Poet after poet
written July 10th, 2021

Day by day, and poem by poem
my home and my life
fill with friends and lovers
who took the time to write to me
through the years and distances.

Jane Kenyon sits
on the corner of
my dining room table
a pool of calm
for me to dip into
anytime I need.

113 poets (I counted)
from Copper Canyon Press
are in residence between the covers
of The Gift of Tongues.
They enliven the desk where I write
always falling into respectable order
when I peak in before writing.

Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda
Olga Broumas, W S Merwin
and other dear friends
sit on my shelves
sometimes amiably discussing
other times heatedly debating
each other's sock choices.

George Bilgere, Ellen Bass
and Gregory Orr
have seduced me
filling me with awe
as they stimulate my mind
my lovers far away
who talk to me in chapbooks.

Poet after poet
I wonder how many
I have not met
because I have not found them yet
or they were not preserved or published.

I bow my head
in a moment of grateful silence
to those known and unknown
who make my world
a more lively place.

i remember as a child
watching my mom work in the garden
during scorching summer evenings, sweating
as she dug up dirt in the backyard,
and thinking, i, too, could do that one day

i mimicked her motions in an effort to learn,
watching her sprinkle lemongrass
into the *** of tamarind broth,
grabbing a fistful of fresh basil,
and wishing i could reach over the brim

watching her eyes glaze over
as she concentrates and threads the needle,
pushing up her small glasses
every few minutes, i poked at my own forehead
and squinted hard to find the hole
that ceased to exist

now, when the summertime comes,
i spend my evenings in the yard,
digging up the same dirt,
realizing that day has come