As Mourning Doves Persist

She typed her entire novella on her smart phone. He ran around the hurdles instead of over them. They skated as if Olympic contenders. When they  spun  it was  impossible to know their thoughts. On the ladder, he climbed to the roof to retrieve soggy leaves from the gutter. There he found tiny cars with doors that opened and closed. They hadn't spoken since yesterday.  Colorblind, he wore tattoos of indecision  like a street  vendor, attracted children.  They held hands at the movies  clothed in the  same colors  in the dark  theater. She continued  stitching  spines. O ne at a time.  He cut out profiles of the  sea. R emembered sailing.

Last night a long time friend and poet asked me to write something for her. She had witnessed a life and death incident down a side road that she told me left her heart bleeding. She said she could talk about it but that her hand couldn't record it, not adequately. She asked if I might listen and gift it back to her. It had to do with a cat, well, two cats actually and the way she had seen and been seen. I will chew on the details and bear witness in short time, but this morning I think that there is a simple, ageless tale in the telling of the dark feral traits coupled with the dumb-founded forgiveness that comes over us when we least anticipate angelic visitation.  I don't have the words for her, for any of us yet, though I believe they attempted to visit me in dream last night - fearless wild cat pouncing and exciting the response to maim, teeth going in deep and infectious bookended by the arrival of a companion who covered me with slow, methodical, and unconditional em...

                      for Delaney The one with violets in her lap  traces every contour of every girl  emerging before her. My daughter erupts at every anxious line, explores first boy under cover, forages for blue, ember eyes of spark. Lips of truancy ignore night's instruction. Her taut hands swimming not roses, her eyes not iris, but the smallest pluck of conversation before the bouquet flattens, hair curled in her hands wilting as if gripping  at secrets revealed in breathing in  intention will break hearts, break ribs. She all authority, and I recognize in her  the tiniest scent as when I was daughter  swooning.

Rising from the damp ditch of short sleep acequia lady picks up her traveling mandolin to accompany the boom box  bass on wheels  passing on the wet street. Bus comes by. Push brakes 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. Accordion whistles through car windows. Down the block, one weary dishwasher steps out for a smoke. Cheap spoons a-jangle in his big, damp pockets... Excerpted from  The Shape of Caught Water available from Red Mountain Press or directly from the author (505.670.4327) http://redmountainpress.us/

                                 Sight of sound in the palm of the ear turning to the true face of the One in the room. With you, we are all toddling toward the sphere of the wave in our magnificent spin. Tuning the center of sound. Palms down. Pressing against the dervish    in the sanctuary                                   alcove,  the sight  of the music you have made  with  your heart in your ear. Stilling the wave. The spiral of sound traveling more slowly now as you center magnificently. Walking toward the two halves conjoined. Strumming  prayer.

...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