As Mourning Doves Persist

Perhaps it's just me but I found it odd that his statue is here. Ghandi standing behind the San Francisco Ferry Building, blessing the day's horizon and wire span of the suspension bridge that broke once with earthquake. Did I miss something? Did he journey here once, to this wharf where today there is a market housed in the one-time passenger hall of metal and glass, people standing in long lines for Peet's Coffee, lines no deterrent to one in need of matcha or espresso or chai, patiently texting their lover or boss?  Ghandi is thin as ever, his stride here, a wishing bone. A single hand raised, scooping out solutions or simply waving in benediction, hailing wind for the damp ride for boat travelers en route to Sausalito or safe passage for automobiles on the distant bridge passing through the mountain of Yerba Buena.  It was only due to my impatient walk out to the fringe of tea hawkers and cheese barkers that I discovered this halo of a man, prince of non-violent rea...

for children everywhere, broken, homeless & disabled My eyes are brown and green as the mountain's pi ñ on. I wear thinning, purple long underwear in the morning and warm socks sometimes late into the day. You probably don’t know my name,  but it was stitched simply.  Perfect quilt of father and mother.                            Occasionally  I fold up inside myself. Doesn't everyone? What I love best is laughter, cold water running through my hands. I should have been a whole boy with no  mystery inside of me,  but others don’t see me that way, look straight through me, except my mother who will always love me as I am.  Firecracker in the closet hidden  behind someone else’s shoes.  Too many times I could have been  disowned.  But I know  the newborn ghosts that haunt the corner  hotel downtown now,  o...

I write of the mourning bird's persistence. Only I know precisely what this evokes. The sadness of certain sounds brought home. Sun as nest for childhood symphony. Perimeter roads charted solo or with siblings. We have grown but still there is an edge. Where frolic is sparked by song. With recipes. In the croon of the crow or a room of forgotten friends turning to smile on your approach. Gray doves lift and sail. I am brought present while swaddled in the pleasure of past napping. Holding still long enough to know the moaning, nostalgia of never forgetting. W alking a rutted road with shiny pebbles and pick up sticks fallen from trees.  Girl at home at a window with downpour on the other side of glass.  Forgiving what is absent, in age we register connections, yet we run our hands over inherited chenille and seek. Mournful bird song. Grandmother who always fed us. Letters from invisible fathers. The tangle of hedge and holly with thorns.  Shadow dog at the foot of th...

1. I look in the mirror and it’s you, my mother,             staring back at me. The same way we hold our mouths, maybe,                         or the way my hair frames. A pressing, willingness (though tired). Tiny joys hypnotized, patiently waiting             I see it when I’m not looking straight on but in a quick glance                         as I wash my hands of night's  duller              dreams. These identical eyes like a collection of tiny spoons             from different states – Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois.        ...

In the night's drive there are tunnels that one can only travel alone. Honest, directional ingenuity. You call in your solid independence and recall the  previous  hours (years) when you were similarly freed of those who otherwise stunted your enthusiasm. Honor spotted like an old hat (found new) at the side of the road. You perk up passing by the familiar.  You are singing and the radio isn't even on. Yet you recall every single, soft lyric. Every drum solo. Hands thrumming. Newly you, graduated from one tier of slightly numb and overdriven to no distinguishable deadlines tail-gaiting you now in the night between dry martini stirred with Spanish tapas and a room full of genuinely enraptured, listening. Poetry and snowy photographs; and children  who invite you to their lilac bordered secret sunset place on the roof where the tar paper is peeling back. Offering you silver foil cupcake liners cradling chocolates and pretzels, and there's a royal lawn chair strad...

Some years ago a sister living in Northern California sent me a small slip  of laminated paper she'd retrieved from a box of Cracker Jacks - remember those? "A prize inside every box!" On the fortune cookie size slip  was a pictogram riddle  "Name this major city in the State of New Mexico",  a string of short syllables, and a blue and black pencil drawing of a turkey with a personified grin. On  the flip side was an annotation of the word it was after; t he designer was referring, of course, to Albuquerque - which really doesn't, but does, rhyme with turkey. This late, lazy Saturday night my husband and I are holed up in a hotel. He lies beside me lightly snoring. I've braved the pool's adjacent, lukewarm Jacuzzi in, you guessed it, the "Duke City" of Albuquerque, New Mexico. We needed a getaway and hit the highway headed due south for our select, mini-vacation main attraction, the city’s Bio Park hosting a lulling garden...

Bowerbird Chronicles III, Patricia Pearce You wait there in your Mary Janes, your black strap tap shoes and sassy cream colored capri pants. The bus has yet to come. Snow still caps the mountains all around you. Your smart silhouette assures me that in waiting, the ride will arrive.  Arms not crossed. A bag of books on your right shoulder. I imagine inside, short stories of fiesta by someone's daughter; feminism in four short lessons; the poems of Lorca with no translation.  Readied for debate. Your lipstick one shade of winter fade, spring's first tulip, electric crimson. Earring hoops gifted by a friend.  Behind you, the weathered parking lot of abandoned roasting tumblers, broken tail lights, red splinters on the blacktop. Before you, a slow snaking road of autos idling toward downtown's plaza where vendors spread small blankets topped with turquoise. The smell of caramel corn spilling from a metal cart. Obelisk in the center naming the dead. Your casual ...