november

1. It's November:
a warm month
in the afternoon at least
when the sun slants through brown leaves
Its touch turns us to gold:
the patchy grass, the wide wood slats of the fence
standing and rotting,
the weft weaving through leafshadow stripes.


2. Autumn light touches down like Midas—
the old wood slats of the backyard fence
turn gold;
we are enclosed in God's jewelry box:
the sky above us turquoise, silver veined,
the ground beneath us goldpatched,
glittering:
emerald and tourmaline and topaz

3. It's November:
the neighbor's vine
climbs like a curious child
to peer down the brown slats
of the fence
curls dangling down
Our ivy grows green hands to it:
hello,
little visitor,
hello

4. I want to write a poem about November, but
I hate it:
the dead gray sky,
the cold that curls uncoziness around me
like a blanket’s evil twin,
the long months till light.

the glass hearts

ONCE there was a kingdom of glass heart people.

They were very proud of the music that they heard in their ears, whenever they moved: they said it sounded like wind chimes wrapped in silk; or like ghosts playing marimba; or like drowned men dropping bells underwater. Most of their composers tried to mimic the sounds they heard, but it was a music that could not be shared. Each person heard only their own music.

Most of them died young.

There were three sisters who became philosophers together, who learned that their hearts had been shattered at birth. They realized that the music that rang in their ears was really the sound of chips and chunks of glass rattling and singing against each other. And the pieces of glass were cutting into them as they moved, biting into their organs until they bled.

The middle sister was frightened. So she swept up all the pieces of her heart that she could find and put them into a small box; they glittered and shivered at her. And she closed them up carefully in a little drawer, and locked it with a little key, and went on about her work safely. Sometimes she would remember a snatch of the sparkling music she had once heard, and feel wistful, but she never unlocked the little drawer. And she lived a long life, although she was not much loved by the glass heart people.

The youngest sister was brave—or perhaps she was foolish. In fact she was not much of a true philosopher at all; most of her thoughts were tangled up in fairy tales, for she had a great love of stories and sought out tales from all over the world. “I have read of a man who mends things,” she said to her sisters. “Let us go find him; perhaps he can help us.” But her sisters were not willing. So she went by herself. It was not much trouble she had in the finding of him, for the kingdom he lived in was nearby; and she found him there by a lake, mending nets. And the man agreed to help her. Her heart was in so many pieces that it hurt a great deal, and in the end he said it could not be mended. He gave her a new heart, and would take no payment for it. 

The new heart was made of something softer and warmer than glass, and would not shatter, but it gave her trouble and pain all her life; when she returned home her sisters shook their heads at her foolishness, and would not go to the man themselves.

The eldest sister was the wisest of the three. “It is the brokenness that makes our hearts sing so beautifully,” she said. She put her thoughts into a book of poems, which were set to music by one of the foremost composers; although, she said, the music was not anything so beautiful as the chiming and shattering she heard in her own ears. The poems and songs were much loved by all of the glass heart people, and when she died a year later they did not forget her for a long time.

June

June:
a thick and fine
fat
month
sweat slicked
pestridden
sprawling with orange and purple blooms

oh she is wide, not shy
straddles with forks and suckers
June has a smell to her:
mint and sweat and green tomato leaves

June doesn't fit
into the neat dress skyblue
you wrote for her
the glorious bulk of her bulges
June unzips it

June lays her down on the porch swing
wears her sweat sheen
like bling
June frizzes in that thick hot air

June laughs too shrill
cicada long,
her marigolds and zinnias
all clanging together

June is a fine, wide month:
June doesn't care.

she

miurian, infurled
like petals pressed
and pleated
some extravagant flower
of emotional analysis
folded and packed
girdled into this bud

bugridden, byzantine.
Complex, compressed--
We never had the key
for your retrieval.
When will we see
the sail unfurled, sunglaring,
magnificent bloom--

ghost

--if i were a ghost i'd haunt this garden:
lie down below these tomatoes,
be an insect throughway. My sky
an aromatic tangle: green,
with yellow stars

or sink like rain
into the busy dark beneath:
eyeless smell the white roots reach through
my unfleshed restlessness--
Could i rest there

unlit, listening
to worms creep through this deepfurled world
this universe of small things

could i hear roots slowcreep and drink their little drinks--

oh, i could sleep
a long time

a summer long,
tomato life long
from seedsplit to ripe fruit
to rot
to make this dirt more sweet.

Spring scraps

Our backyard today is an island
Wind rushes and roars like the sea
Wrapped around us, and the sounds
Of the streets seem as faroff as dreams.
The trees shiver and cast down their leaves--
Rustle and hiss, like the crashing
Of waves on the sand of the beach--
My barefooted babies dig toes in the dirt,
Build their castles and mountains of leaves
Which the wind laps and licks. It whispers
And spits, till they crumple and slump
round our feet, in their separate leaves.

*
i think sometimes Heaven is a long string
of watermelon days:
hot, unhurried labor in good soil,
dirt black and sweet enough
for thicksprung flourishes--
tomatoes, beans--May be
in heaven there are no weeds-- may be
we know each green thing's name
and name its gift: to us, to its sisters, to the soil
May be
that good ground bears enough
for insects, birds,
for all the little hungry things
and for our tending hands
to pick, and eat
After our day's work: thickskinned,
crisp with its juice,
sweet
In heaven we will have forever
to meet each melon knit into those genes:
to cross, to tend, to grow,
to meet the scarlet, orange, gold
fleshed melons,
to open them and taste
the fruit of thornless labor
We will break them together among us
ripe and sweet
*
Sweet May! The fairest month by far.
What April promised slyly
And then in chill drew back
May brings, all golden smiling,
Drops all her beauties in your lap:
Winds her thick and sweet scents round you
Like winding--and when she's bound you
Scratches at your throat and eyes
With pollen, till you scream to die
And wish her sweets and flowers blight
That you might breathe again at night.

Song (version 2)

thought i saw this woman
black haired woman
walking by

saw her looking at me
with the corner
of her eye

i knew this girl before
i knew her going by

lived with her before
she was no kind of wife

said
i'll be your bracelets
said
let me be your bed

lie down with that girl, that girl: you
might as well be dead


lord her skin is pretty
but you might as well be dead

i said that girl
that girl i loved
she has long dark wavy hair

eyes like spiders
girl
i see you looking there

that woman, she has heavy
arms: thick and white
might wrap those arms around you
in the middle of the night

you might as well be dead then
better off alone
than lie there in the dark with
arms around your bones

i lived with her before once
might live with her again
come knocking on my door, i
guess i'll let her in

come fold me in your arms again
come tell me all your lies
i know the way you treated me

i know it wasn't right
i need someone to hold me

i can see you walking by

i lived with you before now
i can live with you again
i can feel the way you held me still

i guess i'll let you in

sounds

This is a list of the sounds I love:

the birdthick dawn. At six their whistles
are manifold, intent:
sweet squabbling

Felix and Geneva in the next room
are trying to whisper;
giggle,
their Lego's plastic crashes--
their floor is an avalanche
in blues and yellows

I do not love
the coffeepot's unlovely, adenoidal drip
the baby yelling to be uncaged
over the dishes' clink and scrape

I love a two year old's unhesitating best
S, L, R: how proud
they trumpet new, unperfect words!

I love old music. My husband's fingers dancing
medieval tunes:
my bones remember
these dances

I love doxology. The ancient creeds
recited with the saints through history.
I love the Justs and Ums of corporate prayer.
I love it when the preacher starts to shout.

I love to read a newfound poem aloud,
or an old friend.

I love the sounds of summer night,
thick, like sweet wine

and all the sounds of summer days:

the buzz and hum of ceaseless bees
lawnmowers
leafblowers
dog barks
faroff sirens
rushing cars
rap bass rattles

a distant laugh

the small sound the dirt makes
fingersifted:
light and rich enough
to eat
Sometimes, I think I hear the beanshoots growing
so eager-unfearful--
How they grow, and sing!

those beautiful children:
they are lifting up their faces,
they are green and little suns

chicken

my daughter's pink bare feet
fat, and flat beneath her
on the porch concrete

her tiny chinpoint turned
she's perched
like a chicken

she's peering sideyed
eyeballing insects
drift and scramble past

hungry, her perch:
she might dart out her tender neck
to peck up

piecewise--one sixlegged wonder
at a time---peck
up this wide wonderfull, this world

talent

It lies heavy on my palm:
small
and cold
how like a hole
in my hand
how like a chain
around my neck--

how much could i purchase
with this single coin?

It is a weight
i cannot walk with it
to market
to buy or sell
myself

I will bury it
at my feet
and sleep
until
a silver seed
untended
unwatered
it may
perhaps
increase--


will i dream rich dreams for you?
Yes
Let me sleep

song (version 1)

Hello, little snake--it's you again
bluescaled and cold
so heavy
on my skin--

I feel your cold scales pressing,
slipping up my toes
little metal ribbon
pretty ribbon
Friend, hello.

Come be my little anklets,
come weigh my ankles down,
come curl around my ankles,
hold my feet down in the ground.

You don't surprise me
little greysnake, little
friend
i heard your little whispers
i knew you were here
again--

you whispered little secrets
little lies inside my ear
heard you hissing in my headbones and
I knew that
you were here

Come be my little anklets then,
come weigh my dancing down,
come curl around my footbones,
come keep me in the ground.

Greysnake, bluesnake, little
friend
I knew that you were here
again
The way you turn my eyes grey, how
you pull my eyelids down
The way you press against my teeth
every time i smile, or frown

Come be my little anklets then,
come weigh my ankles down,
come be my little friendlet then
come hold me in the ground

I won't go dancing deeply
I won't go far from home
I'll just dip my toes in
wear you wrapped around my bones.