How oceans came to be
written March 15th, 2021

Tears fall
from eyes
wetting cheeks
running in rivulets
down bodies
drenching the earth
until it can hold no more
so the waters rise
becoming a salt water ocean
created from tears
that fell
from eyes.

I am always curious about how other people write. So here is how one poem developed for me.

I try to write each day. I sit down and sometimes there's a line or a thought that I know I want to write about. Sometimes I page through my unfinished poems notebook and choose one to work on. Other times I read from a favorite poetry anthology until something sparks a poem.

This day we had gone for a drive to pick up lunch, and I was back at home. I read some from the poetry anthology, and I loved this line by Jane Miller, from her poem "Poetry", in the anthology Gift of Tongues:
"We are being made into words even as we speak," and I write this:

I return to my room
cool dark and deep
words having
swirled around me
all day
tempting
me to reach out
to grab a few
to put together
into this poem
that is today.

I like it, but it doesn't really say anything about my day. I love the phrase, "this poem that is today." So what happened today? How can I incorporate something more specific from my day today into the poem?

I love writing about nature. Lots of neighborhood trees in my poems. I also often write about things in my head, or about things that are central to who I am. Self poems.

I try to include physical descriptions in my writing, so it's not just unattached thoughts floating around like they do in my head. Rarely, I write about people. Who could be made into words from today?

I remember a waitress from where we got lunch. I have lots of thoughts. (We were wearing masks, but you can still tell when people are smiling.)

I return
to my room
cool dark and deep
words
having swirled around
like the waitress' full skirt.
I smile at her
and hope her life
will be one of
many smiles
I hope that
she will bend her world
to suit her
instead of being bent
by the traditions and proprieties
I see filling
the space around her
those things I grasp and find words in
to make this poem
that is today.

I copy the poem, making slight changes, moving sections so they make more sense to me, scribbling alternate words off to the side. I enjoy writing by hand. I enjoy copying the poem. Sometimes I make changes, sometimes not. The copying is soothing to me.

I read the poem out loud and think about line breaks. I try to imagine a stranger reading it. Would they know what I was talking about? I don't want to offend anyone's religious traditions, but that is part of this specific poem. She isn't just any waitress, she's a teenager who is clearly part of a very specific tradition.

I don't know if the finished poem is "better" than that above, but it's where I end up and feel wanting to share with the world. I come here to post my poem, and then move the original into my finished (but not quite right) notebook. I don't think it has much to do with that original quote from Jane Miller, so I will save that for another day.

The waitress
started March 3rd, 2021

I smile at the waitress
and she smiles back
so young and unformed
being everything
that everyone around her expects.

Words swirl through the air
like her skirt does
as she turns
lace covering her hair
speaking of conventions and traditions
that look so pretty
when you don't have to live them.

I hope that her life
will be filled with
many heart-felt smiles
and that she will
bend her world to suit her
instead of being bent or broken
by all I see crowding
the space around her.

I return home
to sort through
all these dense heavy thoughts
to find the words
to make this poem
that is today.

Gray poems
started January 24th, 2021

There are poems
that are easy to share
that want to be seen-read-heard

then there are other days
when gray skies
reflect my gray disposition

silent be silent
say the critical voices
don't scar the world
with this

and so my mark on this world
has often been
one of absence

but to deny these gray poems
is to deny myself
is to deny the crocus
blooming through the snow

for if I don't give expression
to all of it including the gray
then the beauty in me
also stays hidden
unexpressed-unrealized-unknown.

~I wanted to find out in what way the specialness of my experience could be made to connect me with other people instead of dividing me from them.
—James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

Alone together
started November 30th, 2020

We all at times
feel alienated.
Tell me about it,
that thing that
makes you feel
so different and alone.

I might understand
or at least I can listen
and for a brief moment
we can be alone together.

Have you been
   a stranger in the only home
   you ever knew?
I have.

Do you feel
   anger shame fear
   all the time?
I do.

Have you silently screamed
   for fear if you let the sound loose
   you and your world would shatter?
I have.

Did you find your people on a psych ward
   and know it was the only time
   you would be surrounded by those like you?
I did.

Have you ever felt so uniquely formed
   you are sure others
   wouldn't recognize you as human?
I have.

Do you fall in love with words
   shaping them into poems
   to show yourself and others
  that silence is not the only option?
I do.

Hear my words
find yourself in them
find your own words
and for a brief moment
we can be alone together.

Canoeing
written March 7th, 2021

I have spent the last few days
canoeing the Mackenzie River
making the journey in a book
with maps and words.

As I read it takes me back
to canoeing in my youth
the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
along the northern border of Minnesota.

I can feel the paddle
pulling through the water
and hear the loons
crying at night.

The land around me
almost untouched since
Huron, Chippewa, Cree
Dakota and Ojibwa eyes
were the only ones
that had ever seen it.

Now I travel in thought and memory
the clear cold waters of the lakes
the portages through forested hills
taking me from one gem
of a lake and a memory
to the next.

They want
written February 6th, 2021

They think they want
the body
the ***
the words

but it's not my words they want
the words in me
waiting to spill out

some listen for a while
but they know what they want
and it isn't
this body
this ***
these words
me.

~Midnight. Heaven is
bathing, the window open.
Just a kiss away.
—Jane Miller, "American Odalisque", The Gift of Tongues

He, the moon, and I
written March 2nd, 2021

My love and I
look up at our night skies
during this midnight time we share

our eyes looking at
the same stars
in our heavens so far apart

the moon baths us
in its gentle light
embracing both of us

I am envious of the moon
touching my love
when I can not

so I ask the moon
to kiss him for me
lovers are we
he, the moon, and I.