garden Buddha
knee deep in dead leaves
once again
plans for the year
have gone astray
Tag: tanka
in smoky twilight
i remember how light
his casket was
yet i can’t pick up his toys
still scattered in the yard
Midwinter snowstorm
highway at a standstill
I mistake the vagrant
for my long-dead father
his smile so vacant
Rain overnight —
the mist on Mynyddislwyn
melts almost as quickly
as it takes me
to write about it.
a spot of light
from the hand mirror
travels up and down her arm
shadow patterns
her neck
a stone
next to a frozen pond
I long to skip
to another time
another place
tanka
the voice
of a wrong number
for a moment
wishing I was the daughter
she’s trying to reach
gnarled banksias
entwined like old lovers
along the track…
how many years now
have we been together?
gone
with the storm
the wind chimes
my neighbors quarrel
deep into the night
collecting stones
from the river
where I was baptized
moonlight
washes over me
heat wave
at the big city
flower market
ten thousand shades
of radiant yellow
morning walk
at the crossroads
my thoughts
flow
in Spanglish
his recent poem
carves a canoe from
a tulip tree—starlight
glistens in the spray of
the ebbing tide
grandma’s well
the water tasted like iron
and cold—
that darkness
from which I’m made
how casually
a brown bird
catches a butterfly
in its beak
and flies away
overnight
the leafing returns
to this dying oak
beneath my hand
such desire for spring
just this morning
the first magnolia buds
opening—
my mother’s unwed initials
on the suitcase she brought east
alone at last
she chooses the road
less travelled…
in her wind-blown hair
salt air and wildflowers
all that remains
of this childhood dream
white-washed bones
and a feathered wing
still flapping in the breeze
Wedgwood
tissued and boxed
for the auction
the chips and cracks
of my mother’s life
a raven
tumbling
across the sky
my wild mind
in his beak
in a moon garden
filled with night bloomers
we stroll away
a blue hour
your hand in mine
over red hills
the colored rings of sunrise
this balance
of moving forward
and letting go
(Red Hills, Lake George, 1927, Georgia O’Keeffe)
the ocean
was in a rage last night
but today
these peace offerings
of blue mussels and kelp
Beyond fault lines
and the unbearable weight
of the body
the wish for wings
to carry us home …