Making Something

An oldie, for JK. 

She is making me something.  

“Like the moon,” she says, her voice hopeful,

“so far the moon looks really good.”

I listen to her over the phone line,

her voice,

deeper than in person, and her small sighs,

“If nothing else at least you will have

this moon,“ eat up my

resolve until, finally,

“You don’t have to make me

anything,” I say, “I know you

still love me.”    

But she is an

artist, and telling her this

is like cutting a new vein, like

letting old passions fall into

the dirt. She would rather die, I

think, than ever

give up.

“I have seashells,” she tells me, and now

she pauses, her voice dropping, “but they

aren’t turning out.” And I imagine her

then:

Long brown hair hanging

into her eyes, the phone ringing on the floor

nearby, all the friends

calling

for her attention, but she

sits,

lips curled in concentration, fingers

full of chalk, and angry,

with an image burned into

her mind that will never

can never

be contained.

We talk awhile longer, the

tiger and the lily, the china and the

bull and when the moment grows quiet

I tell her I have something for

her.

“Is it an origami swan?” she asks, with a kind

laugh, an eight year old

girl turned twenty five, and I listen

as her words

take flight

for the next five minutes with

the memory of

origami and I’m

suddenly

surprised at how

badly I want it

all

to turn out. 

There Are People

For Davi...

There are people

walking around all day

with broken hearts.

I hear them creaking

like weathered shutters

in a light breeze,

then battering down

in a rush

of chipped paint,

rusted hinges, and

faith.  

There are people

walking around all day

with flowers

for mouths, and hands

made of feathers.

They drop words

in the wind, syllables fall

into cracks, float away. I feel

them cool on my skin

across town.

There are people

walking around all day

surprised

by kindness.

As if the last great good

were from the hand of god

Herself.

Their brows wrinkling

in distrust. Is any act

truly

selfless?  

There are people

walking around all day

in bodies they

never belonged to, but

all the parts

are there:

table

floorboards

roof

doors.

The windows are open.

The plumbing works fine.

The garden out back

bears just enough fruit 

for the aching

quiet 
flower 
of the heart

to break

scattering seeds.

There are people walking…

There,

do you see?

With petals stuck to the soles

of their shoes? 

Gold

I delight in their delight.
Their cautious flittering all about
the bird house, occasionally a quick dip
inside, to whatever hides;
I imagine something growing.

There are two.
One appears to stand guard, staunch,
as big as a golf ball, and puffy
against the human and feline curiosities.
The other I call "Marigold",
a red breasted beauty, maybe a female,
smaller, sleek, she spends
her time finding worms, bits of
nest for her home, comforts.

They are serious in their commitment.
They are not broken like so many china dolls.
They are not failures like lightbulbs in
an electrical storm.
They have FAITH
in everything.

And nothing. They fly
away at the first hint of rain.
The purple birdhouse sways, slightly.
The lazy cats take cover.
Doors slam in the distance, and
I grab a raincoat, the least
(the most)
I can do.

The Simple Trail

The simple trails

I used to follow

up into the open meadows and

wild fields of flowers, bone dry

and desert blue.

I walked those trails with you

one hundred times

or more,

kicking up stones, leaving marks, watching

the sky turn, thinking

not thinking

for once.

They say the trails that

run through the heart

can burn themselves

clean, down to the end

of every bad deed.

But I bet it’s not that easy

to forget tenderness

pain, yours and mine

the open wounds

left by the flames and the

consuming desire

to burn.

I wonder:

Could I stumble

blind

back between all the stumps and roots

of us

and submit again

to the soil

with working hands,

meager rations,

and ask for no more.

Could I finally leave the trails

of my heart

to the rains?

This heaven.
This pervasive, reaching, constant
malignancy
of beauty.
This scarred stretch

of glacier
laying quiet surreal tracks
on the Earth.
The tears
through the soil
aging gracefully, deepening, filling
with rapids, or growing more
and more
dry.
The monstrous wound
of humanity
working against the flames
that burn so hot they
fill the sky,
split oaks in half.

Then, come the seedlings.

New growth
from each catastrophe.
My heart considers this
and sings.