Weeding

I am taking break in the early evening on this beautiful spring day from weeding in my garden to weed through the poems I wrote during April’s national poetry month challenge to write a poem a day.

A friend asked who had participated and where are the poems. So here in response are my five favorites – well today’s favorites at any rate. They’re only titled by the  date written for now, and are all in the rough but enthusiastic stage.

April 1

I’ll never sail my way around the world
 
 swim the English Channel or drive cross country
 
 on my own 750 Norton commando

I’ll never play guitar or belt the blues like Janis
 
 never paint a blue period piece like Picasso
 
 or round the globe in a balloon

won’t deep sea dive or ride the back of a whale
 
 or have much swale to swing about
 
 or tout a new designer at a posh New York club

never have a passel of children and raise them on a farm.
 
 But I might have a glimpse, a fingernail moon’s happiness
 
 a sparkle of kisses from little grand boys

a cauldron of words to conjure stories and someone to listen
 
 to them being told. I’m hoping to grow old with some grace
 
 the gleam of the girl in my face still watching.

April 6

I want to rise into the day in praise
 
 of every little miracle around me
 
 yellow forsythia breaking open
 
 the flash of red winged song
 
 the woodpecker’s echoing
 
 each unfolding leaf
 
 and newly flowered branch,
 
 my own working arms and legs.

Let me offer thanks for sight
 
 and gratitude for touch
 
 even when I do not reach
 
 let me recognize
 
 the shape of your hand.

April 16

one day you’ll be grown
 
 but for now you ask
 
 question after question
 
 about the sun and stars
 
 what happens after you die
 
 where you go is heaven below
 
 or above on a cloud? I love
 
 to watch you stretch into concepts
 
 puzzle after puzzle crosses your face
 
 but never erases you, the curious boy
 
 widening my heart day after day.

April 19

The fields are terraced all the way to the river
 
 green showing beneath flowering almond trees.
 
 When the petals disappear the pale pink
 
 gives way to hard shells, fruits held inside.

I search for recipes to capture the garden
 
 when I peel the skin from the eggplant
 
 I am left with flesh, It bruises so readily.

I will serve you on hand painted plates
 
 I will fill you with summer.
 
 When autumn comes, then we will sleep.

April 30

I have cut off all my hair
 
 I am left released and exposed
 
 I am left open and present
 
 young and old for any one to see.
 
 Yesterday I spoke on line
 
 to two hundred people
 
 about race and equity
 
 about the hidden things
 
 we carry that color the way we see.
 
 In Baltimore the embers are still hot
 
 the wounds are red and open
 
 they have never healed from
 
 Furgeson or Staten Island
 
 or Katrina or Jim Crow
 
 or the mid sea voyage
 
 or that most western point on Ghana.
 
 We all carry scars
 
 some of us have learned to nurture
 
 others to inflict hurt
 
 some of us care for ourselves
 
 and some of us punish others
 
 we all carry fear
 
 we all share it
 
 this does not excuse it
 
 this does not forgive the perpetrators
 
 this does understand the eruptions
 
 the ululations otherwise unheard
 
 this doe not excuse the breaking glass
 
 but it does not blame grief
 
 the way it points to disregard.
 
 I have cut off all my hair
 
 you can see the lines
 
 on my face and my eyes
 
 and the furrow on my forehead
 
 this doesn’t mean I don’t see
 
 the dogwood trees in bloom
 
 or the tender new green
 
 or the irises just about to flower.