2012: What Could Be

Happy New Year! I am getting a head start on 2012 with the New Year's Eve post about a project I need help tackling.

This weekend, we visited the stunning new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. More on that another time, although, honestly, there's nothing I could write that could give you even the littlest bit of an idea of how phenomenal that place is, so just visit it yourself, or take a look at the website

 www.crystalbridges.org



 Anyway, I found a book called A Year of Mornings in the museum gift shop. I'd heard about the blog, but had never seen the images in person:

3191ayearofmornings.com/mornings


I love the whole idea of this, and wonder if anyone would want to attempt something similar with me, using words and phrases rather than photos? Just leave a comment if it interests you, and we'll see what happens.

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.

------

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.

Pigeon Revision

Pigeon



I hate their eyes
taking in the park.

They show up,
touch crumbs like Midas

rock colored wings
in the rock colored street

beneath lightning arc of starlings.

October Poem: Besides Squirrels, This Is All I've Got

Pigeon

I hate their eyes

taking in the park

like a harvest.

They show up                           for gold

touching crumbs

like Midas

they stay                                  with rock colored wings

in the rock colored street

                                                  beneath rows of starlings

                                                   like airplanes leaving

Seven Miles Per Second

Escape Velocity

It’s possible someone made this

calculation watching horses

the blur of grass stained hooves,

white foam cooling their necks.

There might be a connection

between this running through pasture

and how fast we have to go

to slip from the particulars of gravity

because we are like other animals

making circles, going back

for apples and sugar cubes

and staying there, tied to a cart

September, So Much Farther

Chrysanthemum

The petals curling over themselves

like girls at a concert figuring out

how close they are

could be an emblem for heaven

golden heads blending in that way

of girls again, lined up to meet their idol

just as dramatic, these blossoms

scattering like girls after a show then

someone says you were killed in Afghanistan

and I think of that book about Japan

the sword and the flower like girls

thinking of what to say when

night vision and drones quit

their usually melismatic tune

technical words getting spun

around like girls not knowing where they are

or why they should be

dragged into this poem. 

September So Far

Cold front moves in

to our place like the old

missionaries I’ve read about

starlings taking summer on

to their busy wings the burden

of warmth.