Learning My ABC and D's

I have always liked the idea of writing a poem every day as an exercise. However, without something concrete to focus on, the idea gets me nowhere.

Until now! Somehow a conversation with my dad about a James Madison biography prompted me to use letters of the alphabet as a framework for daily writing. Overall, I'm enjoying this exercise, but am not happy with pieces "C" or "D". With "C", I am not sure about the abrupt ending, but don't like the longer versions I've come up with. "D" is just a place holder until something better comes along.

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A B C D

A

The afternoon we waited for space junk

to fall, somewhere, probably not near us

in our house in our luminous city

where planes land and leaves spiral

like ladies at the circus spinning off the trapeze

we would have preferred a supernova

seeing a star try to run away

from its own brightness

not another satellite returning.

B

I once looked up the word beachhead;

it refers to enemy space but sounds

like we should climb there on weekends

build a summer house there

feeling wise as we watch shore birds

pluck fish from the water and make

suburban zen of the sea spray

thinking it good to come across

and that we expected it to be

like the girl with a shell to her ear

saying she can hear the ocean.

C

I miss the coast road outlining the end of the country

sugar cane fanning itself by the newly built highway,

how it winds around like a corn maze reminding me

of Mary losing Jesus in the crowded caravan

and finding him, one more story for her to wonder at.

I am not like that, keeping in the heart what might work out

the way of a nursery rhyme: leave it alone, it will come home.

I miss the ride.

D

Diana, my least favorite

goddess, you never let a girl

save herself.

Your modus is change

for the sake of not changing:

nymphs escape because you keep them

moving, cold stream or laurel

like one of your silver arrows

aimed at something higher than a lover.

He will keep hunting

what you would rather remake

hard as the wood of a tree.