Forecast
Just suggest the possibility
of snow on the horizon,
and I become truly useless.
The storm’s three days away
and on a weekend, but I am
already (mentally and
emotionally) in my PJs,
drinking cocoa, wrapped
in cats and reading books
with no intention of moving
forward or checking anything
off of my to do list.
I like the hush of snow.
I like the stuck of snow.
I like the no of snow.
Whateverpalooza
Nineties music is all crunch and grind–
granola and iron and the fine dotted line
of the edge of a razor blade.
It is a shrug in the cold. It is an old soul
that remembers and opens the battered doors
of young energy and mourning.
It is earthtones, true, with maybe one or two
bold colors– gold and concrete, violet
and tweed and a pocket watch.
It is time passing and threadbare flannel
and sincere aching for a world out of reach
and the irony of artful uncaring.
All emotion and boot leather and street
names remembered and hard weather and
what is better than what is here?
Patched as it is, and mismatched and cobbled
together, even if it’s the question no one
can or cares to attempt to answer.
It is the tapestry of hope and broken hearts,
the woven home of pirates and sprites, poets
and dusty romantics, madmen and saints.
Picture Frame
Not that I’m looking to go anywhere,
but as I was watching our lives pass by
in random order, flicking along every six
seconds on the digital picture frame–
you and I riding bicycles in Key West;
Riley, Sophie, and Annie leaning into
one another on the couch on Christmas Eve;
the cats as kittens; cousins and beach vacations;
and, again, you, illuminated and sweater-
bundled in the fire’s dancing shadow-glow–
I had this moment in which I noticed
the tap and ticking whisper of the clock.
And I remembered this moment a few years
back: Dinner on the back deck with
the whole family, and my mother’s hand
on the back of my father’s arm, and then
spoken softly, It’s been a good life.
The Consequences
Covid broke this generation.
You can see it in what is absent–
the lack of social stamina,
the physical folding in of the body
when burdened with too many
people for too long of a time.
And also the intolerance for
time on task or ideas outside
of their own ideas (which
themselves seem empty of passion
or direction or wonder).
You give them a space in which
to write their responses to
important questions, and they don’t
put much there, if anything at all.
And the worst offense to them,
it seems, is to be someone
who asks too many questions or
asserts too many claims based
on the institutional memory
of the system that broke down
and betrayed them in 2020.
Perception Is Reality
We are sitting in a circle
all around the room
discussing philosophy,
and the kids can’t help but
see that the ignorance
that Socrates is illustrating
for Glaucon has lingered
with us across the centuries,
as if it is hard-wired
into us. It is the reason
for our contentious politics,
and it is the reason that
some of them will stay close
to home when choosing a college.
It is their refusal to trust
some and their insistence
on trusting others because,
given the choice between
bright lights and shadows,
they know that beauty
is in the eye of the beholder.
Allegory of the Cave
You open the door, and an alien
is standing there, probably backlit,
as those guys usually are– big head,
long, pointy fingers. The kind
of eyes that reveal worlds.
And because this is an alien and,
presumably, technologically advanced,
he can speak to you in your own language.
And he says, You’ve got it all wrong.
What you think is real– your bathrobe
and your cup of coffee, the bare
limbs of the sugar maple in winter,
the warm waves of the space heater,
even the alien in your doorway, are
a misconception, a miscommunication of
your senses and the particular, meaty
circumstances of life on planet Earth.
But fortunately for you, the alien is here
to fix that for you, to lift you upward
(in a manner of speaking) into his awaiting
transdimensional, cerebral habitat,
for which you have no prior conception,
so that you can know what really is,
so that you can be rid of all this human
foolishness, so that you can rip away
all of the filters that limit you to
oatmeal and bicycles and Argyle socks.
Will this be painful? Of course, this will
be painful. Will there be a probe?
There will always be a probe. But
imagine the scintillating emergence!
Imagine the electric and prismatic you!
Trained
Perhaps I have trained them away from me.
I will admit there were times, especially
in the last five years when I have been
difficult to be around, so who would be
surprised if their first inclination was
away from, not toward. The hand will
hesitate near the flame, once burned,
will always remember the blood lost
to the thorn, and while I would like
to think I am more than the flame and
the thorn, those old paths are well-worn.
So when they turn to you because they got
pulled over, or they may have broken
their ankle, or they want to talk through
a difficult situation, I must acknowledge
that, in you, they perceive an open
space, and in me, they perceive a wall,
and then I must be grateful that they
have you, and that they still see me at all.
Slow
I love the slow moments with you.
Nowhere to be except
beside you, across from you,
playing rummy, or next to you
on the couch or under the covers
with room enough
for slow breaths, a sighing
into the comfort of one another.
The warmth of our body heat.
The slow thump of our heart beat.
Our known and rolling landscape.
Fun Hall Friday
On Fridays before first period,
as the students drag their bleary
teenage brains from locker
to cafeteria to classroom, perambulating
with their friends or shuffling
their zombie shuffle, shields up,
lost in their earbuds and phones,
my fellow teachers and I fill our
hallway with absurdity. Every
Friday, a new version of absurdity,
a weekly hope to help our students
find some joy within this school.
We roll out the stereo and the
party lights, or we fire up all
of the bubble machines- an ocean
of bubbles, a wall to pop through,
as they head to Algebra or Art II,
or we decorate the hall like a jungle
and play Jurassic Park, or a beach
to free us from the reality of winter,
or a college football tailgate,
a nineteen-eighties sleepover with
sleeping bags and popcorn and MTV,
or a life-sized game of Clue–
each of us a character– Scarlet,
Peacock, Mustard, Plum, and White,
and before Christmas we sing carols,
and we haunt the hallway on Halloween,
and we yell out Happy Friday, Bears,
as the students pass by and we
try to find a way to get them to crack
a smile, even as they roll their eyes.
Brontomancy
Every night as I slide
into the covers, I say,
Alexa, play thunderstorm,
and the magical cylinder
beside me pauses before
breathing out a rumble
that grows slowly, cold
wind and rain-splatter audio
low, growling and opening
the night bedroom toward
the percussion of storms,
as though I had found
myself beside a nearby
and darkened and wide-
open window, and I imagine
myself in another room
made of stone and weathered
wood where the wind
blowing near disturbs
the dancing heart of the
woodstove, and I accept
the soft assumption that
this could be my home
in some future, spectral
post-life. The slow rolling
thunder is the echo of
chaos beyond the horizon
where I can no longer go.
While, inside, I only know
my own long shadows,
a clock’s slowing tempo,
the gold fireplace glow,
my comforter, my pillow,
and only the ghosts I hold.
Neurospicy
Sometimes it’s nice
to be neurospicy,
to give into the Hyde
inside the Jekyll,
to release the prickly
beast that feels so tired
of the tight space
in which he’s been pacing,
tied to the short leash,
bottled and contained
by medications made
to enforce the rules
of the neurotypical brain.
