p.a.d. THE FINAL DAY! I did it! WooHoo!

To Conclude

I gave you this kiss before
you said goodbye—I give it
to you again—I want you to
take it, but you, of course,
are already dancing,
crushing blackberries
for mead—purple and
red—and the soles of your
feet are stained, and your hair
is long and loose and glints
like copper in the sunshine.

In the light somewhere, I,
of course, stand, trying to
give you this kiss—paper
angels perch on the
branches of an apple tree—
you are already dancing in
a dress of silk that flutters like
the poppies that grow
through the lumped stones
of your tomb toward
a sky that shifts shape
like the sea.

poem a day challenge - april 29, 2009

Never Turn Your Heart to Stone

Though times are hard
never turn your heart to stone—
never let it grow black as
Kilkenny coal,
splintery as shale,
eroded as limestone.
Let it bloom
like the rock rose
in the poorest of conditions—
turn your face to the sun
even though the road
you walk is dark.

p.a.d. challenge -- day 28 (two more to go)

Portrait

Even in monochrome, her eyes are blue,
third eye blues, her self-
less eyes calm and bless
the church mice who whisper
Love is patient, love
is kind in the blue forest

of her eyes. In the forest
her eyes are never blue
but red, the color of love,
she crosses herself
before the red filter and whispers
May your presence bless

them. Her spectral red tears bless
the creatures of the forest,
even the butterflies that whisper
rustles and susurrations of blue
and know nothing of true love.

Her eyes are love,
they look to bless
the mole that hides himself
underground in forests
of dirt, subterranean blues
masquerading as nocturnal whispers.

Imperfections diminish like a whisper,
the photographer helplessly in love
with the beautiful blue-
stocking reaching out fingers to bless
him, her eyes a deciduous forest
and everywhere falling the leaves of self-

dom. Love is self-
ish he whispers,
but the words are swallowed by the forest,
her eyes the green of love,
lush and barbless,
intoxicating as a young girl's whisper.

I knew her when her eyes were blue, her self-
pollination a blessing, her whispers
of love patient as a forest.

p.a.d. 27 april 2009

Longing

Once,
in the backyard,
I pulled a flower head
off the rose bush—
I smelled your
sweet, grassy skin—
your cheek brushed
against my lips—
I fell on the grass
between the back door
and the garden gate—
I lay there believing
the back door led to
the black and white
checker board floor
of your old house on
Dublin Street—and the
garden gate was an open
window—
I only had to go one way
or the other—but I was
stuck in the middle—and
in that quiet, hesitating moment
the sky billowed and
rain began to fall.

p.a.d. 26 april 2009

On His Bedroom Floor

When I go in to
give him a taste—
nothing but big brown
boots—two crumbling
towers—stare at
me—stick their
tongues out—

laugh—
large, silent
laughs—they
shake &
convulse.

I throw my
wooden spoon—
beans splatter—abstract
expression on his
bedroom floor—

I cry because
now I want
to laugh too.

poem-a-day challenge ... 25 april 2009

4th of July

Nothing is quite the way it
used to be—not my bladder, not
my breasts—and I am hungry
for only one thing: fish. I feel
more awkward than normal—
a gap-toothed girl who
dived in way over her head.

The doctors predict a
miscarriage but the child
swimming inside me is a
miracle—doesn't every
mother say that?—and some
people's predictions can be
deceptively cruel.

In the middle of Spring, I let it
all spill out. Some of them are
fascinated, watching me like
a television set as I predict the
day of your birth, your sex, that
you're a late sleeper—but most of them
shake their heads and leave the room
as if I'm foolish, or completely mad.

Imagine what they'd think if
I told them that your fraternal great
grandfather—who passed on before
I ever met your father—visited
me in a dream and told me about
a newborn baby boy, eyes
the exact blue of mine, who
would be born to the sound of
fireworks over the Puget Sound.

p.a.d. -- april 24, 2009

A Photograph Taken in Mexico

Her face has already given in to despair
otherwise her bracelet would not dazzle so--

watch it spin as she smokes her cigarette--

round and round--

her eyes are still as stones
but the perfect circle of that bracelet
turns like life.