When I was young
Hands pulled at my skirt.
Now children and grandchildren
Tug at my hands
Seventh Century Japanese rice-planting song
Tag: poetry
Falling
There is a reason we call it falling in love
We are always looking forward
and neglect to see the thing
lying at our feet, across the path
It only takes a little tangle in our
toes or in our ankles
to bring our tower of illusions crashing down
Crumbling rationality and reason
independence and clarity
future and past
continuity
sanity
Love leaves us humbled, lying flat
squinting up at her blinding light
grateful for the warmth
Drawing
I thought I might do a drawing today
and maybe you would pose for me
You don’t need to reveal anything that makes you feel uncomfortable
I can see all that I need in the skin
under your eyes
and the positions of your fingers
and the width and length of your lips
Instead a person I love died
and my eyes won’t work that way today
I won’t see fingernails or eyelashes
I won’t see the geometry of your crossed legs
or the devastation of the sunlight that rampages through your hair
The things I see are in-between this
world and another one
One that comes before and also after
the world that embraces both stages of infancy
His cold breath is on all our necks
He wears a watch that tells no time
that only ticks and doesn’t move
that bruises and stretches and breathes heavily
This morning I felt the sun on my chest
like it didn’t know summer was over
that lit a new path for my feet to follow
and offered plausible explanations for
the lies I told myself
about how I’d draw you in stuttering sunlight
and ask you all I want to know
like I didn’t know summer was over
Do Not Go Gentle
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The Way I Came In
I’m going out the way I came in:
Naked, bald, and screaming
I will sink like everyone else
Into the quicksand of lost dreams
And fading, faulty memories
I’m going down the way I came up
With the weight of the world pushing in
Pushing me, always, forward
The Path
There is a path inside my heart
that leads to you
A path of sand for naked feet
to sink into
I walk the path while the sun comes
Out of the sea
And follow footprints that can only
Come from you
I walk the path on a cold night
without a star
I reach into the emptiness
and touch you there
A soft wind blows the sand around
and hides our tracks
So no one knows that we were here,
just you and me
A Shimmery, Summery Sound
I hope, for you,
the singing of the insects is
a shimmery, summery sound
I hope the water that trickles
across the slippery rocks
brings you something that can pass for peace
I hope the light
that filters through
the endless rows of branches,
casts its longest shadows
on the grass that almost tickles
your bare toes and heels and arches
in a way that makes you
smile
