Poem: December 31, 2019

Prayer

A man writes a poem
in water on the ground
and watches as it fades.

He does this every day.
Every day the poem fades.
Some days it rains.

Each day, different ground,
different water. The poem
is always the same. It says,

I love you.
I hope you know
I love you.

Poem: December 30, 2019

Penultimate

So I did a thing
for an entire year.

I noted the world
and felt my place
within it.

First person, observer.

A thumbtack lifted
and placed each day
on a map, or

a sieve
passed through
an ocean.

And I saw all
the colors I saw.

And I touched
all the rough
surfaces I touched.

And I tasted food
and blood and
kisses.

I filtered it all
through my lungs,
my skin, and then,
out through my pen.

And to what end?

Except to say
I did this work and
didn't let so much
slip away unseen.

I learned that life
is what it seems
to be: little and
long and worthy
of the time and
sacrifices,

deserving of all
the small daily
temples we build

to love, to fear,
to what we can't see.

So I am grateful to
have stood my watch.

I am better for it.

Poem: December 29, 2019

Prolific

May we all be prolific
in the new year.

Prolific in our laughter.
Prolific in our hand-holding.
Prolific in our gratitude.

May we be, of course,
prolific writers who write
letters and poems,
text messages and songs.

But may we also be
prolific tinkerers and lovers
and cocktail mixers.

May our hands be prolific
in their sculpting and painting,
in their cooking of meals,
in their planting
and dealing cards.

And may our feet be prolific
along wooded paths,
in foreign cities and
back and forth from
pier to shore.

And may those same feet
dance prolifically
the waltz and fox trot.

May we wonder prolifically
and be prolific in our curiosity,
in our excitement and
in our passion and in our
attention to one another.

May we kiss prolifically and
be prolific in our remembrances
and devotions.

May we be prolific
in our learning and our wisdom
and in the application of both.

May we enjoy prolific
friendships, old and new,

and be prolific in our work
and in our leisure.

And may we experience
prolific joy because we know
we gave entirely of ourselves.

Poem: December 28, 2019

Proposal

Love, in the morning
before I take Sophie to school,
I come to find you
in some state of mid-dress
to grab a quick kiss, an exchange
of kind wishes for a good day.

And some days,
in the middle of the day,
you send me a text to share
an idea you've had or
something that made you laugh,
and I hear your laugh.

And at night, most nights,
we eat our dinner, usually
in front of the television, binging
the stories we agreed to share,
and when I go to bed early,
you remind me to shut off the lights.

And on the weekends,
it's often all we can do to find
an evening with family
and do the shopping and
do the laundry, but we also get to
have our breakfast together.

And at Christmas,
we shop for books together,
that we then wrap together,
and we place them under the tree,
books for everyone,
each and every year.

And in the winter,
we watch the weather.
And in late spring,
we buy lots of plants for the garden.
And summer is always too busy.
And autumn is always too short.

And when we travel together,
you drive so you won't get sick.
At the beach, I build sand sculptures.
In museums, you read everything.
We go to Orlando a lot.
Sometimes, we go to Europe.

And this is our fine life:
We go to the movies. I make you coffee.
We love our children and our pets.
Now and then, we have a little sex.
I like this marriage we have.
I vote we keep it going.

Poem: December 27, 2019

Variance

Do you find it sad
that we are encouraged
to stay away from our own
strange spaces?

That what we know
is given more value
than what we don't know
or what is gray and
difficult to say?

That we are asked
to use words the way
that everyone uses words
and never stray towards
our own pronunciations,
our own definitions?

That we are taught to walk
on safe, familiar, and
predetermined paths?
That we measure twice
and never improvise?

That our personalities,
the checklists of ourselves,
are trusted when they
are steady, reliable, normal?

That we care what others,
people we don't know, think
and so we consider things
like re-sale value before we
paint a wall black with flames
or a ceiling two shades of blue?

That we believe the things
they say are true
must, therefore, be true?

Poem: December 26, 2019

Boxing Day

Boxing Day isn't our holiday
since we are neither British
nor Victorians, and the idea
that we could ever afford to
employ servants is laughable.
More likely, we would be the
downstairs help, tending to
the wash, polishing the brass,
until this day on which we
would enjoy a few hours away,
finishing off the leftover goose
and pudding and candied fruit.

Not our holiday, no, and not
actually our lot in life, but
being the Anglophile that I am,
I like to note the 26th, and
explain to the uninformed,
the significance of Boxing Day,
and after so much indulgence,
I do see the pleasure in less.
Less waste. Less noisiness.

I like to imagine the clean lines
of boxes wrapped in plain
brown paper, tied with twine.
I like the idea of the gift of
idleness and the romance of
returning home, a whole pantry
in hand, to a humble bit
happy time with my family,
the second-hand efficiencies of
thrift paired to the grand sigh
of a day without work to do.

And I enjoy the thought of
a great empty house with fewer
people and less bustling about.
So quiet, you can hear the snip
of the cigar cutter and the
updraft in the fireplace and
across the house, the echo of
footsteps on a marble floor.
More uninterrupted space and
a dormant place to pause and
rest one's eyes. One quiet day
before we give in to obligation.

Poem: December 25, 2019

Hark!

It is hard to imagine
there are many angels
much inclined to descend
in all their glory, blazing
in the light of God's
fierce and abundant love,
to bring glad tidings unto,
say, the tired and harried
checkers working third
shift at Walmart with
their light-up reindeer
headbands and jingle bell
necklaces swaying as
they scan our cartloads
of temporary distraction.

It's hard to think that
any angel would appear
to any politician and say
unto them fear not
as they travel their divided
roads, setting their flocks
upon one another.

We seem to have worked
as hard as elves to make
an unlovable world,
thick with plastics and
urban sprawl, cheaper,
emptier, faster, distracted,
more covetous and blind,
and convinced our pain
is nothing more than gravy.

We look for reasons
not to love and not to find
any common cause with
anyone unlike ourselves,
as we sing love and joy
come to you and Hark!
the herald angel sings.

But we do want love, and
we want a world that loves,
and in our humble squalor,
we have the chance to be
the angels we wish to find.