wash

August 25, 2022

STRING QUARTET

The violinists’ laughter and tears
are flung from her flying bow,
drip from his elbow,
and wash over the stilled audience –
we can taste the sea
as we threaten to capsize.

The viola is the older brother
now steadying, now caught
in the wave, riding
its dizzying course,
dragging us in its wake.

The cello is a torso, the cellist
a surgeon, her hands
plucking small miracles
from stretched gut,
shouting for, then at,
the still stunned gods.

Somewhere, Brahms
must be smiling.

First Published in The Right to Depart, Plain View Press, 2008.

July 17, 2022

SURGERY

Preparing it to undergo
the knife, its core excised,
stem cast aside, sliced
then cut into pieces
I pause to consider that
this pear was once
a blossom, a delicate
white flower, its cranberry
red anthes soon to turn
black, picked carefully,
cradled into a bushel,
by a knowing hand,
washed, and gently
packed for shipment.
For me it was just
plucking it from the bin
at the market, holding
it in the harsh lighting
looking for blemishes,
and then placing it
in the cart, then the bag
hoping it would not
bruise before undergoing
its final surgery.

July 14, 2022

MORNING

In that moment
when the gentle chirping
of a small bird
resounds as a pounding
spring deluge, washes away
the creak and thrum
of passing cars, when she sings
only to you, her small voice
drawn in to your ears, your
mind, until it fades
slowly like the bell
and you wait for it
to strike again, to feel
it seep down your spine,
ooze into your fingers
and toes, pool in bent
knees and elbows, folded hands.
In that moment
the gentle chirping
is your voice, and you
are perched in the weeping
cherry tree in the garden
preening in the morning sun.


First published in Creatopia, Issue 5, Spring 2022
https://creatopia.studio/creatopia-collection-magazine/spring-2022-renewal-magazine/

July 7, 2022

SPRING

She says her favorite month
is May, when spring’s grip
is tightest, but most of all
she cherishes the rain.
She is intimate with the rain,
there is a privacy that only
she can concede, if she wants.
She can take a drop of rain
and it is hers alone, she need
only share it with the sky,
it is always clean on her tongue.
She may borrow rain
from the trees, catch it
as it slides from leaves,
or watch it slowly tumble
from the eaves of the house
she remembers from childhood.
She loves walking barefoot
through fresh fallen puddles
as it washes bitter memories
into the willing earth.

First published in Creatopia, Issue 5, Spring 2022
https://creatopia.studio/creatopia-collection-magazine/spring-2022-renewal-magazine/

April 6, 2022

IMAGINE

I think it might have been
a passionate love letter
I wrote to you last week
but never delivered

although there is the remote
possibility it was just
our grocery list, both
have line breaks after all,

but it does show why
I must remember to check
the pockets of my jeans
before I put them in the washer.

So let’s agree that it was
that passionate love letter,
and you can swoon thinking
of the things you imagine I said.

March 31, 2022

ON THE SHELF

He found the cup by the curb one morning walking to the bus. He rarely notice things on his walk, thinking always about the day ahead. But this day he saw it, picked it up and put it in his messenger bag intending to clean it later, when he got home after work. He had no idea why he wanted it. It wasn’t particularly pretty, a drab red with a mark where a decal had long ago peeled away. He forgot it, until he found it in his bag several days later, he washed it and placed it on a special shelf in his kitchen cabinet. The shelf was reserved for things he found with which he intended to do something, but that something had not yet happened. He knew something was missing from the shelf, so he took a selfie, printed it and placed it on the shelf.

First Published in The Birdseed, Vol. 1, Issue 3, 2022
https://the-birdseed.com/volume-1-issue-3/

February 19, 2021

SENBAZURU

10,000 origami cranes
floated down over Tokyo
each bearing the soul
of one gone in nature’s recent fury.
Each crane cried freely
the tears flowing into the Sumida
forming a wave that washes
back to the sea, replenishing its loss.
We, too, shed our tears
and look skyward
sad in the knowledge
that with each passing day
still more cranes
will fill the sky
more tears seep back
to the still angry sea.

May 9, 2020

SO TO SPEAK

It has taken 67 years, but
I have finally arrived at what
I want to do and be when I
finally grow up, which should
happen any day now, but
please don’t hold your breath.

In this modern age, there is
an ever present and growing
need for euphemists, and I
am perfectly suited for it.

Just this month I could
have offered social distancing,
not to mention those who now
must shelter in place everywhere,
and I’m working on several more,
though I may no longer have time
on my hands, for I know if I did
I’d have to immediately wash them.

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com 

April 19, 2020

WHEN I GROW UP

It has taken 67 years, but
I have finally arrived at what
I want to do and be when I
finally grow up, which should
happen any day now, but
please don’t hold your breath.

In this modern age, there is
an ever present and growing
need for euphemists, and I
am perfectly suited for it.

Just this month I could
have offered social distancing,
not to mention those who now
must shelter in place everywhere,
and I’m working on several more,
though I may no longer have time
on my hands, lest I somehow become
collateral damage, for I know if I did
I’d have to immediately wash them.