I write soundlessly
My message to students
erasable
words the color of night

that cloaks still the marching band
practicing and
hiding loudly in the moments before dawn
awakening the day
calling forth the sun and
students--

rise and
greet one another with kindness
the message the color of night.

Old love letters paper the walls of my study.
Faded and peeling,
a few fall into the shadows
while most remain,
stubborn, insistent,
unyielding and unapologetic.

Oh, how the ink has begun to bleed!
To tattoo the dull, white paint in glimpses
between the letters,
as if I can hear their words
humming in a melody of minor chords.

I've stopped checking the mailbox,
full and lonely,
we are enemies.

Bookshelves surround me as well,
keepers of cluttered wisdom,
tomes of goodbyes, adieus,
and one or two apologies.

The stale air holds a minor chord--
the fermata of my early twenties
extends in a one significant pause:

You tell me,
We are not our history.
And then light the single match
illuminating
certain, brown eyes
and too much ruined papers.

Flames singe and curl the wallpaper
The fire sings over the sounds of my past.

We are alive in the crucible,
flames caressing my memories
now only in the fireplace
you have found in the corner.

Silent warmth and bare walls,
We sit down to write a new book,
bound in autumn leaves and cold rain,
and in a new handwriting,
You begin:
*We are alive in the crucible.

Around age 30, she had begun this dance
Of conversation, how to suggest the low-fat
Without insulting the husband’s paunch
And need for chocolate chip and fudge ripple.

Twenty years later, they stand in the aisle,
freezing, as they open door after door
in pursuit of the perfect opportunity
to be guiltless,
in at least one aspect of their lives.  

“Is that mocha chip a two-for-seven deal?”
He asks, squinting at his wife.
It’s not low-fat, it’s only sugar-free,
She said, eyebrows creased
“Well, it looks like a good deal.”
He is reaching, ignoring the tap tap of her foot,
when she snatches the tub from his palms
and the freezer door closes the conversation.
They leave for home in silence,
with frozen peas.

My fiance and I watch,
each carrying tubs of french silk
and mango sorbet, and feeling the fullness
of potential among the frozen foods,
and I add waffles and bananas
to our feast.

The water paints with sound
redamancy upon the shore
and our hearts.

And the cascade reminds me
Time can be beautiful,
Love is first shallow,
And then deep,
Oh, so deep, my love,
The color of shale and cobalt

We sit on the rocky shore
And stack stones into a cairn
Making the moment, the place.
Finally, he says, we’ve seen the ocean
Together.

As if seeing the vastness of Resurrection Bay
Perfects our Pacific love
Deepening.

We skip a few rocks
To test the shallows
To find the deep
To discover what we believe awaits us
In the future:

Love like waves
Pulled by the moon--
My hand pulled by yours
To go home.

As she bends,
Mittens grip the shovel’s wooden handle,
Firmly lifting the burdens
of snow.

Puffy gear smothers her lean figure
Where she rests a moment on the deck rail.
She has no interest in looking pretty.  
In the elements of Alaska,
Comfort supersedes fashion.

Within the sound of the shovel scraping
And the cascade of powder
into the Beyond,
She conquers, for a moment, the white
Woes of winter. These dreary days--

Her sullen friends--
Give her the gift of learning
to smile,
And teaching her children to smile.
Wear it long enough,

And you’ll feel it become yours.
She heaves burden after burden
Forgetting each as they dissipate.
The bare slats of wood shine, finally
Beneath her boots.

Everywhere, speckles of ice dance with light.
Gazing toward the sky, her task complete,
She drinks the bits of sun, a gift
Raw like joy.

When I empty my pockets of childhood memories
and lay them out on the tabletop,
I return again to my father, and his constant reminders--
Stand up straight. Be proud,
And I held his advice in the palm of my hand:
pondering my ability to throw it away into that river
of lost instruction, forgotten pleas, cumbersome nagging.

But instead, I collected his stone words,
and later used them to build
a life like his:
Of dignity, pride, purpose, and strength.

I return, each day, to the wooded path
where we'd walk among birch trees lining the road
like monuments of our time together.
And I'd reply, trying to be beautiful,
I am standing up straight,
And he'd say,
*I’m proud of you.

The television screen illuminates
the mahogany walls of His Holiness’ office
so different and distant from Marta’s casa in Iguazu,
Argentina, her handwriting in Spanish,
pleading the Holy Father from cheap paper,
to return and attend to his people.

On the screen, he sees the Garganta del Diablo
exploding in what the headline calls
‘Biblical-style’ deluge.
But He knows that the devil’s throat
spills out a more subtle evil than flooding:
a secret hatred,
disjointed humanity,
greed and gluttony
and outpour of passion of futbol
rather than prayer.

My child, he writes,
these falls bless the earth--
only God causes the floodgates to open
and only together do we feel holy presence
in the river’s spray.

He licks his finger, turns over the page,
and decides he needs not write more, besides
Que Dios bendiga a tí y a Argentina.
As the television flashes scenes of his pueblo y futbol.