**Poetry: Falling

Falling

She asks us to travel

to a place without words

a place of connection

with ones who have gone

before.

I think of the earth-body

groping blindly 

in the falling white

and I resist-

stringing sentences,

as every writer must,

like crumbs to find our 

way back through the storm.

There was a time

I dipped into pools of paint,

Black, covering a page

but for a streak of light

which I clung to for life. 

Losing words can feel 

like this. 

Or any of these: 

The blank page staring back,

taunting, with silence.

The pencils locked in silver cages. 

Sexton on shelves.

The lure. 

Or this:

The clay bottom of the riverbed

fertile and moist. 

The pull of bodies. 

You and I

falling

(gasping 

for breath)

into the sea

of each other’s eyes. 

**Poetry: The Poem Gets Lost

The poem got lost this week, 
I overheard it saying. 

There was just too much to do. 

The poem had a mammogram

and papers to sign

teenagers to drive

and cats to feed. 

This poem is middle-aged- 

which is a solid, practical

age to be-

even if lately it has felt 19. 

This poem dreams of wandering

the rocks and, it admits,

has spent a few mornings

at the playground on swings, 

filled up

with the most delicious imaginings.

But there are still bills to pay

and reports to write

and the ongoing drudge

of domestic negotiation

So the poem continues

its business

jotting words on index cards- 

Butter. Cereal. Petrified River-

while baking a batch of truffle brownies. 

It will linger for now-

the sweet taste of chocolate

on the lips of lines-

licking its fingers clean.

**Poetry: Grounding

 Grounding

Stay close to the ground. 

Look for salamanders.

  Listen for the sound

of water.

Remember:

You are 

the one who walks

one foot in front

of the other.

Keep an eye on the children:

they know how to fall-

 

and to return

like springs.

Remember:

You are river too-

frozen 

and longing

for a lingering liquid release.

Look to the elders:

Their limbs know the way,

the well-worn paths of Olympus,

by heart.

Listen. 

The beats of these steps-

palpitations of a universe-

keep time;

the clock-like pulse

steadies;

the pull of gravity

holds you in place,

holds you exactly 

where you belong.

**Poetry: Hunger Games

 

This is not a survival game

of the fittest

And if you are starving

go help yourself to something 

from the kitchen.

We are not living in primitive times- 

though the hunger 

might keep you awake

tossing and turning

with insatiable need

yearning
for a certain comfort. 

Today I lie with my fist

open-closed 

pumping blood

from a vein

into a thin tube. 

Lives have been saved

this way, you know. 

And as the numbers rise,
the ICU’s have little to spare.

It’s just a response- if you care- 

not Perpetua’s cross. 

It’s what these

scraggly-bearded vets 

on long cots are here for, 

who must have known

the cost. 

So fine- serve me the blame- 

how I have taken your soul 

with too much thirsting for life. 

But life and breath are not games-

but gifts-

and if you follow the plot line long enough

you’ll learn what these old men already know: 

That it was never about fighting to the death

but only about sharing bread

to keep one another alive.

**Poetry: The girl breaks an egg

 

The girl breaks an egg

for E.G.

It is a cruel experiment, really- 

the high school health class 

annual egg-carrying challenge.

One cautious adolescent

has tucked hers in tight-

named the oval baby

Florence, and is singing

it to sleep.

The other is not so carefully

inclined. Her egg

stashed among notebooks 

and supplies

does not survive the bell-

shells and gooey glair

now coating the stairs.

In the real world

eggs outlive most tumbles

though some are indeed lost-

the frozen ones no longer viable,

the bloody aftermath of mucous and tears.

There is no counting on survival-

and certainly not without care.

This child fell two weeks in.

I recall

a moment of silence-

and the gasp of relief

as she let out a giant wail.

She will get through this too- 
cracked, perhaps, and a little sore-

not over-easy, just scrambled

at times-

as we all are
in becoming-
be it omelet or meringue-
transformed.

**Poetry: Wolf Moon at Tu B’Shevat

 

Wolf Moon at Tu B’Shevat

Yesterday was the birthday of trees.

And today

the first full moon of the new year

greets the morning

It hovers behind

pink streamers of cloud,

decorating the dawn

You step cautiously on the frozen

driveway- and wonder

Are these days of beginning 

or of loss? 

They say wolves cry not from hunger

but from mourning- 

Yet, even still, the maples 

are murmuring through roots

And the sap in these limbs

is preparing to rise.

So it is with the heart: 

the howling.
And the healing

flow through ice.

**Poetry: This Much Is True

(in memoriam)

I know this much is true- 

That kindness in men exists. 

Of course kindness is queer.

It was not made male or female,

Though it is beyond doubt

The very image of God

But I am speaking about 

that space in low-noted sentences

where softness grows

without care for money or fame-

Or the way an old gent's laughter

gets sprinkled like fairy dust

to guide the footsteps

of one who is lost.

This kindness tells you 

you are worthy- 

Love is not earned, 

but birthright

It is a gift you received as a child

that does not end

with the closing of the casket

Or the years that have stretched 

out bony and starving between you.

Where there was Nothing 

material

to be gained

that was any use 

to the soul. 

But those who were given

the gift

understood 

the ways loss

carves a space for caring- 

And kindness 

is not something to be hoarded

but shared-

like a soft place to rest

or a hot cup of coffee

served

from his warm, strong hands.