common
themes, the occasional motif. Love
is more character and less plot, it's not
so much rising and falling and climax
as it is developing complexity and
long, emotional arcs. And love is
the photographs we choose to print,
to frame and hang on the wall
or display on our desks like touchstones-
the moments we return to as definitions
that say, "This is what our love looks like."
Love is the maintenance we do even
when it means another item on the list:
the dishes and laundry, picking up
prescriptions, trimming eyebrows,
shaving chins and legs and pits.
Love is the occasional date night
when we find the space to listen
without distractions, to share the ideas
too big to be mentioned in passing.
Love is how we feel when we hear
each other laugh or we notice a deep
sigh from the other room. Love is knowing
how to convince each other to book
the vacation we said we wouldn't take
or to order out when there are plenty
of perfectly good options we could cook.
Love is the permission we give ourselves
to fail and to try again, to finish fights,
to play to win, to lose sometimes
and to give in when we want to give in.

Poem: February 13, 2019

Reflection

Suppose you go out to your car in the morning and find
that you left it unlocked in the driveway overnight,
and what's more, you notice when you get in, that things
aren't as you left them. The glove compartment is open,
as is the console. The spot where you keep your spare
glasses is open, and the items in the back seat aren't
where you left them. Perhaps your gym clothes are
out of the bag and on the back seat. Maybe your umbrella
is in the middle of the floor, instead of tucked away.
You do what anyone would do. You start taking
inventory, right? What's missing? What did they get?
But the glasses are there. The umbrella is there.
The headphones and the new running shoes
(arguably the most valuable items) are still in your bag.
The car registration, your grocery list, the tire gauge
are all in their places. The floor mats and wet wipes
and your favorite travel mug remain, if not untouched,
at least present. In fact, everything seems to still be
accounted for, except, you notice, for the two chocolate
Pop Tarts that your daughter had left in the pocket
behind the driver's seat, and now that you think of it,
the energy bar in your gym bag and the candy
that you keep in the console for long car rides. Old food.
That's what they took. If you hadn't left your car unlocked,
they wouldn't have gotten it. How do you feel? How
do you react? What do you do next? That's who you are.

Poem: February 12, 2019

How I Imagine Entering Paradise

I wake up on a quiet, cool autumn morning.
I am on the ground beneath a tree, the sun
slanting through its yellow branches,
leaves falling like paper, landing all around.
The sound of a stream is nearby,
and to the right the intersection
of two dirt roads. There are trees
and rolling hills in all directions. The roads
are the only evidence that people have
ever seen this place. I am alone
with the stream, and trees and road. I take
the road, wandering to the left and in that way
of dreams I find I have passed miles
in an instant, and while the road is much
the same as it was, there is now
a stacked-stone wall that I run
my fingers along as I walk, and the stones
are cool and damp, and again
in an eventual instant, I find a rustic village
just to the right of the path. The buildings
have rough stone walls and thatching,
and in the center of the place, a wooden
table and chairs, and upon the table,
a snack: apples, bread, and cheese.
And I can see myself reflected
in the windows of the building across
from me and I am wearing simple clothes,
all cotton and leather, and I suddenly
have a backpack in which are the types
of treasures I tend to hoard: a pocket watch,
a knife, an ink pen, a bandana, a book.
And I've wondered, as I would guess you have,
about where the people are, but I get
the sense that they are near, but not present,
like their proximity is enough and
welcoming, but this is my place rather than
a place that people share. And so I walk on
and, of course, instantly find I have
traveled miles and the path is more
heavily wooded, and the earth is dark
and the shade is soothing and still, and now
to my left a vast lake that laps nearly
to the road, and right there, tied to a tree
is an orange canoe that points into the mists
that hover over the lake, and I know
that it waits there for me, so I load
my bag into the hull and push clear of shore.
I paddle into the lake and the paddling
is easy. My direction is certain
and in a blink I have spanned the lake
and I am approaching a rocky bank,
with a path that leads away toward
a great house with a wooden door which
I push and I am inside of a giant room, as large
as any I have seen in museums,
the ceiling easily three stories high,
The far wall completely made of windows
that look out upon a meadow of purple
that reaches gradually to a range of
misty hills, then snow-capped mountains,
and the room is strange, but perfect.
The floor is a flagstone border that surrounds
white sand expanses until I reach the middle
of the room which again has a flagstone walk
that surrounds an enormous pool of clear
water, and around the edges are pillars,
about the height of my shoulder, on which
bright and warm fires burn. And I know
that I can lie here in comfort, naked and young
and feel the perfect presence of this space,
my proximity to fire and water,
my collection of treasures, yes, and
I can look upon the world and rest,
and I am content to be in this place.

Poem: February 11, 2019

Association

It's strange. I thought of 9/11 today.
Who knows where these thoughts come from.
I pictured the television in the English office
at school. Grainy. The first tower was on fire,
sliced and nothing made sense.

I had been giving the state-mandated test
for easily two hours, and had been relieved
by a colleague who, as we passed at the door,
said, "You need to check out what happened
in New York. It's unreal. Unreal."

And then the second tower was hit.
Was it live? It seemed so. I remember it
that way. And I carried that image
and all of its questions back into testing.
What a thing not to tell someone.
What a way to have to pretend.

But that's not what I wanted to say.
I thought of that moment, but then I thought
about you and a photograph I took of you
that must have been shortly after the attack,
and shortly before your mother and I
decided to call it quits.

You would have been four, your sister one,
it was a bright fall day, and I remember
that it was the first really cool day
of September. You were wearing a red
hooded sweatshirt, and your sister
had on yellow, and her hair was a mess.

You were holding her, propped against
your lap. You were on your knees
and the green of the trees was bright
in the background. The sky a striking blue.

The white trail of a jet worked its way
across that blank blue canvas.
And you were both beautiful and
I think about how true that moment was,
and then how full of lies.

Poem: February 10, 2019

Disney Magic Is...

The moment you realize it's been too long since you visited a park,
and you spend the afternoon researching resorts, tickets, and meals.

Going to the mailbox to find that your personalized Magic Bands
have arrived. Purple for you, lime green for me.

The perfect Disney playlist, timed to start at the Florida Turnpike
and end at the gates that welcome you on property.

Arriving at your resort and already being immersed- the music,
the theming, the fresh and airy spaces, corners to explore.

Opening your room and discovering the surprises the cast members
have left, towels that form a Mickey, a welcome note, the soap!

The process of unpacking your gear: the backpacks and snacks,
the lanyards and pins. Selecting the T-shirts, shoes and ears.

An evening at Disney Springs. Dinner at Ragland Road. Dessert
at Ghirardelli's. A stop by the pin shop. The twinkling lights.

The early morning hustle to the bus stop and imagining the day,
making lists of must-do's, establishing first-steps. The rush

and then the anticipation of the wait as you stand in the crowd
at rope drop, applying sunscreen, anything to ignore time.

Fast-walking to your first stop- it used to be Dumbo, now
it's one of the mountains. Either way, making a mission of it

until the kids are derailed because they see the wicked step-sisters
who gather them up and walk them arm and arm to the front of the line!

Then, off to Space Mountain and the sense of hurtling
through the darkness on the slowest coaster on property!

Discovering a new Hidden Mickey and noting it for next time
with a photograph, adding it to the collection in your mind.

A moment to escape the crowds with a sit-down lunch
with Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and Tigger.

Outrageous desserts! Crafted and shaped to be part of the story
of your meal. More pictures. Instagram and family text.

A street sweeper glimpses a little girl in a princess makeover,
screams, drops his broom and runs over for an autograph.

Small World, Peter Pan, the cCarousel and Philharmagic.
Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder, Pirates and Splash.

At night, the slow cruise through Tomorrowland, a quiet
twisting ride on the People Mover and its tour of carnival lights.

Your wife and children collapsed against each other
as they take in the fireworks and music.

And imagine seven days of this. Seven stories,
and don't we feel like insiders, like the masters of the house?

Poem: February 9, 2019

Shovel and Gloves

My mother is a gardener and has been all of my life.
She tends to the plots and beds that surround her house;
she tends to her house, and every room in her house;
she tends to the people there, and the food
and the little details that people notice and set a mood.
My mother stoops and gathers for long hours,
prepares the ground, mists the leaves, adds, removes.

My mother's hands are as strong as youth, and you'd
think they must be to shape the world, to prune
the thick limbs that have grown too long, to work
into the soil and pull free the deep roots to impose
herself upon the wild spaces and shape them into gardens.

Gardens must be for my mother the places
that can be made to listen, to move, to be improved.
My mother gardens with a long view and the tools
of an artist. She layers and mixes the hues, and she
chooses the textures and elevations of features,
she juxtaposes colors, she minds shape and shade.
My mother pulls forward the potential view,
and she uses her fingertips to pinch away that which intrudes.

And everyone who knows my mother must conclude
that she seems to easily touch the world, to nudge
every milieu into place, to leave every room,
or meal, or porch, or nursery, more suitable, more true.
And they are quick to note how very much they admire
her sense of style, her eye for detail, the remarkable
artistry with which she arranges her home.
And, of course, she glows in her role as hostess.
She reaps with the same intensity as she sows.

What's not to admire about a woman who cares so much
to create the beautiful gardens we wander, and who
bends her back to work her will upon the world.
Who serves, who serves, who serves and owns the world.

Poem: February 8, 2019

Education

I worry it hasn't occurred to us
that the education our children need
is not the one we've designed for them.

We aspire to teach with great efficiency
numeracy and parts of speech,
water cycles and Omaha Beach.

We've built a labyrinth- a mansion
of the measurable, a temple to the agreed-upon-
laid brick by guaranteed and viable brick.

We've drawn great and detailed maps,
a fat atlas of required knowledge,
a world both vast and pre-explored.

It's stretched across the table in two dimensions.
We accept its clean edges, its corners.
We know beyond where lie the monsters.

We train our teachers to be tour guides
with scripts and calendars and best practices.
It's best when they say together, "Look to your left

and you will see X which is an example of Y
which according to experts has 3 causes,
which are outlined in your pamphlet..."

And an exemplary teacher has a high percentage
of eyes looking left, repeating X and Y,
referring to the pamphlet, achieving student success.

And don't we stand in awe of our accomplishments,
our mighty and terrible architecture?
And aren't we relieved when the trains arrive on time?

Watch the students disembark, exhausted and lost.
Watch the teachers bored and disenchanted with the blur
behind the glass that passes and nothing to touch.

A quarter of a person's life passes in our care before
we send them forth to become the world,
to care for others and know themselves.

Am I the only one who has questions, here?

Poem: February 7, 2019

The Chance to Dance with Stars

Every now and then I will hear a song,
something by The Format- Tune Out, 
On Your Porch, or more likely, Oceans,
and I return to my last year of teaching,
and to you my students, my pirates and ninjas,
and to the easy stretches of time we spent
together in the work of making meaning,
the collective alchemy of learning.
It's natural, I know, to romanticize
something left behind, to see some moments
in time as different because they mark
endings and beginnings, what is gained
and lost. It's easy to forget that all roads
have stones, that failure and struggle
are as likely as discovery.  And I'm okay
with that, but something reminds me
of who you were with me in 2009,
and I want to tell our story
with the most forgiving pen, to pretend
that you read every story I assigned,
that your questions were always insightful.
Let's tell people that I handed you wonder
and, transformed, you used your minds
to heal wounds, build temples, master time.
Let's all carry with us the unshakable
conviction that we danced with stars
and lived grand lives together as artists,
philosophers, mystics, and inventors.
I understand that it wasn't that way.
We liked each other's company.
We did the work we set out to do.
Most days we laughed some,
and, truly, I cared about you.
And if now I choose to look backward
and see something more than a classroom,
I hope you know it's because every choice
we make matters, every person
with whom we spend time in thought
gets placed on our map, and hidden
in our corners. You left part of yourselves
in my pocket, buried like treasure,
and in unexpected ways, I discover you,
look behind me, and hope that you are happy.

Poem: February 6, 2019

Running

There was a time when I would tell anyone who ran
for recreation that the only way I would ever run more
than, say, a mile as an adult would be if someone
was chasing me with a knife, and even so, I know
there would be a point at which I would decide that
it would be better to just stop running and submit
to the inevitable stabbing, that eventually both options
would be equally unpleasant, so maybe I'd see what happens.
I mean, let's be honest, runners don't really sell the product.
You see a guy running along the road in summer, all red
and their face angry, the grimace and the corners
of their mouth drawn down and out, searching
for oxygen, their joints visibly jarred with every step.
Objectively, they don't look like they are having fun.
Fun looks like a shaded stroll or a sports bar. Not that.
And yet, somehow, I've become, in my own way,
that guy- pushing, pushing my protesting body
to complete an hour of cardio most days on
a treadmill, elliptical machine, stationary bike,
and frankly, I don't love it, but I accept it
as the kind of theoretical good that will either
pay dividends or not, and how will I know anyway?
Which, of course, raises the question of motivation.
What could ever drive me to commit daily
to an unpleasant process with uncertain rewards?
I don't know the answer. I don't. But a friend of mine
hit on a thought experiment that at least hints at
what is going on in my mind as I grind forward.
So I ask myself am I running away from something,
or am I running toward something else? What's my why?
(which I am told it is important that I know). The answer
is I'm inclined to do both or either depending on the day.
For example, it is sometimes satisfying to imagine
I am preparing myself for the day I must run away
from the man with the knife, the zombie apocalypse,
or more likely, the MAGA war we seem to be sliding toward.
In these scenarios, I am clearly running away from fear,
and the argument is that survival is its own reward.
Other times I do see myself running forward to a goal-
I imagine my former 20-year-old body, glistening,
abs revealed, arms and pecs and quads defined
(which, of course, is its own fantasy of manufactured memory)
and I can hear the admiring comments of acquaintances-
"How on earth do you do it? There's no way you are fifty!
I wish I had even half of your self-discipline!"
Or I picture my 120th birthday party or reaching
the moment of singularity when the doctor-technician
uploads my consciousness into my forever-machine
and I finally abandon the treadmill of organic maintenance,
which upon reflection also argues that survival
is its own reward and that we are always, always
in the process of running both to and away.

Poem: February 5, 2019

Something to Aspire To

When I die many years from now, I hope I will have remained
relevant enough to so many people across all living generations,
that they will gather, family, friends, and robots, and will reflect
on my fine qualities, the admirable things I have done. I hope
they will all draw their own comparisons, that they will say
Tim had the poetry of John, the charm of Paul, the joy of Ringo,
and of course, the soul of George. Someone else might share
how similar I was to Fred Rogers when it came to empathy, but
that I still walked with the confidence and swagger of Han Solo.
My goodness, you would hear, he was the total package:
Walt Disney's curiosity mixed with Ghandi's purpose and
the both dry and outrageous humor of John Cleese. Yes,
that was Tim, the kind of guy who asked questions like Socrates,
had insights like Galileo, taught people to love like Bob Marley.
One can reasonably imagine testimonials that would highlight
how Bob Dylan and I were so equally prolific, how my impact
on daily life was not unlike that of Steve Jobs, how I told stories
and built worlds as compelling as the stories and worlds
of Tolkien, Henson, Rowling, Abrams and Miranda. An old friend
might opine that while it might sound like hyperbole, it isn't a stretch
to say that Tim was both as precise as William Carlos Williams,
and as expansive as Walt Whitman, a cosmos, truly. Look
at him, they will all sigh, as they set fire to my pyre on the beach,
even now he is as peaceful as the Dalai Lama, as unmoving
as Nelson Mandela. He shines like Liberace!

Poem: February 4, 2019

Eden

Imagine a garden in late spring
in which the sun plays across
the purple allium and columbine.
Picture how the sky might be
reflected on a mirror of rain water
collected in a metal pail that someone
left out earlier during a passing storm.
If you close your eyes you might
become suddenly aware
of sparrows and finches or
the upward pitch of the breeze.
You might make note of the air,
the traces of hyacinth, lavender,
honeysuckle and sweet basil.
And I suppose we must forgive
ourselves if we pause to sit
upon a weathered bench
beside a shaded section of the path
and consider the poetry of the world
that would be the world without us:
the quiet biology of the external,
the fact that there are places
that we ache for but repeatedly leave.
We write our gardens like a poem,
a skirting at the edges of sensual
pleasure, a grasping for what is
better than ourselves and so
is also uninhabitable. After all,
we leave ourselves the pail and bench,
and the shaded pathway out.

Poem: February 3, 2019

Every Atom Belonging to Me, As Good Belongs to You

The me-ness of me is constructed of recycled parts,
of atoms that separately once belonged to some other piece
of our universe. Imagine each atom rising from a collapsing form,
a phoenix taking flight, wandering through the spacious crowd
of reality, until it finds the next gathering that it will call home.
I am the father-nation of refugees, of the repurposed and found.
Each bit of me an infinite story, the whole of me a state of flux.
I like to imagine the population of me, its origins formed
from former blades of grass and book bindings, from the strings
of a lost Stradivarius and the sand from a beach in the Keys.
Why wouldn't some part of me have been worn by Whitman,
smeared across a canvas by Monet, or smoked by Jimi Hendrix?
I have gathered to me the essences of starlight and shade.
I include the blue of eyes and the hardness of quartz. I am
a multitude of source material, the crux of billions of stories.
Touch my hand and you can feel worlds brought together,
a wondrous, accidental conclave. The museum of was.
And I move my cabinet of curiosities through the world,
redistributing my wild garden through acts of beautiful decay.

Poem: February 2, 2019

Home

All I know is there isn't much
I'd rather do than be home with you.

Making tacos in the kitchen
or laughing at the cats,

or gathered together watching shows
and listening to you laugh.

Even just lying in bed,
hearing you move in the other room

is so much better than a distant place,
a party scene, a cocktail hour.

I prefer when we remember the hush
of turning pages and shuffling cards.

The two of us, you know, and a worn old house.
The kids and the cats, too, all moving the dust.

Poem: February 1, 2019

We Need Even the Rocks in the Road

Accidental damage to your neighbor's house.
An argument you shouldn't have had.
Attention Deficit Disorder.
Asymmetry.
Apathy and ennui.
A speeding ticket and the points on your license.
Anger and its aftermath.
Anxiety about nothing in particular.
Anything lost to foolishness or theft.
A chipped tooth or broken bone.
A mistake you make on the first day at work.
Aches and chronic pains.
A public embarrassment.
Anonymity.
Aging gracelessly.
All the cruel things you wish you hadn't done.
A failed marriage and your culpability.
Alcoholism, addiction, relapse.
Angioplasty and bypass surgery.
Another failed marriage.
A grandparent's funeral, then a parent's.
And a sibling's and a friend's.
And worse, a child's.
A brick through your windshield.
Anarchy.
Authoritarianism.
Armed conflict. Air strikes.
An internment camp.
Alone.

Poem: January 31, 2019

You Know It When You See It

Teachers know what great learning looks like,
and it doesn't require rows or silence,
a projector or compliance, or people
of authority strategically placed to monitor
behavior or check for understanding.

Great learning has a purpose that blooms
through the body. It is a stretching of stems
and leaves toward the sun that always provides.
It is the procreant urge and urge of curiosity
from seed to sprout to reaching organism, 
as essential as photosynthesis.

Great learning is the civic and social surging
of connections: electrical grid, communication
network, sanitation system, public transportation.
Great learning combines us and gives us access
to the many roads we travel together as citizens.
Great learning builds museums and monuments
and brings together neighborhoods.

Great learning is entering parenthood,
watching with amusement and terror and joy
each breath and shift and closing of the hand
of the infant notion that we know in our DNA
and that grows through steps and sounds.
With great learning we wait up at night,
and we struggle with our impulses to celebrate
and smother, to protect and to share.
We lose ourselves and mature at a different tempo.

Great learning is the intrepid search for the interior
of unexplored continents, the putting on of boots
and helmets, the putting to use of rope and telescope.
Great learning is spanning chasms and summiting peaks,
following rivers and crawling through caves.
It is the act of capturing in notebooks creatures
that sting and flowers that sooth. It is clearing trees
to create a space for ourselves and marking that space on the map.

Poem: January 30, 2019

Storytelling

There was a man who saw the world for its potential.
To him, everything around him was beautiful because
of what it could become, and every day, he used his hands,
his mind, his imagination, his tools, to nudge
the big, unwieldy world into the shape he hoped to see,
to smooth its edges and to straighten its lines.
When the world was difficult, the man was patient.
When things broke or decayed, he didn't fret.
Even when the man was the source of his own
disappointment, he did not dwell on what was, but
continued to work toward what could be.
And, in truth, he made little progress. After all,
the world is wide and not easily tamed.
But the man was happy, he did less harm than good,
and he worked toward something of great worth.

Poem: January 29, 2019

Wisely and Slow. They Stumble That Run Fast

We live in a world that comes to us like a storm and we stand
in the middle of the street and let the tempest twist and swirl
around us, motionless and entertained, our ravenous brains
conduits for the fast-paced colors, the sensations that pass.
So much motion while so little makes an impression beyond
the momentary racing of our hearts, the catching of our throats.
But damn, there is a lot of it, and it's colorful and noisy and
there is always room for another strange reflection in the glass
spaces we visit with our scanning eyes and darting minds, and
we know, don't we, that none of this is real, just our fantasies
projected onto every imaginable space, something to chase.

But I want to say I remember
that I have shared slower moments.
I have felt what it is like to do things
that have substance and that move
to the rhythms of my own body.

I have hiked along shaded trails
in the afternoon, holding your hand.
I have kicked my feet through cool water
at the edge of a pool, watching
our children as they glide and rise
to the surface.
I have sat quietly
beside a fire and enjoyed
the stillness of an owl
perched in a nearby tree.

We've danced,
and I've touched your fingertips,
and lingered, imagined.
And I know how it feels to stop time.

Poem: January 28, 2019

Safety. Courtesy. Show. Efficiency.

First, safety.
No one afraid.
No one at risk
of pain or loss.
An oasis,
allowing an open
mind and heart.

Next, courtesy.
A kind smile.
A welcome.
The sense that
you belong here.
You have friends.
You are important.

Then, show.
A desire
to surprise
and impress.
Big moments
beyond the basics.
Extraordinary.

Finally, efficiency.
Anticipating need,
solving problems.
Sidestepping
unnecessary frustration.
An easy life.
Simplified.

Poem: January 27, 2019

Sunday

Another Sunday and no church.
Most weeks that would go unnoticed.
I mean, it's really no longer a conscious decision.
I'm not asking, "Pew or Couch? Dress pants or sweats?"
Like many, I think, we discovered
that the math just didn't add up.
What did we gain for our time? And how
could we square the points where
church and life diverge. Was there enough
to love? How much could be forgiven?
What wisdom could we take away
that couldn't be found through other sources-
our friends, our families, our books, each other?
Can one story, however long, however often repeated,
even begin to speak to the great expanse of our lives?
After all, we are thoughtful and reflective.
We've looked behind the curtain. We know
how this all works. We are not the masses.

The only reason I even bring this up
is that yesterday I flew in a jet at 10,000 feet,
and I looked down at the clouds and remembered
my childhood understanding of heaven
and the promises it implied.

Poem: January 26, 2019

Thoughts for My Children

I love you. Let's start with that. I love you and cannot do otherwise.
And, of course, I take great pride in you because you are mine,
and because you shine, each of you, in your own form, the best
manifestations of my inner life that have taken form beyond myself.
Three me-and-not-me's roaming the earth. And I sometimes think
that there should be a way to place in you instructions as deep as DNA,
benevolent programming that would tether my will to yours.
It's a selfish notion, I know, that must be the burden of every parent.
It is the desire to be the guide but not the tyrant, to nudge without placing.
So I stand at this moment at the intersection where old people crave
to make explicit the thoughts that they want to pass on as wisdom.
I remember my grandparents and then my parents doing the same,
and I also remember the feeling that this was an unnecessary effort
on their part, something I didn't ignore, but preferred to rush through.
In truth, I feel that way about this poem, but I will write it anyway.

I want you to always be kind and try to understand the people you meet.
Look for ways to make the lives of those around you easier,
and take pleasure in performing simple acts of service. In fact,
take pleasure in any work that can help others or that can make life
more colorful, peaceful, happy and joyous. And beautiful!
I want you to care about beauty, and define beauty as broadly as possible.
I want you to know that everything has the potential to be beautiful.
Of course, I want you to love yourselves, to wonder at the magic
of your bodies, the expanses of your emotions, the intricacies
of your minds, and the potency of your imaginations.
I want you to use all of your gifts to build a life that satisfies you,
and I want you to always feel free to change as you need to change.
I want you to be just and to honor the truth, and I want you to forgive
others easily, and to confidently make amends for your own mistakes.
I want you to affect the world around you and defend yourself
against foolishness, jealousy, hatred, and sloth. To be serious in ethic,
but to also be playful and creative in spirit and work.
I want you to seek and be open to new experiences and ideas,
to love freely and with passion, to believe that the world is good.
I want you to never fear opportunity, and to never doubt your strength,
and to be comfortable knowing that not every experience goes as planned
and that pain and embarrassment and failure are essential to you.
I hope you will never be timid, because if you are good and you are bold,
then your life will have been lived well, and I will be grateful to you.

Poem: January 25, 2019

Epic Selfie

If life is different now, it's because so much more of it is saved:
a thousand photographs and videos, countless posts and status updates,
the permanent but pale trails of social media that we pull behind us-
weightless until they aren't. Every moment filtered, framed and broadcast.
If our descendants were to ever wonder about us, they wouldn't lack
for a paper trail. We leave behind so much more than our grandparents.
Our grandchildren will be able to easily construct our stories-
our friends, our loves, the pretty foods we have eaten- because the world
has given us everything we need to design and tend to and tell our own stories:
leisure time, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, the cloud,
and most importantly the desire to be relevant, the fear of being forgotten.
All of us are busily curating exhibits in vast museums devoted to our selves.
We are chronicling the epic tales of our amusements and frustrations,
our work days and vacations, and every observation we feel might be relatable.
And who is to say that we are any less deserving to be remembered
than Odysseus or Beowulf? Behold the mighty monsters we've slain!
Observe our courage and cleverness, how deftly we sidestep danger!
Remember our many struggles, the depths of our despairs!

Poem: January 24, 2019

Mindfulness

In this moment I am pausing
to note the perfect pleasure
of sunlight illuminating my notepad,
and the warm feel of it on my fingers.

Poem: January 23, 2019

Winter

January, and I find myself aching
for the soft, earthy world of Spring.
I imagine the ground giving way,
it's pores open and graspable.
And the rich smell of grass
and dirt breathing.

Today, the ground is concrete
and jarring as I walk to my car.
The air so cold and nothing
to smell at all- sterile and icy.
The empty palette of January
suggests limitations or
a failure of imagination.

It's a long walk through
the industrial complex of Winter.
Cinder block and gray
fluorescent light. Grimy windows
and neutral carpeting running
for what seems like city blocks.

No wonder we are surprised
when we finally come to
the unlocked door that opens
on a shining garden.

Poem: January 22, 2019

Here's What I Like About Whiskey

Pop the cork out of a good bottle of whiskey
and smell the contradiction of the bright and dark
caramel at the neck. Go ahead and catch a drop
from the side of the bottle. The taste is a soft spark
that anticipates the ritual of drinking.
I prefer a rocks glass, with a single oversized cube,
something to clink but not rattle.
Then, two fingers high of bourbon or rye,
a slow, golden amber pour before you hear
the first crack of the cube, a physical
reaction that echoes for a second inside the glass.
For me, a Manhattan, a splash of sweet vermouth,
two droppers full of dark cherry or orange bitters,
and three Luxardo cherries that rest at the bottom,
drinking in the whiskey until the four of us meet,
and finally the sweet bite of each drunken fruit.

Poem: January 21, 2019

Life to a Solipsist

With all the sky to fly in
and all the sea to swim,
all the world to travel,
room for every whim.

With every place to visit
and every thing to be,
stories to write and re-write,
visions to see and unsee.

The limits you face, you have placed there.
Your masters are all in your mind.
You own every choice that you make here.
The path that you look for, you find.

Poem: January 20, 2019

What Are You Afraid Of?

I like to imagine that Donald J. Trump
is the last gasp of a dying body,
the rattling, incoherent convulsion
that happens just before the release.
Kind of like a creature backed into a corner,
a species on the margins that failed to adapt.
Dangerous, yes, and disruptive,
as destructive to itself as it is to us.
It's easy enough to dismiss a gasp,
a tremor and spasm, then gone.
Best not to imagine him as anything else,
but still we might have to consider-
what if Donald Trump is a seed?

Poem: January 19, 2019

Looking Up

There is water damage on our bedroom ceiling
which has been getting worse with each hard rain.
I'm to the point that I dread the weather forecast,
the threat of rain, as they say.

This isn't the first time we've been through this.
A few years back we returned home from Florida
to discover the drywall fallen like broken sponges
across our bed, the dressers, the carpet.

We put in a new metal roof, new carpet, fresh drywall-
a complete redo that felt like a form of freedom-
and it was a surprise pleasure to walk through
the mudroom and into, what, Spring?

We have lots of theories for what's causing this:
the pitch of the roof, poor water-proofing
around the chimney, the wrath of God.
All I know is that with each new stain,

with every chipping away of the plaster
at the seams, I am reminded that we
can patch and sand and paint and refresh,
but everything, everything decays, and we fight

until we are worn away, until the day
we come to love, not this place, no,
but the stories of the passing storms
and of the water that will have its way.