Day 3: Green shutters, brick exterior

We’re hard to find here.

Beyond the slow rotation

of wind chimes made of keys

and sticks

and multi-colored yarn,

the night erases all

that marks my place –

the tree out front,

the ditch, the neighbor’s drive,

the dullish numbers on the mailbox.

Everyone drives past.

Inside, against the blue-green wall,

the piano bows with books.

The yellow lamp illuminates his face.

From the tub, one child tells

the story of the berries

that will commandeer

the tiny boat she’ll make tomorrow.

No one cleaned the dinner plates

before they poured the wine.

I laugh.

The night stops outside my door.

Day 2: Road Trip Haikus

From D.C. to Illinois,

Aunt Marcia and I

Composed haikus in the back.

Later, in the mail,

Accordion booklets came

Tied with blue ribbons:

She remembered each poem

And printed them all.

“Giraffe” was my favorite.

Thirty Days of Poetry, Day 1: Questions

How do you love without wanting?

{like holding an egg yolk, naked and slick in its rolling skin}

How do you want without needing?

{like savoring a mouthful, blind to the empty spaces on the plate}

How do you know without understanding?

{like a monk smiling in prayer, his shorn head smeared with ashes}

How do you give without expecting?

{like reveling in a festival from a hillside far off …

like releasing a moth from a spider’s web …

like spinning wild circles in the grass till you fall sick … }

How do you find such answers?

{… by failing.}