Poem: September 7, 2021

Maintaining

Some people won’t 

straighten their desks

at the end of the day, 

but I do, most days,

and I sweep the floor 

as well, ten to twelve

minutes weaving 

among the furniture,

picking up the dust and crumbles, 

the discarded gum wrappers,

the orange pencil shavings, 

the grass from the ball field, 

whatever might have

fallen behind. 

I’m finding and taking

these broken bits of day 

and making it clear that they 

have no place here tomorrow. 

I am erasing, creating 

a clean slate. 

This is my quiet way 

of saying we all matter- 

the students, the custodians, me. 

We all deserve a clean space-

a place we escape,

a place to rest, 

a place to breathe and

a place to start.

Poem: September 3, 2021

To Sleep

I think I’m looking forward.

Who can say what’s going on?

I sleep well enough. I’m comfortable,

but I wake up from dreams

that seem more vivid these days, 

from spaces that are concrete, 

so real, so real, and then I’m awake.

I mean really awake, the kind

of awake to start a day, ready.

Except it’s 2:38 and

nothing’s shaking, for goodness sake.

I think it must be nearly dawn.

Did I set the alarm? Did I forget

my medicine? Where are the cats?

But everything is fine. It’s fine.

It’s just the time and the fact 

that I’m awake, instantly awake.

And it’s not as if I struggle to return

to sleep. I can close my eyes and

drop plenty deep into the vivid spaces

and swim amidst my synapses

until I snap to again at 3:17.

I repeat to sleep, to sleep,

perchance to dream.

 

Poem: September 2, 2021

 Echo, Echo

I would love to make just a little music every day,

but, of course, none of us is given that kind of 

energy, as beautiful as we dream it might be. We

need quiet places for music. Music is the center,

and we need the quiet places to bring the music

nearer, nearer, nearer to our own centers, to hear

the centers of ourselves before we send our music

out into the world where we hope someone else

has found a quiet place to hear us and relate.

Poem: September 1, 2021

Bait and Switch

The kids have been amped up

for about a week now. 

They think we will have to go

virtual because, you know, 

the rumors, and the mitigation

strategies, and the positivity rates.

I guess we thought this year

was going to be different,

was going to be normal.

We all wonder. We all worry.

We’re all human, and uncertainty

stirs us like a blender, and we

just want this to end one way

or another because, let’s be

honest, we’ve all been violated.

And we’ve all been robbed

of a thousand tiny and critical

moments that people used to have. 

We ache for facial expressions 

and for physical proximity. 

We need to feel trust again, but 

trust is in such short supply. 

Poem: August 31, 2021

Today

I am celebrating the last day

of bus duty until next semester, 

and this shipment of new novels,

which means new questions to ask,

and I am celebrating one week

until my fifty-third birthday and

the antibodies my COVID shot

provided to keep me safe,

and I will celebrate Jim Morrison

and The Doors, who I heard

on the radio on my way into work, 

and I celebrate that people are strange.

There are more things in heaven

and earth than are dreamt of

in my philosophy, so I celebrate

and take them as they come.

Poem: August 30, 2021

Mindset (10 Rules Poem)

Black umbrellas bloom

in this cold morning

rain like anxiety or

hopelessness taking root

and curling me up 

into a monstrous ball.

I’m headed to school

in plodding boots

against a current that

is flowing homeward.

I’m as soggy and

limp as old cornflakes.

I am floating cold.

I am Frodo, burdened

in my darkness,

trodding toward Mt. Doom.

But black thoughts bloom

because I am capable

of dreams. I’m free

to see umbrellas or

anxiety, or...flowers-

festivals or funerals.

I’m eating my words 

either way, be they

cornflakes or tomato soup.

Poem: August 27, 2021

This is

My tiny poem

in the cramped crumpled corner

of my grocery list.

I wrote it in class

while you all were creating

your chapter hashtags.

I guess I was bored

because no one had questions

that needed answers.

I could have graded

some question sets or essays.

Clearly I didn’t.