Mirrors
Trees know what we don’t know:
To live fully, they just need to stretch
up to the sun & reach down into bedrock.
Air & anchor, their branches & roots
mirror each other and fan out
like hair on a pillow, extending
towards the sun & the earth’s center;
every inch of growth closer to their temple
is an act of worship, a pilgrimage of living.
Showing posts with label poemaday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poemaday. Show all posts
Monday, February 22, 2021
Sunday, February 21, 2021
Day 18 of #the100dayproject - The last day I wrote poems in a café
The last day I wrote poems in a café
The café was full of people dripping
from the rain outside. I sat at a long table
flanked by many different people
sipping their coffees and eating pastries.
I talked to the woman across from me,
asked her what she was writing on her laptop.
She wrote content for hospitals and the CDC
and she was writing about this new virus.
She was worried about it, but she nor I
knew that this would be the last time
we would sit down in a café to talk or
strike up a conversation with a stranger.
We didn’t know that it would be the last
time we would see other faces without a mask,
or exchange breath as if the air we breathed
wasn’t shared between everyone in the café,
as if our breath was ours and ours alone,
but just like the long table, our coughs, sneezes,
sighs, laughs; everything was communal, collective.
The café was full of people dripping
from the rain outside. I sat at a long table
flanked by many different people
sipping their coffees and eating pastries.
I talked to the woman across from me,
asked her what she was writing on her laptop.
She wrote content for hospitals and the CDC
and she was writing about this new virus.
She was worried about it, but she nor I
knew that this would be the last time
we would sit down in a café to talk or
strike up a conversation with a stranger.
We didn’t know that it would be the last
time we would see other faces without a mask,
or exchange breath as if the air we breathed
wasn’t shared between everyone in the café,
as if our breath was ours and ours alone,
but just like the long table, our coughs, sneezes,
sighs, laughs; everything was communal, collective.
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Day 16 of #the100dayproject
Hibernation
It is hard to untangle my limbs from yours.
The morning weighs heavier than our comforter
and the sun is not the sun, but a diffused gray
like fluorescents flickering through shuttered blinds.
I do not want to move, but I move, my feet touch
the floor in a shuffle of warm skin on cold hardwood.
I am always the first up and the heat must be turned on,
the coffee made, the toilet flushed, the naked body
weighed on the scale. I am too much of myself.
I will not relent, but I want to crawl back into bed
and only weigh the same as the air between cover
and sheet, slip my feet beneath the mass of down,
hide my head until like a fever, the clouds break,
until winter breaks, until the world is worthy
of my presence and the sun shines through the window
perspiring my forehead and the slope of my upper lip.
It is hard to untangle my limbs from yours.
The morning weighs heavier than our comforter
and the sun is not the sun, but a diffused gray
like fluorescents flickering through shuttered blinds.
I do not want to move, but I move, my feet touch
the floor in a shuffle of warm skin on cold hardwood.
I am always the first up and the heat must be turned on,
the coffee made, the toilet flushed, the naked body
weighed on the scale. I am too much of myself.
I will not relent, but I want to crawl back into bed
and only weigh the same as the air between cover
and sheet, slip my feet beneath the mass of down,
hide my head until like a fever, the clouds break,
until winter breaks, until the world is worthy
of my presence and the sun shines through the window
perspiring my forehead and the slope of my upper lip.
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Day 15 of #the100dayproject
Mirrors II
All mirrors are charades, deceptions,
it can show you what you are, a body,
but itself shows a body without volume
a body that doesn’t take up space.
Wafer like or like a waif, my mirror-self
a malnourished doppelganger, a shadow,
never a whole. And I wonder sometimes
how much envy my second self holds
always the mirror, but never the mirrored.
All mirrors are charades, deceptions,
it can show you what you are, a body,
but itself shows a body without volume
a body that doesn’t take up space.
Wafer like or like a waif, my mirror-self
a malnourished doppelganger, a shadow,
never a whole. And I wonder sometimes
how much envy my second self holds
always the mirror, but never the mirrored.
Day 14 of #the100dayproject
Mirrors I
My old house came with an art deco mirror;
spotted with age, losing its silver backing.
It leaned elegantly against the basement
wall, elegant and fragile like a snowflake
that could melt or if cold enough, keep shape.
Each time I descended into the basement,
I would look like a ghost had inherited my body.
My eyes were not mine, my mouth thin,
and my hair flowing as if I held a static charge.
My old house came with an art deco mirror;
spotted with age, losing its silver backing.
It leaned elegantly against the basement
wall, elegant and fragile like a snowflake
that could melt or if cold enough, keep shape.
Each time I descended into the basement,
I would look like a ghost had inherited my body.
My eyes were not mine, my mouth thin,
and my hair flowing as if I held a static charge.
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Day 13 of #the100dayproject2021
Body Parts II
Having hands is to have purpose
to do, make, destroy, take, give.
Each point of a finger, each flick
or pop of a knuckle. Every hand
contains a universe of skin, bone,
muscle. Bone moves like piano keys
trying to breach the surface of skin.
These fingers like hammers, pens,
spoons, wrenches. All of them dancers
who have rehearsed and rehearsed
and finally ready for the show.
to do, make, destroy, take, give.
Each point of a finger, each flick
or pop of a knuckle. Every hand
contains a universe of skin, bone,
muscle. Bone moves like piano keys
trying to breach the surface of skin.
These fingers like hammers, pens,
spoons, wrenches. All of them dancers
who have rehearsed and rehearsed
and finally ready for the show.
Day 12 of #the100dayproject
Body Parts
My feet, how forgotten they are,
those joints and strange bones.
Crustacean like, born in a paleo-
lithic era, no mouth, eye, nose, or ear;
just creatures carrying all that weight,
like Atlas holding Earth on his shoulders.
My feet, how forgotten they are,
those joints and strange bones.
Crustacean like, born in a paleo-
lithic era, no mouth, eye, nose, or ear;
just creatures carrying all that weight,
like Atlas holding Earth on his shoulders.
Monday, February 15, 2021
Day 11 of #the100dayproject
Grit
I carried three gallons of water
On my back, descending
Into the cradle of Coyote Gulch,
And I carried my blood, sweat,
& tears out, climbed up red sand dunes.
I walked until my feet blistered
& bled, until I thought my body
could not take any more pain.
I kept walking, still I moved.
Night closed around me.
I walked through the desert,
The stars opening the sky
Into a charred lace.
I was not afraid,
I was sure.
I could not leave this earth
without sharing the sacred,
my pilgrimage through
our planet’s temple.
I carried three gallons of water
On my back, descending
Into the cradle of Coyote Gulch,
And I carried my blood, sweat,
& tears out, climbed up red sand dunes.
I walked until my feet blistered
& bled, until I thought my body
could not take any more pain.
I kept walking, still I moved.
Night closed around me.
I walked through the desert,
The stars opening the sky
Into a charred lace.
I was not afraid,
I was sure.
I could not leave this earth
without sharing the sacred,
my pilgrimage through
our planet’s temple.
Day 10 of #the100dayproject
Landscapes of the Body
I’ve been to dressing rooms,
tried on bras, dresses, pants,
& blouses. Each article of clothing
like trying on a different self:
Who I could be, what I would be.
If only I could fit this body
into a new self.
I’ve been to dressing rooms,
tried on bras, dresses, pants,
& blouses. Each article of clothing
like trying on a different self:
Who I could be, what I would be.
If only I could fit this body
into a new self.
Friday, February 5, 2021
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