Old Poems

She runs away swiftly


I watch the Appaloosa paw the ground,
dust coming out of her nostrils,
muscles rippling suggestively
as if she will run and never return

I want to tame her,
as I could not you
and this she knows as she
stares me down

as you did the day you told me (without tears)
you were leaving for Washington
to work on your parents' farm instead of ours
leaving me

in this damned corral
to win your horse's trust by moving slow as I can--
I raise my hand to her nose and she
runs away swiftly

to the far fence, where she eyes me
whites showing, nostrils flaring
so I whistle, calling her name softly
and she comes

shyly, her head nodding as if to say
"Yes, I will be yours"
like you said once
many springs ago

I try to touch her (touch you)
but she recoils (you turn away)
and she runs away
swiftly

She came to the gate, they said, as if looking for me
but I am tired.
They said she nickered softly, but when they tried
to approach her

she runs away swiftly
It is night now and the animals
"slumber in peace" (Richard Wilbur wrote knowingly)
but I will not sleep. Since you left,
I do not sleep.

--1992/rev. 1998: this was an assignment in my first creative writing class at UF. We had to take a line from a poem we were studying and write a poem using it.


Someone you love

candlelight sparkles on the ceiling

the sound of the key in the lock
turning
turning

into the shimmering darkness
a pathway of light
the hope triggering my heart
beat  beat  beat  beat

Are you here to stay?
I ask.

You whisper
I could not go with her.
I do not love her.

I say to your open face
My love is not chains.
It will not shackle you to me.
You are free to live your life, to be yourself.
I want to be someone,
someone you love.

My love is not perfect, nor neat
you say
But it is for you, and for you only.
I want to live my life in your life.

I open my arms
Come to me
I will love you always.

We stand close
our arms encircling one another
the understanding between us
a whole new light

shimmering within our hearts.

--1994



[untitled]

I watch the crimson
    bleed
onto the plaster,
and I think--
not long ago I wished to bleed
as the pain bleeds,
covering all the white,
all the pain.
I lived as though the light of day
did not reach my soul...
my heart sings as the mockingbird sings--
different notes
as I think of you.

--1998



She watches the Moon rise

she watches the Moon rise.
it starts out small,
and grows bigger by the minute--
          no, by the second.

she smiles to herself,
the Moon's light bathes her face
          all Silvery cobwebs on
nose, eyelids, lips.

he sees
          the Moonrise caress her.
he watches the Quicksilver touch her hair, skin.
he wishes he were the Moonlight.

--1998

[untitled]
 

Ramses as a young child

would watch the snails
recede and return with the tide of the Nile at Waset
while he practiced on papyrus
the writings of his father's priests;
usually, though, instead of imitating,
he would make his own symbols--
for instance, a great heron standing above her nest
became an ankh,
and his new symbol
(which made Seti very proud of his son)
began appearing everywhere--
tombs' walls, wax seals, even gold plates:
but what European translator would have guessed
that this symbol of life was thought up by a boy
who liked to daydream?

--1992: this was another assignment from that long-ago creative writing class. I don't remember the prompt. 

Mouse house

Bleached white by the unforgiving sun,
her skull,
sunken on one side,
lay discarded in the sands of the dune.

She is found by biologists
investigating not death--
but how a small mouse can live on this island,
with the air so salty and no fresh water available.
The mouse challenges all beliefs.
Her skull has become a mouse house.

The door, an eye socket.
It once held an eye
a beautiful gray iris surrounded by flecks of gold.
The head cavity, where an intelligent brain had been,

is stuffed with dried dune grasses.
The jaw, in its permanent toothy smile,
holds tiny berries that form at the roots of the grasses:
succulent gray green globes, that when popped between two fingers,
are full of fresh sweet water.

--2004

 

Musings on Sunday

So my husband asked me today, as we passed a full church parking lot, why I thought people attended church. He asked this because we happened to be stopped at a light, and listened as a goateed guy raised his voice at a woman, telling her that he didn't want the little boy playing with an alien blow-up toy to pop it or hit the other little boy with it. 

My immediate answer was, "I think people attend church so that they can feel better about themselves since they're generally shitty on the inside." He said he thinks people go to church to network. I allowed him that, citing the example of a big Baptist church on the "rich" side of town where a lot of well-known/semi-famous people go. 

I also said that there are people who honestly get something out of going to church, who center their lives on believing in God. Those people I admire. I admire someone who lives their life according to their principals, who lives the "Christian life" as well as they can.

I think churches are beautiful, especially Catholic and Episcopal churches. I would like to visit the great cathedrals and chapels in Europe one day. My parents recently took a trip to

Canterbury Cathedral

England and were lucky enough to attend a service at Canterbury Cathedral. When my father was telling the story, he had tears in his eyes. He's the most religious man I know, and he lives his life according to his beliefs. This doesn't mean that he's never snarky or mean, because he is; and he's not in church on every Sunday. I like to think that when he's out in the yard, feeding the birds, planting seedlings, spreading compost, or simply walking around, he's in his own church. He finds God in nature and in that respect, he and I are not all that different.

Kwan Yin

In class this semester, we've talked about Emerson, Whitman, and Stevens, who shared the common belief that religion, and God for that matter, didn't exist in the traditional way. He could be found in nature, in the earth, and in all of us. And while I don't call my belief "God," I do believe the divine is found in nature. I'm more comfortable with the idea of divinity as many beings--gods and goddesses. When I'm not feeling well, I send a few words out into the universe to Kwan Yin, my patroness. I think that positive energy and thoughts return the fastest to you and in ten-fold. I think, if you're into labels, that this is called "eclectic" in the pagan community.

Sometimes I wish I could have a circle of like-minded people here, but I'm not into celebrating the sabbats and other holy days. My path is a solitary one and it's comforting to me.

Right now I can hear the birds singing outside. They're enjoying the seed my husband put out for them yesterday. There are chickadees, cardinals, Carolina wrens and squirrels in the yard. That to me is the god and goddess made real. Just two steps outside my door.