The old woman warming her hands in her armpits.
She stretched her cold-kinked spine.
When she could feel the blood moving in her veins,
Sluggish though it was,
She bent to collect the scattered sticks.
she saw in a bush a few feet away
perched a bird,
its head raised as though in song.
It was white as the snow,
and as she approached
it didn’t fly away. It didn’t move.
The poor thing was frozen solid.
Carefully she pried it from the branch.
She cradled it in her hands and admired its perfection:
feathers as delicate and precise as plumes of frost on a windowpane,
eyes like icy dewdrops.
A tiny icicle of tongue protruded from its beak.
Perhaps, she thought,
if I take it home and warm it by the stove
it will sing to me.
She slipped the frozen bird into her pocket.
Back in her hut,
the old woman built up the fire,
then settled the frozen bird near the stove.
tucking the bird into its folds.
She nudged it closer to the stove.
The room grew warm; Yet the bird remained frozen.
She lifted it gently and held it on her lap.
She dribbled some broth into the open beak.
But the bird didn’t swallow.
The soup spilled from its mouth
and froze into a tiny gem that fell into the woman’s lap.
The old woman squeezed another drop of soup from her finger.
This time, the bird’s song held memories of first love,
of lash-lowered glances and blushing cheeks,
of clasped hands and furtive kisses.
Tears brimmed, and when she wiped them away
they froze on her cheek.
She looked at her.
The song ended and tinged one wingtip.
color and life returned to the bird.
Its feathers reddened to pink and then a brilliant scarlet.
Its eyes grew black and shiny.
and its beak stayed white and cold.
The bird sang of soft golden light
warming the world.
Jan 1, 2021
Jan 1, 2021 at 9:16 AM UTC
I hear heavy footsteps approaching me,
Crunching the leaves beneath.
I sit up straight and try to force a smile.
"You have been crying again.
Haven't you?"
I hear a smooth voice.
It's none other than my best friend, of course.
He lost his parents the same night I did.
Since then,
He has been my guardian angel.
I smile and look into his eerily serene
Gray eyes that look deep blue in the dark.
And,
He smiles back.
Jul 26, 2020
Jul 26, 2020 at 2:18 AM UTC
I see it, a yellow leaf
Among so many.
In the front yard;
One by one the dead leaves fall,
yielding gently to the call
of the autumn wind.
Half reluctantly they go,
Falter, waver to and fro,
glancing oft behind.
How the wind catches them,
greedily snatches them,
Whirling and swirling them
dizzily 'round
coyly it plays with them,
Sportively sways with them
Down to the ground.
The leaves by hundreds came—
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
and leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
and everything was grand,
Weather led the dancing,
Wind the band.
The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.
Jul 15, 2020
Jul 15, 2020 at 7:13 AM UTC
It’s the last day of school,
and you’re tipping toes by my kidney table
story-eyed as you ask me what we are going to do today.
the expression on your face perfect
like a flame finding its shape,
You tell me your mom’s boyfriend finally moved out.
“You can’t make an apple hang like a peach.”
I ask you to draw a picture about what you’re going to do this summer.
after about five minutes, you walk up to me with your drawing.
Tell me about it…
You comma in the moment,
swivel your head,
and point to it.
“It’s a picture of you
and my mom
looking up
at the stars.”
Jul 1, 2020
Jul 1, 2020 at 11:16 AM UTC
My son, stopped during our walk through
a eucalyptus forest to his school and said:
“mummy, the trees are talking to us.”
I stopped too and listened along with him to the trees’ rustle.
“It’s the wind mummy,”
he exclaimed,
then blew a puff of air onto the back of his hand.
“The trees talk through the wind.”
Another time she said to me
“When I die, mummy,
I want Mother Earth to turn me into a flower.
And you will be a petal in my flower.
So will my sister.”
He added that grandmother will be another flower
growing next to her, “a friend.”
The wind’s soft static in the pine trees above
and the air fragrant with pine, he added more softly:
“But we don’t decide what we are after we die.
Mother earth decides.”
Jun 12, 2020
Jun 12, 2020 at 11:18 AM UTC
Her kiss is the brush of silk against your lips.
The faintest taste,
The slightest touch.
It caresses your neck and shoulders,
Flushes your cheeks and raises a flutter of wings beneath your skin.
You float with your eyes closed,
Your breath forgotten at your throat,
and cling to the sensation knowing it can’t last.
And it doesn’t.
It slips away,
fading to an impossible hunger,
a whisper that gnaws at you until there is nothing left to give.
And then it forces you to open your eyes.
You withdraw your hand and nestle it
beneath your body before it’s infected with the truth.
May 19, 2020
May 19, 2020 at 2:11 AM UTC
The broken windows and appliances,
the mice,
the wild,
overgrown lawn—
I recall to paint you
a picture of a kingdom fallen,
but there was no kingdom.
There was just an ordinary house in the suburbs,
one with red bricks
and vines and a hydrant out front.
I can create almost as real but more lovely.
I can rebuild our home.
I can make my father a hero.
He is own hero,
in every sense of the word
With all of the good things.
When I say that
I made a fiction out of my father,
I mean to say that
his living and his dying
were so much less than anything
my imagination could offer.
I could be practicing
my own ceremonial
practice of grief.
That seemed too
indulgent a thought.
But whatever part of me
believed in the strength of
my artistic intention—
Apr 26, 2020
Apr 26, 2020 at 6:21 AM UTC
I believed love is immortal, irrational,
and sometimes, tired.
I liked the idea of an impossible god.
In all of love has there ever been such a lover as you?
Out of desire for you,
Sometimes heaven is when I’m away from you, god.
Sometimes heaven is only the two of us. I know you
understand.
Transferring the investment unkind, from mountain to cry.
The plan believes itself to be special,
having been assured of its specialness since birth.
The feeling that takes soundings
and scrapes, aims,
and knock-down blows us.
Reduced to an equality.
The loose tangles of habit and taste.
Thinking of ourselves as more than distance corrects the attachment.
In the time it took me to retrieve my cards,
the connection imperative became a stylised refusal.
I tear my way through getting to know you
The unnatural ease of disentanglement.
Unhappily having, to spend time.
Apr 6, 2020
Apr 6, 2020 at 9:44 AM UTC
In a room,
I am reading,
glancing out of the window,
or I am looking at what I am writing.
Then I stop.
Discouraged, distracted, I am exhausted,
lie down, sit up, touch my toes,
swing my arms, make a phone call,
ignore a call, hear a voice, see a message,
answer it, don’t, there is plenty of time,
too much time.
Only time.
In a room,
I am restive, restless, and bore myself.
I look at my books,
shelves overwhelmed,
actually I watch them,
I am their guardian.
Books live for me to read,
books are alive when they are read,
but mostly I fail them,
and they rebuke me.
I look for distractions.
I look at my cat,
my cat is not worried,
and I am I.
Mar 29, 2020
Mar 29, 2020 at 3:31 AM UTC
Eating a grapes,
Just the slightest bit ****
That I plucked from my garden this afternoon.
I plucked it from the jaws of the so-far
Unidentified critter who dines in the garden.
It is more likely a squirrel,
and one with truly dreadful
garden manners at that.
I don’t mind sharing a few of my berries,
but this one takes little nibbles from so many,
never finishing one.
It’s a little like having Goldilocks
hopping around from plant to plant,
looking for the one that is just right.
The garden is flourishing,
with the tomato, cucumber, pepper and tomatillo
plants promising to produce soon
the carrots are begging to be thinned.
So while we all wait for our flowers to bloom,
for our plants to produce,
and for our neighborly critters
to stop eating all the berries.
Mar 10, 2020
Mar 10, 2020 at 11:30 AM UTC