of a life of grace. But she wobbles
on one leg, trying to assume an attitude
of balance. In the distance, two ships
navigate a rough sea. Neither one
has sent help signals yet. In another
life which is merely another version
of this one, she regards the growing
brightness beyond the hills. Glaciers
have not all melted yet, though that
change, too, is coming. White buds
return, slowly, to the wounded trees.
Her garments are without damage.
Surely there is a bridge that leads
across the treacherous water.
Surely a change exists, shaded
a different color of blue.
Wine-Dark, Gold-Dark
No, the dark hasn't lifted yet.
But here in this coastal part
of the south, the daytime hours
are still streaked with rain,
meaning snow never crystallized
enough to make the thickest,
whitest blanket that might obliterate
reminders of the crudeness of the world.
No matter, it's good that we can see
the ribs of trees, damp bucket seats
in the park like empty egg trays,
the future leaking out at the edges.
Does moving the hour hand forward
hasten arrival at the end of time?
When I tipped the ink bottle over,
a lake of dark red spread on Canson
paper. That was the first time
I noticed the gold shimmer in
its depths: a small lesson
for which I was grateful.
On Stoicism
We are tired, I am tired. Every day
is exhausting, isn't it? I'm thankful
for anyone and everyone who's fighting
mightily for our shared rights— to food
and clean water and air, the fair
reward of our labor, homes
whose floors we'll sweep, where we
can go to bed and rest with no fear
at night. What need have we of a future
that bristles with new hardships but old
hate? I want the trees to just be trees
with no history of bodies dangling
from them like bloated fruit. Marcus
Aurelius said Never let the future
disturb you. You will meet it, if you
have to with the same weapons of reason
which today arm you against the present.
I've heard my neighbor say she has a gun;
I wonder if she considers that an extension
of reason. The Stoics practiced the virtues
of wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation—
they claimed these gave them the discipline
to endure both pleasure and pain, but
especially pain. I admit I've always
had trouble reconciling that kind
of indifference: as if it were a simple
matter to vacate the personal, to keep
my back straight and look evil in the eye
without revealing how I tremble inside.
I read and listen so I might be wise;
and strive to be fair. But I know my heart
can also expand, transmit its joys
like a sun or a moon. Or howl,
as animals do of their suffering.
Having Been Born, to Live
Years later, she remembered how inconsolably
the baby cried, how nothing could soothe except
bouncing the mattress nonstop. She'd lock
both of them in the room, away from others
disturbed by the wail of misfortune issuing
out of the mouth of one so young. But was it
indeed misfortune? What of a life might have
pointed to its development, when the sound
of a window opening or closing was not even
a thing of portent? What is it we mean when
we say May you have a good life? Not that agony
might never visit your door, nor the wish you
might never know the pain of monumental loss.
Perhaps, only that you might live, despite.
Joking
Once, as I explained
the difference between
tercets and triplets
(three lines that rhyme),
a student shared that she
was one of triplets. I joked,
Which one of you is here? I think
it might not have landed; I'm not
really very good at humor, though
sometimes a thought or a word
comes to me that seems amusing.
It's all in the timing, say some
friends. I may not be very good
at that either. I hope you
won't take it against me.
Law of Dialectics
Yeah why not. Let's go somewhere in a dark
automobile at the speed of dreaming, purpose
or no purpose. Sometimes, like now, I get
tired of pondering the sustainability
of survival as a kind of heroism. How long
did you say it took the Praetorian guards
to deliver the heads of their tyrant masters?
There are sons described as having faces
only their mothers could love, yet their mothers
(and even sisters) come forward to testify about
the cruelty of these men. Can you imagine how
that kind of rejection must drive them crazy,
behind their mask of stony indifference? The world
is no more theirs than anyone else's. Their kind
of darkness, small and mean and selfish, is not even
anything compared to that more elemental darkness which,
it is said, precedes the time before the subjugated world
tears off its blinders, so the pendulum can arc to another end.
Why We Should Care
The stump of a tree cut down years ago, finally
softened, has become host to mycelia
Sometimes the smell of grilled meat floats over these houses
On the news tonight, hundreds of dairy cows infected with avian flu
My eye doctor tells me the names of chickens she keeps— Betsy, Trixie, Daisy; one shares the name of one of my daughters
Mornings, just before my husband wakes me, I lose the thread of
a dream
One weekend we buy a tub of pork blood; I wonder why the label
is pork blood instead of pig blood but we will make
a traditional stew
I like "very hard" crosswords; they have interesting
words like abscissa
When I slap a mosquito sucking on the skin of my shoulder, I wonder
if the blood is mine or someone else's
We're all part of the same cellular network
It is the year of the snake and some have taken power
that isn't theirs
Every spore, every bloodstained stone, every word we protect
and won't give surender
Look at the moths that arrow night after night
into basins of uncollected light
Letter to the Thing that Marks Time in my Chest
Dear intermittent constriction beneath the left
side of my ribcage, sometimes you feel bird-
like, and sometimes like a fish in a transparent
bowl. Sometimes you have the gloss of a ripe
summer cherry. Sometimes I detect a rough
orange flash, a fin flailing without direction,
a poorly painted sunset over a broken reef.
Sometimes I wonder if I'd ever have
the courage to put you under— pull
the drapes, slide you into an envelope
and send it away with no return address.
But at the same time, I don't know
where to send you, or what I'd do
in the silence you'd leave behind.
Holds Also Hope
Think back to the day you received the phone
call when ___ was brought to the hospital. What
was the color of the sky before that moment
and then immediately after? Where did the smell
of smoke come from and why couldn't you
get rid of it for days? And think back a season
before, when snow had not yet covered
the ground: the hinge of the box was folded
shut; its cadre of shapeshifting griefs
still lay inside, either quietly or harnessed
to unknown purposes. You must try hard
to remember in any aftermath, even these
once had bones wanting to become flesh,
wanting to be named, called to, forgiven.
Existential
The interviewer asked: if you could,
would you do it, what one thing would it be
that you might change? This is never a fair
question, because of course you know you can't.
You won't ever fit again into that size 8
sheath dress, so give it away. You won't
have gone into that other degree program;
you won't have managed to avert one
stupid decision or another. A thought
experiment is only as good as the score
you expect to get after the exam; and
as you've come to know, expectation
is a false prophet, a bad tarot card
reader who can't tell a cup from a can
of soup or a fool from his shadow.
Everywhere, someone wants a new
beginning. And everywhere, someone
wants something to end. In Long Island,
a hundred thousand ducks were recently
euthanized because of avian flu. Red-
breasted and common mergansers are washing up
dead on Lake Michigan shores. How do you rewind
to the particular moment before the needle went
haywire, before plagues were incredible stories
from a different century? You tell her you wouldn't
change a thing, though looking at what you've already
lived through from where you are now, it's like you
get to feel it all: all over again, a second time.