Day 15 (I have veered from today’s proscribed plan for a poem to write about the horrible event that took place today in Boston)
Marathon
Birds of spring swoop in low and land.
Runners gasping, sucking for breath
don’t think they’re in a race with death,
know nothing of the evil plan
of someone on this festive day.
Boston town, where patriots stood
their ground for freedom’s cause of good,
bloodied, cleft by terror’s sway.
Birds of prey, of metal pieces,
spew death and mayhem in the crowd
as two sharp blasts report out loud.
Helpers run straight into the fracus.
They give quick aid to everyone,
risking all to aid the dying,
staunching wounds, comforting crying
kids looking for their dads or moms.
Guardian angels overhead
watch with woe o’er the grisly scene.
With haloed heads bent low, they keen
a dirge for all the newly dead.
Heaven opens reluctant gates
to welcome those newly arrived.
Those whose bodies did not survive
an act of terror and of hate.
As darkness falls to darkest night
the city birds forget their flight
but perch the tops of wrecked remains,
a cordoned street of blood and brains
spilled out in such a gruesome deed,
its evil such an awful breed
which glories in its brutal ways
on such a happy peaceful day.
Day 16
To poets considering
suicide, this is the ultimate
in not knowing how to end a poem.
You might
work harder on meter, listen to music
(something light-hearted, not Wagner)
and go on with the stanzas relentlessly.
Write until you fall asleep at your desks,
until the sun comes up and goes down twice.
Watch the river from your grimy window
until the salmon go up to make life,
come floating down dead. Then ask how
you are unlike a salmon, even if the struggle is the same.
Ask if you are more like the moon, hidden
behind dark clouds but more beautiful
for being masked by darkness.
If you can’t rhyme then set your words free
to find themselves. If your images are flat,
then write secret lines
in the margins of other poets’ books, bought
in quiet stores or read in the stacks.
Your poems will have their publicity, if that is all you want.
Or give yourself a chance to fail on every page,
a chance to step on your own hem and fall
down the stairs in the station.
Be absurd or wise for absurdity or wisdom’s sakes.
But suicide not. Surely you won’t want to hear
the accursèd raven say of you: nevermore.
Day 17
The Archaeologist Weaves a Web
of lies, all he knows. Crimes
against indigenous graves
are his transgression. Digging
to sate his gluttony for artifacts,
the facts made up
based on modernity. He won’t stop
unearthing, robbing the dead
of their rest. He’s written an important book,
complete with photographs
and charts. All I can do is seethe.
$29.95
takes one out of circulation.
He is speaking
in that white man way
of dominance over a culture far superior to his,
thinks the Red Paint People gone,
but in truth they have shifted
to a plane he cannot see.
Dog bones
in graves, bones bundled together
to confuse.
Lies are his currency, printed and spent
for his fame, his important scholarship.
I ask if he has any remorse for what he does.
His pale smug answer
makes me want to shift
into another shape, a raven or a spider.
I might fly off to where his grandparents lie
buried, scratch and dig there,
pluck something shiny from their holes
or weave a dreamcatcher over their stones.
Lies excite him. See the line of spittle
at the corner of his mouth as he speaks?
Or is that a track left by my cousin
the snail as she mapped
the way to his village, his cemetery?
Day 18
Vacay
what it’s called now, among other words
that got slanged in to the vocab, like staycation
for when you can’t afford to go
somewhere and sit around the yard
waiting for something interesting to happen
that you can put in your photo stream,
which is slangchat for photos that remain
on your iPhone or iPad, ready to share
at a meeting or on your coffee break.
Cruising also a new word-phenom,
multi-thousand-passenger ships
with unending meals, live entertainment,
balcony cabins, chocolates on the pillow,
at sea four days, gambling
on a safe passage home. Watch the news
for the latest break-down,
passengers emerging with free cruise tickets
in apology for days afloat without working toilets.
Cruising used to happen
in convertibles
or souped-up roadsters, boys and girls
playing a game of look at me, I’m so cool
while slow drivin’ down the street to the drive-in.
Go on, pack
an overnight bag and head to the car,
or put on a pair of shorts and sunglasses
for a lazy recline in the yard with a cold one.
Vacay. Get away —
in a hotel or a B & B
five blocks from your house.
Day 19
The Poor Door
Not low enough yet to steal
or roust scraps from bins, a simple mother
with four mouths to feed.
I stand at the back of the Adventist Church,
wait during the message, the warning
that our Sunday-Keeper ways
are cause for the hunger we know
that visits our cupboards, our table.
I am ashamed, but not of what you think
I should be. I am ashamed of the man
I married who would starve his children
to starve me. I am smart enough
to learn how a five pound block of surplus
bologna will feed us for a week, mixed
with powdered eggs or macaroni,
how SPAM's jelly adds flavor we just can't afford.
I stand at this poor door, hope for greens
or a bag of flour, maybe today oranges.
Far away, in warehouses I cannot break
open, cheese which melts to its rot, bags of wheat
gone to weevils instead of bread. What breaks
open here are hearts, mothers' hearts. We shuffle
forward, hand over the pieces in payment
for cans of soup, jars of mayonnaise, dates expired.
Day 20
April Cometh
It’s officially time to stand
the porch chairs in their row, put away
the shovel for the rake, open windows.
No matter that the temp keeps dipping
below happy, or that there has not been sun
all week. Stubborn leaves from last fall
are blowing around, didn’t decompose
properly under the snow. Mulch appears
in great hulking bags at Home Depot
and I buy enough to cover what
I refused to rake up in November.
Wax from the Christmas candle
shows itself when I change the centerpiece
on the dining room table, stacks
of holiday cards linger in the red basket
in the front hall. The pointsettia is down
to curled up fronds and stick-arms.
Seasons are just not what they used to be,
crisply organized in fact and in calendar —
Like sports which will soon blob together
into one ginormous season. Eventually
the Celtics will have a playoff against the Sox,
the day after the Bruins and the Pats
face off for a banner they can claim.
April cometh, and goeth. Hard to tell which.
Day 21
Voyeur
On drives home, my sister asleep,
Mom & Dad talking up front,
I became a peeper, watched
yellow squares of light pass as darkness took over.
Fascinating window theater, scenes
from other people’s lives played
out as a flickering collage. Not yet old
enough to understand, I watched
one man slap his son, another
shove his wife to the floor, still another
lift a brown bottle to his lips, toss
it against a wall. I saw children at table,
hands folded, heads bowed, babies
rocked and walked across my bright screen.
I could barely focus for the whiz of traffic,
but saw it all. No shades were pulled.
You shouldn’t look in other people’s houses
my mother said when I told her
what I did on our drives home
from Sunday dinners with my grandparents.
But there was one night when I looked
in, stopped at a light, and a girl my own age
looked out, saw me looking at her.
I will never forget that her shoulders shook,
will never forget the bruise I saw
blooming like an orchid on her cheek.
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