As Mourning Doves Persist

...Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, into Your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.  Maya Angelou excerpted from " On the Pulse of Morning " which Angelou read at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993.

If I close my eyes Pickpocket ears offer Surprise All around us is the Twist of commerce Senses tested

...The wind distorts all familiar signals now, the light from stars like gremlin tumbleweeds my mother gathered from the road                                                                     that ran alongside the house spray painting their wind-snarled heads in golden wet drip decorating the small front porch with their bottled and suspended drift when anything the wind sent in was fair game and we made everything from nothing in our personal diorama of wind in this neighborhood of kites and tangled string, tetherball rolling side to side on the silver pole in the backyard, a modern  weather vane  keeping everyone awake at night with its harsh lullabye beating at the door from the whole ( how a thing so readied can explode. Like this ) Thank you to Cut+Paste Society Poetry Storm 3.0 Wi...

...The garden sings in her invisible weather. Of Russian sage. Of licorice scented stalks. All is fodder. You are turning the wheel with tender arms. Of dandelion and flock to dye the cloth with your indigo hands, collar turned up at the neck in this wind, and your shirt tail tucked in. You are timeless in your mother cloak, rivulets of dirt under your nails and memories of beach and snow. excerpted from the whole, a birthday poem for BR

I inherited you, brothers of barbed wire like the furry dogs dragged home and sisters of consent to anxiety, yet this is the holiday of hands, of arroyo clay, pie crust and dough when finally we settle and the dining is palatial, appetizers made of empathy, dinner of  generations' woe songs.

There's a poetry reading on St. Patty's Day in Santa Fe. Promise of blood orange Campari on the rocks. Intoxication not long forgotten. Keith Jarrett at the piano on the radio in my car. Head bowed to the keyboard with the eyes closed... ...Today day laborers wait in the shadow of Our Lady at the sanctuary, circled by roses filling vases that never empty. On the steps of the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, a woman in blue plaid kilt blows into bagpipes. I idle at the intersection and study this day so clear, every outline is illuminated. Thin white dog tail wagging in a car with Indiana plates. Wispy- haired toddler waving one pudgy fist. Excerpted from  The Shape of Caught Water available from Red Mountain Press or directly from the author (505.670.4327) http://redmountainpress.us/

My daughter places a clear bottle filled with water on the steps.  Its shoulders  and torso hold all the world.  She puts  the bottle in the window  of a clothing store.  The mannequin’s ankles  are bare, feet wear no shoes. Cars pass and through the glass are distorted. Squat shot  transformed  to double decker bus of blue. Purposefully placed, the vessel. In the video the music praises her hands. By-passers are taller, thinner.  The cupboard of the world  opens its  shutters and the rain falls out. We carry whole armloads of clean laundry passing, exclaiming at the imbalance of the weather in the world, in the bottle. The sun arrives.  The sturdy neck supports her thesis and I play her recycling soliloquy again,  drink  my orange juice from a round glass  etched with  a mailbox with our name  and a carving  of a girl with a lasso  ...