Poem: October 7, 2019

Making Peace with the Passing On of My Denim Jacket

It is some form of foolishness, I suppose, to linger
over things, to not pass them on to the people we
love, or who claim to have greater use for them.

Your daughter wants your denim jacket, the one
that reminds you of a particular version of you, a
relic of something unrealized, the fabric of a dream,

and honestly it's probably more flattering that she
likes something that is yours, that carries some echo
you enjoy, and of course, it's a point of contact, a

shared toy, a game of keep away in which you still
have some say in the outcome, some control over
the game clock and the scoreboard, a card to play,

and isn't it nice to imagine the day you give in and
pass this worn but sturdy talisman into the hands
of the next caretaker, the next keeper of the flame,

and shouldn't every interaction between a father
and his daughter be sacred, carry weight, isn't this
the wisdom of love- the handing over of one's self-

so such a gesture should be simple, right, even if
young people can't realize what it means to empty
our coat pockets, to allow our stories to trail away.

Young people don't see how little any of us have,
how one thing can stand for many, or how wasteful
we become when we finally get the thing we want.

But love is simple and without condition and greater
than our mythologies, and denim tells the stories it
will tell, and we only learn lessons we need to learn.

Poem: October 6, 2019

Waking Up in a Tent

Quiet all night and dark.

And cooler than we keep

the house. And, of course,

all noises- the wind and

leaves, footsteps in gravel, 

rain at three AM- and the

absence of other noises- 

the electric hum of our

house, the opening and

shutting of doors, traffic-

until a little after seven 

and the beginning light as

it filters through the blue

walls of the tent and the 

strange immediacy of 

someone's voice on the 

other side, and first one, 

then many dogs barking

and car doors and tires, 

the slow rolling out to find

firewood, coffee. A whistle

of tents unzippering, the

lighting of stoves and wood

fires, cracks, the thunk of

an axe in the distance, then

conversations, the crescendo

of a campground, all of the

sounds born from sunlight.

Poem: October 5, 2019

Fish Stories

Sometimes I let them go. Sometimes when I am
waiting on the banks of my desk, my mental line
casting out into the muddy spaces, I suddenly feel
a tug on the slack, and something bobs on either
side of my consciousness. Quick. Nothing more
than a word or a phrase. Less even. The shadow
suggested by a word. And in that moment, I know
that, if I start cranking, I can follow that hint, that
intuition until it is tired and lying dead on the page,
flat as a metaphor and ready to be skinned. And
part of me will dine upon it. And part of me will
hang it on the wall. And the rest of me will start
to tell the story, revising as I go, because we all
like the ones we fought for the most. We all like
to think of the work as so hard and our efforts so
impressive, but the interesting poems are the ones
we let go. The interesting poems are still shadows.

Poem: October 4, 2019

Definitions

Sophia is a cheerleader, but
not only a cheerleader since
she is also a dancer, and a
singer in the choir, and an
actress from time to time.

And on Sundays, she is an
artist. And on weekdays,
she is a student, but not just
a student, a particular kind
of student, an honors student
full of projects and heavy books.

And now that she is eleven,
she is a friend within a shifting
group of friends, so she can
be one person's best friend or
five peoples' best friend, and
also her clothes have hidden
meanings that she has decoded,
and which are subject to change,

as is her opinion of me, it
seems, especially in the evenings,
when she is a queen, and I must
observe a list of unwritten
protocols that also shift, so there
is no point in a person writing
them down, and sometimes

she decides she's a failure, and
sometimes she decides she's
the best. All of these definitions
to wear like costumes and to
carry like crosses, to connect
like dots and be lost in like maps.

But I see her there. She's there.
She's Sophia and she is there.

Poem: October 3, 2019

I Clean My Glasses Before I Write

I clean my glasses before I write;
not that there is so much outward
to see, as much as my imagination,
my inner conversation, my echoing
voice is strangely tied to my eyes
and to the hard surfaces I can define
and that remind me of other hard
surfaces in other lives, backward
surfaces and forward surfaces, and
so I need my eyes to make what is
out of reach, concrete, to help me
recognize the metaphors of stone
and leather, chasm and cloud line,
dancing shadow and crashing wave.

Poem: October 2, 2019

Rankings

I love you more than Sharpie pens,
and I love you more than whiskey.

I'd let go all my gadgets- my iPad,
iPhone and Apple watch and Mac-
if given just the five of you, I was
forced to only pick the one.

You're better by far than snack mix
and jambalaya and filet mignon.

I could turn my back every Saturday
on Notre Dame football, but I
could never turn my back on you.

I love you more than music. All
of it- Rock, Country, Opera, Rap.

You are more attractive than
a microphone, more compelling
than the sound of my own voice.

Given the choice, I'd choose you
over Netflix and Hulu and NPR.

In a list of all the cool things that
can be admired- among monkeys
and pirates and robots and ninjas,
I have to say you rank number one.

I love you more than backpacks
and my Leatherman multi-tool and
my Disney pins and Mickey ears
and even my band-collared shirt.

To me, you are the finest thing going.
You exceed nearly all else on Earth.

Poem: October 1, 2019

Falling

October, and in some ways
I suppose I am in the October
of life, which is to say, vibrant
and changing colors and so
ready for a homecoming, keen
to gather with you, together
against cold winds, always
back here around the bonfire,
always wrapped in wool and
denim, always whiskey, always
the flickering contrasts, the
hard and visible breaths, and
always the skittering, the dry,
sharp noises, the piles of it.
And I love you, world that runs
and falls. And I love you, world
that dies away. And I love you,
world that stays, and in its red
remaining, is sweet as pumpkin
flesh, rough as bark, orange
like sugar maple leaves.