As Mourning Doves Persist

My teenage daughter has had her heart broken. There is a journey ahead now. We have all been here too more than once, most likely, in our lives, but that is no consolation as she holds her face against the soft inside of her forearm, crying that she does and does not know what to do. This afternoon is the first public reading from my poetry collection, The Shape of Caught Water . Though the book will not officially launch until Spring, I will stand up and bare my heart in a room of strangers and friends as winter light stripes the air in the museum where history hangs on the walls.  As I was looking at the table of contents to select poems for the reading, I realized how many of the poems were written for or about my daughter. She is a "chip off of my heart", I typed to someone I'd not seen in thirty years earlier today, describing the awe-inspiring child I gave birth to. She is blistering hot and cold like lemonade and iced tea; she carries the rain in her precious h

Now I am in receipt of 62 pages of chicken scratch, brilliant interventions like ants on PDF scroll. Insert hair space. Begin new paragraph. Move right. Move left. It's a marching band of squiggles. But, really, I am grateful for the all-seeing eyes of a editor who knows too the music inside the lines, despite the marks of which there are many. He points out that it's the vases that never empty of water, not the roses. Although I must admit the image in my mind now of yellow roses with petals full of damp curiously conjures the springy touch of aloe vera broken from its home before you slice it open, releasing the balm to apply to a scrape.  I read the margin's menu carefully, a page at a time, remembering another language, that of the proofreader's marks. From The Shape of Caught Water : This morning the mourning dove's call, overridden  by far off traffic sounds, I walk the hallway with  fingertips on the walls, braille in surrender. What will arrive

When I first began posting on this blog I was inspired by a weekly horoscope that offered the following: "...It's important that you do what you do best without any embellishment, pretentiousness, or self-consciousness. Don't you dare try to hard or think too much or twist yourself like a contortionist to meet ... expectations. Trust the thrust of your simple urges." For ten months I worked collaboratively on a manuscript of imaginary letters with a dear, longtime friend only to eventually scrap it, or, let's say temporarily set it aside to age. We felt we could no longer move forward due to constraints that were being placed on the work from the outside. It was our decision that we were in fact twisting and contorting, re-writing and subsequently producing something that began to no longer resemble the original work. This simply didn't feel right. We opted to hold true to the initial intention. I then began assembling a book-length manuscript of poems and

Rising from the damp ditch of short sleep acequia lady picks up her traveling mandolin to accompany boom box bass on wheels passing on the wet street. Bus comes by. Push brake hiss at the rigid stop sign corner. Wistful 'o' in the mouth of the bronze mother in the artist's yard floats as if a piano in her esophagus is escaping.

Entire summer days, we run slick pavement. Hurl ourselves from a low board into cool water for shiny pennies tossed. Underwater tea parties and handstands. Skinny legs in the air ready to ignite. At night from a back bedroom window, I spy on the swimming pool. Light left on illuminates  the moving rectangle of blue. Hole my father dug to hold us there. My sister and brother asleep in the same room. Outside, bats like dark kites dare the night.

Clouds or not. This tent marks the clearing.  Corners stitched together  make honeycomb cocoon.  Someone crawled out, solitary, first  to assemble breakfast. Bacon and berries and bread drenched in batter. Someone gathered lost shoes. Arranged palm-sized rocks. Shuffled canvas chairs to circle the fire pit still smoking, to awaken day's amphitheater. Brothers paired for strumming. Cousins who linger in nap tents  to talk,  stretching. Redwood trees and rock river quietly flatter silver banks. Kayaks of fathers. Monarchs, arching, glide. Someone stitched these burgundy seams. Who told the moon to greet me? When I crawled out, sleepless, no longer lonely.

for condiment, only mustard, dusty dark Dijon. Merely mustard for the garlic sausage and to spread across tortilla. Top curlicues of sweet potato fries. Dribble on fresh wilt spinach. Only mustard for this retreat. Two days away with this most confident of seasonings and a tall thin jar of olives, gin, Earl Grey, and dark chocolate covered toffee. But there is also salt in this casita and cane sugar on a shelf in a bag with clothespin to clasp it shut. A soldier’s queue of spices including Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Magic Blend. A writer will not starve here. Nothing bland. Sharp is the dab of smoky paste against the sweet fried bites speared with foreign fork. Not mayonnaise. Not sour cream. The mustard is the master, no matter.

Once she was a lapful of a girl. We read the same bedtime story over and over again about a mother and daughter who collected pennies and quarters in a great big jar. The mother was a waitress, I think, and worked tirelessly. She spilled the thumbprints of metal onto the table every night, and together they scooped them like favorite crumbs into their readied, bird catcher palms. From there, they tumbled the symphony of coins into the open mouth of the jar with a secure lid. You see, there was a big rose studded fabric chair they were saving up for, and by the close of the story they were bound for the furniture store. They bought that luscious rest of a long forthcoming fortune with their savings. They put it in the back of a pickup truck and climbed into it together as a helpful friend drove them straightaway toward home. Tonight my girl will dress for the prom in black miniskirt wearing flashy shoes to offset the rainy spring air. She will pin a boutonniere of two white calla

What of these jagged mornings. Two men pull the ropes  from east coast and southwest to settle their mother's estate  by telephone. My daughter builds an energy efficient house in miniature on her bedroom floor as confidence flags for the day's history test; knives and scissors hidden everywhere under cardboard. Yesterday having eaten too much sugar, I rise with a headache and neck like a warped board. The dog dreams a heart attack in the chilly shadow of the 8 a.m. study. Her belly breathes a snare drum of staccato yelps. For these minutes the mourning dove's calling is overridden with traffic streaming like water that I cannot hold back. I walk the hallway with my fingertips on the walls as if braille were the surrender. Signal to knowledge of what will arrive next. 'tis the season of concrete and hammers. Taut wire will hold us together. Press down on the tongue and respect one another.

By yon bonnie banks, And by yon bonnie braes, I'll drive the edge of this earth where Ahead is destination and fight is erased From my heart, the sky as compass To the other side  where forgiveness is  A signal and the squat trees Oh! ye'll take the high road and I'll take the low road, Hold my tongue which instead may be  Merry f or my love resides on this edge And the edge breaks open to sight Into  diamonds as horizon Softening like these innocent Bountiful mountain  clouds

Having heard W. S. Merwin read last night I was taken especially by the magic in the whisper of the image in the poem he read entitled "Vixen". Here it is to recall that, the animal of that sounding/seeing: Comet of stillness princess of what is over        high note held without trembling without voice without sound aura of complete darkness keeper of the kept secrets        of the destroyed stories the escaped dreams the sentences never caught in words warden of where the river went        touch of its surface sibyl of the extinguished window onto the hidden place and the other time        at the foot of the wall by the road patient without waiting in the full moonlight of autumn at the hour when I was born        you no longer go out like a flame at the sight of me you are still warmer than the moonlight gleaming on you        even now you are unharmed even now perfect as you have always been now when your light paws are running        on t

Lately an imperfect necklace of deaths hang on our doors. Passage of a wheelchair-bound mother of a friend after the slow immobilization of her muscles. Then, my mother's friend who resembled a sprite, skinny bird, wore only pastels and whose subtle Texas drawl made for the sound of an extra grandmother especially when she shared her interpretations of my teen daughter.  Finally, just three days ago, my husband's mother slept her way into her final rest, essentially alone in Philadelphia, "no longer engaged by America" my husband guessed. What is that like, the disengagement? the untangling from a life?  My mother-in-law rarely seemed content unless she was reading a decent book or listening to a wise piece of music on the radio. She once typed us letters on the stationary my husband had printed for her and sent as a gift. Across the top of that cream colored paper, we had placed quotes from Shakespeare and Dickinson, one or two lines to stir the reader's

Odes & Offerings, Santa Fe, 2012 Easter. Words that reach  back in.  Hosanna. Passover  hope.  My friend mixes  cinnamon  and apples, mortar  that will  hold  the walls.  Books of  faith  springing to bud.  Light gets in. Any morning now. 

Perch                                                 for my mother Here the vine grows eight feet a minute our hostess winks twining one stray shoot back onto another at the mother frame The left side of her face stilled by a stroke These green lithe limbs resemble grape stems     the sky goes rose   we hear every punctuation     mark every trill mourning doves       the rub of wings against the dusk just out of sight goats caw                        then further rising flotilla of  fenced-in puppies     Our feet loosed from their shoes       rest on one white wicker ottoman in front                occasionally            a car inside          a telephone

One Dimension of Woman On Tuesday we lost poet, essayist and lecturer Adrienne Rich, a pioneering feminist She was 82. Adrienne Rich writes in Of Woman Born that motherhood is but one physical dimension of a woman’s being. Rather than being defined as mothers, or by their status as childless, women should be defined in terms of themselves, as all humans should be. Nor should becoming a mother mean women are isolated and not allowed to participate in the social and professional world. Instead, Adrienne Rich calls for “a world in which every woman is the presiding genius of her own body.”

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. Mark Twain Last night I dreamt what I can only imagine sprung from the combination of my daughter reading to me from Huckleberry Finn, a little late night t.v. about housewives whose husbands have returned from rehab, are living with women not their wives, or have been shot, and a tai salad for dinner rich with garlic and coconut milk followed later with tater tots dipped in spicy buffalo wing sauce. See? Enough to make even Salvador Dali image above and beyond.  Initially, there was a backyard surgery to re-attach a man's ear. It seems a barnyard animal had bitten off the small appendage and it's questionable whether I should be allowed to join the surgery though I know I am entirely capable. Still, I realized halfway through assistance on same that I've failed to pack my daughter's lunch, and, running home, find that her father is just lifting her into the back of a truck which is d

Punctuation on the wall  where the previous  blooms  clung. Blue looking at  what I've  just  said  to you.  Green is  the center of the bud yet to come.  Sky is the memory.  Vines  to revive. Tangle c rows and persistent doves.  Tangle of vines on the wall.  Punctuation previously   seen. The memory  come to bud  blue to the sky on the wall. You yet to come to hear  what I have just  said to you. Doves. Doves. 

Sculpture by Melissa Zink A man in the kitchen navigates a note to his daughter pressing his large fingers against the tiny, flat alphabet on my telephone. He is her father and this is a slow and unusual communication. He is learning to link as the children do, tapping the pint-size letters on a platen that hardly resembles a typewriter. There is a pound key to create space and an enter button that is a circle of silver to Send. Our daughter has driven all day, 11 and one half hours toward the Pacific Ocean, and having just arrived in San Diego, transmits us a beach sunset in one dimension while we, in New Mexico, prepare our dinner of sweet potatoes and chicken in the oven; snow outside falling in soft flakes like white Morse code that doesn’t stay on the ground very long, and the dog is confused when we open the French doors to let her out. She just stands there looking. The house is quieter without the teenager who by now would have roared

Here I am looking very much like my father, holding a picture of my daughter who looks remarkably like I looked when I was about her age, 15 or 16. Does that mean that she resembles her grandfather? I think, in fact, that I have palm-sized black and whites of my father's mother shot sometime in the 1920s and, coming across one of them once not too many years ago, I thought, huh, my daughter looks like her great grandmother, the mother of my father. Audrey was wearing a hat in the picture and her head was on a provocative tilt. Unusual because the grandmother (my daughter's great grandmother) that I knew, the one I'm thinking of was far from exotic looking in my mind growing up. In fact she epitomized the hard working White Anglo Saxon Protestant woman in an apron that covered her upper torso, waist and thighs, wearing funny looking glasses, and with her hands up to their wrist in soap suds... though, wait, that was like my grandfather, my father's father Mike, who

Once there was a living room hung with saints; now only lives etched onto my back, red and black. Blue Lady G and the scent of red roses. Blood of C, and metal hearts circled with sharp wire. I am chained to the bottles of ash on the mantle. At my ankles, brown paper sacks of holy sand. I am dragging the memory of my brother, crosses on the highway, shadow of his racing, erasing his son at four and forever smiling wife in profile. Tears tattooed here for the tiny butterfly, cut short flutter of my daughter come stillborn, and the initials of her mother so I'll never lose her. Wishes like shame engraved, as I am left standing for the annual replacement of plastic wreaths and red valentines, fading caution tape and glass. I am weeping with my back turned so you cannot see me. Nothing but small creases as I walk over nails on this dry desert. Pilgrimage of body art for the missing down my shoulder blades and spine. Head down with nothing more to drink. Absence

 Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo, TX Last night I attended a practice concert by the high school choir. My daughter sings with the choir and this morning they were bound for an out of town competition performing the songs that they aired for us last night. While we were waiting for the show to begin, a mother whose daughter has been friends with our daughter for five or six years, leaned in toward me where we sat on our gray folding chairs and said these daunting words to me: " Is Delaney going to college? "  I responded with an almost too high pitched " I hope so! " Now I don't know about you, but when I was approaching my senior year of high school I had these aspirations of leaving my funny farm of a family in the dust as I ventured into the easy sunset. Responsibilities were the least of what I considered for my potentially carefree future, and yet I knew enough to picture some hard work ahead. And work hard I did as I had a job simultaneous w

Wild Swans by  Edna St. Vincent Millay I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over. And what did I see I had not seen before? Only a question less or a question more; Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying. Tiresome heart, forever living and dying, House without air, I leave you and lock your door. Wild swans, come over the town, come over The town again, trailing your legs and crying ! (for my daughter)

Still coloring childlike inside the lines until madness takes over or lack of sleep and then the angel appears on the wall, blonde reincarnate with charcoal eyes that holler scribble whisper poems, whisper sanity scrawl perfectly imperfect art

Sometimes you hardly notice the car in front of you. At other instants, you might notice that the driver's foot's on the brake pedal making his tail lights smolder red, or that the Honda or Ford is sliding ever so slowly backwards toward the front end of your car (or so you think; or is it an illusion, and it's actually you that's slipping — there's that sensation too). You adjust your position accordingly.  Then there are those minutes when, idling, you might glance to your right just as the driver in the car to your right looks to his or her left and there you are staring at one another, momentary awkwardness of a temporary neighbor in the morning, face of someone you have never seen before — and may just never see again. Do you smile at them? I almost always notice the license plates — certainly the personalized ones. And I see the bumper stickers which are a numerous and revealing. Who will you be voting for next election? Who won't you? Where do your

This morning I am thinking of friends I've not seen for more than twenty years — a man whom I met protesting at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant who held the keys to the cars of those of us in our group when we chose to be arrested and while we "did our time" and who became a fast friend from that point forward, and a woman with  whom I read poetry and drank boiler makers in North Beach  and the Mission district of San Francisco, dressed as two of the singing Supremes for Halloween, watched comets in a morning rising sky, a woman who now lives in Prague, or did, the last time we spoke and she was in New York visiting her family. I think of how people say " we talked after all this time and it was as if no time had passed ", and I wish I could bring these old companions into my rooms today, introduce them to my husband, my teenage daughter, and my dog. Thanks to the wizardry of modern day technology I could, if the connections came together, "skype&quo

My heart in a case. The case on the wall. Seven stations of the cross have nothing on me. Prayer comes in many configurations. Light glinting off glass. My daughter sitting next to me on the sofa. (photograph taken in Lamy's chapel, Bishop's Lodge, north of Santa Fe)