Lone Sparrow

Even the sun call fall in line
Behind her paler sister, 
Crown her princess for the afternoon-- 
The penumbra a diadem for the moon

While on the ground the headstones snatch
Their shadows back into the grave--
The last trill of a lone sparrow echoes
Off the bare spring earth, now strangely closed,

As are all of those who witness
Now the larger darkness spilling
From the sun's humility--

The moon remains the princess
Of the darkness, willingly. 

Flight

Just as our flight takes off,

I wonder with a jolt of panic

If I have left enough food for the cat

I no longer have, the one who

Years ago fell asleep in the dryer

On top of a pile of clothes

Right before I closed the door

To warm them one more time.

It is always moments like this

When my subconscious chooses to remind me

In a visceral way that it is too late,

And I have made a fatal mistake.

My Dad Shot a Woodchuck.

You pulled the curtain back on my window,
Opened the glass, and rested your shotgun on the ledge
Before the long shadow of the house had lifted, 
Along with the dew, from the back yard.

It was a summer morning. I lay sleeping,
Yet a teenager, needing extra of everything,
When the woodchuck trundled into the garden, 
Assuming that we all lay fast asleep, as I did--

Until the violent crack that ended him
And made me wake up mid-scream 
To your infectious cackling.
Unable to help myself, I am laughing,

Then and now, remembering how you and I
Were really children at the same time. 

Sunday Morning Run

My feet meet the salted shoulder of the road

Before my mind has considered where we are going,

Oblique November sunrays slicing sideways

Through the red and yellow leaves remaining,

As if the stained glass windows in the cathedral

Of the morning have been half removed,

In need of restoring,

And light is pouring in, unmoored.

All else is silhouette, hushed as if waiting

For the Host. Meanwhile my feet have veered

From concrete onto dirt, following the road

At a remove I feel more connected to.

The paths my ancestors wore that became roads

Still exist-- and not just human. I become

Each animal of prey, hugging its body close to the earth,

Escaping through quick subterfuge.

The trees have filtered this strange light

Through their thousand ungloved fingers

Since long before human eye or art

Imposed on them such leaden images.

We are going the way that all mortal things must go--
Haunted to the grave by the eternity in our bones.

Outside Loretto Chapel

In the empty spaces between the pale adobe faces

Of buildings, chile ristras drying in bunches in doorways

Lift on the breeze that, on the twisted back of the evening,

Carries an ancient lament across the desert.

After the wedding party, led by a mariachi band

Up a sandstone staircase, falls asleep in white sheets,

The land recalls the rhythms of a thousand forgotten languages 

Pressed by weary feet into its surface.

The dry aged hand of the wind with a hundred whistling names (all forgotten) — stops

To remember all the tears it has collected in its palm, 

And once a year returns them to those who stop here now,

Strange tongues opening to catch the drops.

Helium

I just wanted to buy some helium balloons.

It was my daughter’s sixteenth birthday and probably one of the last times I will do this. 

A young man and woman scarcely older than she is walk me down the aisle to fill them,

Backs turned to me.

On the way, two people walking the other way remark, based on their faces, “Balloons?”

I hope the look is one of joy, not doom.

The earth is almost out of helium.

I try to act distracted while I wait, a cake in hand.

I have told them I want rainbow colors- they can pick.

He holds up a lime colored balloon for consideration. She agrees and fills it.

Then he says he wants to get a Jeep that color too,

Asks her if she wants to ride in the passenger seat. Says she would look good.

She deflects lightly, but the picture’s in her head now, 

And no one knows now what she will do with that. What it will turn into.

What it will mean if the small materialistic dream comes true, or if it doesn’t. 

What does it represent to them? What life and hopes does it signify— to him? To her? To me?

I walk out with a rainbow bouquet of hot air trailing behind me.

It is windy and the strings get tangled.

I wrangle them into my car. 

But for a moment of colorful spectacle, I can’t help but beam with joy. 

Dining Room

Your dining room twenty years ago
Became a room that I could walk through in my mind--
Plush carpet piled high, I tiptoe barefoot past your ghost
As I consider how I'm spending down my life.

I still see you at the head of the table, presiding, 
When your friend's words like a scalpel
Sliced the tendon from the bone of your desire.
Your face fell, and I caught it--
And I still tend to your sadness in myself. 

If you're looking for a place where you can rest, 
I am preparing a big feast and I saved the best seat for you.