collected poems
I was a daughter instead of a son.
I was a dreamer instead of a student.
I was a tom boy instead of a lady.
I am the last magnolia blossom high in the tree.
I am a lightning strike in a blizzard.
I am the dog who waits at his master's grave.
I find solace in spinning and knitting.
I find peace in gardens and greenhouses.
I find comfort in communities of friends.
I am God's imperfect child.
The cardiologist asks
“Does it hurt?”
“No” I say not knowing
how to describe the
weight and ache.
Veins and arteries branch
heavy and bark covered
from my core, like limbs.
My hands go numb when I drive.
My hips ache at night.
The dark center of my trunk
is warm and hollow
where a nightingale
sings on her nest.
iStock photo
Florida seasons baffle me.
Dead magnolia leaves litter the sidewalk
like tan leather mittens
while white patches of pusley
mimic snow on the grass.
Blue violet Speedwell
hides in the lawn like tiny pansies.
The neighbor's Mimosa tree blossoms.
It's odd to my northern mind
to see flowers in November.
Here in the subtropics,
I am perpetually lost in time.
It would be a shame if controllers went out on strike.
Is it a strike if they're not being paid?
It would be a shame if there was no one to guide
Air Force One back into the country when Trump
returns with his gold crown and Mugunghwa order.
It would be a shame if unpaid essential workers
took a vacation - walked away from security, law and order.
Do we understand essential? Who risks their lives for free?
It would be a shame if Americans decided their President
should stay home when the government is shut down,
if they realized this "Peace Maker's" first obligation is to them.
It would be a shame if we did not see that his promises
have been smoke and mirrors - food prices up, housing up
tariffs and bullying up. Hope down.
Seventy-seven Sunset Strip
Snap Snap
Seventy-seven is as new to me
as my first pregnancy.
Morning electrolytes prevent wobbling .
A plethora of drugs and minerals
protect me from moods and migraines.
Arthritis resculpts my hands.
My neck hates holding up my head.
Time takes its toll
but gives its gifts.
Limitations are not prognoses.
Deafness silences my world but
I can still hear the birds sing.
I'm grateful for the quiet.
Subtitles are simpler and silent.
I remember the oddest things
Seventy-seven Sunset Strip
Snap Snap*
* Theme song from 1958 tv show.
My father loved gardenias.
Easter I'd find one by my place at the table
to wear to church.
Their rich smell and leathery leaves
baffled me as a child.
Later I came to love them.
Gardenias bloom today outside my door.
Dad also loved chocolate.
Chocolate hearts and cards
graced our dinner table each Valentine's Day.
My sister found his giant chocolate bar
after he died.
Mom preferred savory things, sausages, cheeses,
the roses that lined our front walk.
Do fathers still give daughters corsages?
We are so casual now even at church.
(Jeans have their place but it's not everywhere.)
I adore men in summer suits.
Women in gossamer dresses.
Girls in smocked pinafores.
We've misplaced our elegance.
I saw a death’s head in the clouds
with gaping maw and vacant eyes
this morning as I walked my dog.
I gave up portends long ago
letting drink and daydreams go
to choose instead right here, right now.
But these clouds gave me pause.
Helene passed us headed north
slammed towns and hollows in the hills
displaced the gentle mountain folk.
A hundred people lost their lives
in flooding never seen before
the land I thought I knew so well
became a soaked and battered shell.
This earth no longer seems benign
when storm and fire and flood abound.
Volcanos spew and earthquakes shake
we stand no more on solid ground.
With plastic waste from shore to shore
man’s greed continues wanting more.
Despite earth’s message loud and clear
that she no longer wants us here.
My sweet girl.
I have watched you grow
blossom, sometimes struggle.
Who would wish adolescence
on anyone they love?
Like childbirth to life,
these years a
necessary albeit
challenging passage
into adulthood.
I remember Buddha you
straight from the womb.
Unafraid of toads you
In your Alexandria backyard.
Baking bagels you in my
Clinton kitchen.
Knitting you trying when
I visited to master the craft.
Teenage you behind your
bedroom door.
I wish you passion
for something to focus
your mind.
Mentors to speak
to as you grow.
Books to warm
and comfort you.
And the sure knowledge
of how much you are
loved.
Tall hedges surround the house.
The long grass has gone to seed.
Fading peonies hide among the weeds.
Only one wicker chair on the porch has a seat.
I knock on the door and wait.
No one answers though their car is in the drive.
I call Anthony on my cell.
“Cindy! Where are you?”
“I’m on your porch.”
“I’ll be right out.”
Time passes.
I sit on the chair and look at the fields
where sheep once roamed.
The chicken house too is still.
No chickens or peacocks strut its yard.
The air smells of country – grass, pines, sunshine.
Anthony opens the door, and we hug.
He is old, his curly hair gone grey and wild.
His smile wide. Julie sits in the kitchen
talking to herself. She smiles when I say hello
not knowing me or why I’m here.
Anthony makes us coffee from Wards in Newark,
a joy we share. He grew up there.
I’ve brought pignolis – cookies his mother
used to make at Christmas.
We chat and drink our coffee.
Julie stands by back door and looks out - still talking.
She brings something in from the hall to
place by her parents’ photos,
a shrine whose people she no longer knows.
Her eyes shine. She smiles.
Before I leave, Anthony shows me his tomato garden.
It’s perfect. Many plants. Orderly rows.
Fenced to avoid predators – his
escape from incontinence, locked cabinets
the constant vigilance that protects his wife.
He is her husband,
her jailor
her Prince.
Before imperfection
I sought life’s meaning
not knowing the rowing
was it, not the arrival.
Before I became ignorant
I told others what to do
believed I had answers
not knowing even the questions.
Before I became old
I found quiet boring
its slowness a flaw, not knowing
the rowing was all.
We ignore the bag we live in until it chastens us. Cut or burned, bruised or broken out, it becomes visible, heals like magic. In childhood it’s chicken pox, impetigo, measles. In high school it’s bouquets of pimples and ballooning fever blisters. Perfect skin is edible – who doesn’t desire to gobble a baby or study a youth’s perfection? At 20, I eat my way through Europe and acquire stretch marks. At forty, I notice a crack under my chin. A tiny person seems about to remove the scaffolding. At fifty, laugh lines become crevasses. At 73, I drool over nothing. At 75, the thin flesh of my hands is crinkled, ancient. I bruise without notice. Mapped by veins and arteries, this skin’s a phlebotomist’s delight. It cuts like butter. The chin under my chin resembles a whale’s, creased and ridged for expansion. Perhaps I’ll blow a bubble net and rise through the day eating words.
Matter persists they say – not just the stain on your favorite sweater or the mole on your arm. Molecules themselves have endless lives in a material soap opera. This week one’s Christ, then Mozart then Charles Manson. That’s what they say. Descartes believed he thought hence he existed – something his laundress and wife doubted not his dirty socks evidence enough. Who would use his atoms next be thoughtful or obtuse a tree, a bird, a slug? I die therefore I live. We’re each on loan from earth’s library one size fits all pretty or dull, fast or slow joyful or sad. Cinderellas headed to the ball when the clock strikes twelve, we become someone else. Relentlessly frugal earth wastes nothing in its global recycling. So too must the light which animates us continue its journey becoming the sparkle in other eyes or the ache in another's heart.
Before a war we think we know exactly how the war will go. Accountants happily project raised GDP and its effect. Predict each country will adopt a free economy and co-opt democracy who’ll bloom just like a desert rose but that is never how it goes. During war the News Hour lists each soldier whose return is missed and the places they called home, a soldier’s life reduced to loam. No locals named, not friend nor foe who is who? How can we know? The war drags on, a swamp, a mire repeating tours, souls under fire. It’s forgotten once we start wars pay for nothing not a part of their pile of pain and loss yet we ignore the total cost. Lives, limbs and minds are left behind. We're told the same lies every time. The goals and actions are a fake leave ravaged landscape in their wake. Once home, our soldiers dream the war and wonder what it all was for.
How fine to dine on clouds and color!
Why can’t we eat clouds?
The tall white ones would be
vanilla like Turkish taffy. Grey
scudding clouds black as Necco
wafers. Snow clouds pure as rock candy
whose crystal splinters
melt on the tongue.
Green tornado clouds taste darkly
of Key West and Matcha tea.
Dawn’s pink clouds are gossamer, light
as cotton candy at the church fair.
Sunset cloud's tang colorful
and sweet as Life Savers.
How fine to dine on clouds and color!
A stranger stands ahead of me in line at the Post Office in a dusty black hat grey gauze hanging below its rim. Her neck, also dusty, is bent, the vertebrae like tiny peaks. An old black jacket hangs from her shoulders. As she stands in line, she tugs at the jacket to straighten it. Her worn black pants fall to just above the cast on her ankle. Gauze wraps that too. I am afraid to stand near her, hang back as the line moves forward. I cannot see her face but fear it may be ghastly. Her turn comes at the counter. I’m next. When I glance over, I recognize her. She is the gypsy I’ve seen here so often. Her dark penciled brows and bold rouged cheeks usually paired with dark skirts and tops. Today, hurt, she does not look herself. She leaves a suitcase by the door while she gets her mail. That task complete, she straightens her jacket, collects her suitcase and wheels it and her pain back into the world.
depositphotos_150954514_xl.jpegOctober 11, 2021
As I approach the river in the fog
a heron takes flight, dark winged angel.
“Good morning, Mom.” I say.
Since her death, I greet
each heron and feel blessed
by the sighting. Mom’s love
of nature saved my life.
When sun sparkles
on saltwater and I feel
the wash of waves,
Jamie, my summer brother, is near.
As teens, we surfed September breakers
then collapsed onto the sand
laughing always
laughing.
All my old boyfriends are
dead (except the one I live with.)
Maurie, lifted his 6’4”
frame into the boat like a wet otter,
his homely face offset by
a quick wit. His farm town
roots were exotic to this suburban girl.
He believed withdrawal would work.
Good thing we broke up.
John, a handsome bad boy,
drove his dad’s T-bird.
Had a wicked sense of humor.
His mother looked like Bloody Mary.
He was my first male obsession.
He rose at Jamie’s funeral
to hug me, share our grief
for old times, old backseats
old friends.
Ann died last year. Forty years
of friendship, knitting and laughter.
Each project and strange new style
prompts me to call her.
Each knitting success is hers.
In New Mexico, when Linda
decided to drive - Ann and I
jumped in the back seat.
I am still laughing.
When the tall stranger steps into my kitchen in his tux asks for coffee and brioche, I’ll slip up to my room don my gown, plait my hair curl with a favorite book in my reading chair. With wind brushing my skin soft music in the air, I won’t invite him in. But when his face appears, I’ll smile and say “Darling, I’ve been waiting here.”
A hundred questions
cross my mind
What was that song dad used to hum?
What college did my mom attend?
Where did Aunt Marge’s friend come from?
I failed to ask
or make a note
of many things
while they were here
just within reach
alive and near.
A hundred questions
cross my mind
About Dad’s mom
who died so young.
I’ve no idea what she died from.
My favorite stories too are gone
The battleship
for whom Dad played
Hail to the Queen
a serenade.
Salts stood attention at the rail
Dad asked them down to
drink and sail.
He went onboard to drink instead.
These questions come
at oddest times
Old photos with the names now gone
A tune, a food, a place, a song
I wonder and will wonder long.
Banker Bob wears suspenders and a bow tie is older than God rents rooms to the newly sober bridges no bullshit. Old school AA he brooks no whining insists newbies suit up and show up. Never loses sight of the disease that wants to kill us. He is just a man many years sober doing what we are taught saving lives. Don’t talk, listen. Don’t try, do. Walk the talk. Keep it simple. Help another alcoholic.
Abuse is subtle
Nothing friends see
I'm blamed for his mistakes
He credits my work to himself
Observes I'm “almost” thin enough
Implies small things lacking
If only I were smarter, prettier, quieter
He laughs when I fail
Photographs my clumsiness
Ignores my success
Mumbles under his breath
the whispered threat
“I’m getting angry.”
He pouts childlike when ignored
Hovers over me in arguments
Buries the kitchen table in papers
Resists clearing it even for parties.
Holds my arm tightly lest I leave
The Christmas tree he promises to take down
remains up until Easter.
His hatchet for cutting up chicken
for the dogs rests against the hoosier.
It gives me pause.
He harangues me while I book vacation.
I select the seats.
I'm in 13A
He’s in 32B.
Each night I wait.
I watch out the window.
I count cars
that appear on the road.
See their headlights grow
then dwindle as they
continue past on
two lanes heading north.
“If I count ten cars, he’ll come.”
“If I count twenty…”
I hope we will drive to the light
and talk and laugh
but he may not appear.
I sit at the window until
late, the night gone.
Disappointment’s my reward.
All evening
I'm held hostage to hope.
My job – suspense, submission.
His – choice and power.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation, diverse and indivisible, created and preserved by the love and labor of indigenous people, slaves and immigrants for their children and their children’s children as one nation with freedom to worship, to love, to marry and to seek the truth and insist on its telling and to preserve this fragile earth with respect, liberty and justice for all.
Nothing says elder like grab bars installed in your shower and tub to keep one from slipping when soapy and dripping and hitting the floor with a thud. Nothing says senior like sneakers worn with any and all sorts of dress to keep one from wobbling ungracefully hobbling though safe, not designed to impress. Nothing says ancient like groaning every time one gets up or bends down and the need for a prop to help pull oneself up lest you’re stuck all day long on the ground. Nothing’s as lovely as living long enough for what’s listed above letting go of the strife and arranging your life with a focus on those whom you love.
She is sixteen when leukemia claims her a girl of nut-brown hair and letter sweaters the brightest star in the local firmament. She outshines her brother even in death. The church overflows onto Route 12 the April afternoon of her funeral. She leaves behind a mother, a brother, a father. Each evening the family sits at her graveside as if awaiting benediction. That summer her friends bring picnics to her grave. The red votive lamp on her headstone is always lit. It shines in easy view of the family’s kitchen window and glows warmly through blizzard, rain and star shine. Deer walk daily through the churchyard years sift down like snow. The son graduates, moves to Bradford. The father works and works and works. The mother sits by the glowing lamp. Deposit Photos Image 124351762_xl_2015.jpg
If I call myself Beloved
I cannot trade my life for trinkets.
I must not pursue more than my due.
I may not treat my body like a dumpster.
If I call the stranger Beloved
I cannot smash his head with a bat.
I must remove my hand from his pocket.
I may not force myself on his wife.
If I call the earth Beloved
I cannot mine her oceans.
I must not poison her air.
I may not abuse her wildlife.
Beloved,
I become one with the moth on the screen,
the mouse in its nest, the hawk in
the sky.