For Bob the Robin of Britain / Michelle Frost
A bird swept down to perch on me
He whistled in my ear
I didn't have to know his song
to appreciate the tune
I only had to be still enough
for him to know we're friends
And when he finished he gave a wink
"Thanks, I'll see you again!"
Bob Robin's reply:
A bird cannot assume anything
we can't afford to lose
Every most important need
we carry in our beak
or stow inside our nest
But winds will blow
and cats will hunt
There's truly no safe place
Weather Guns Predators
give cause to keep close watch
Despite the dangers we flit about
as though we hadn't a care
And when you are sad and still
We sing to you at the sill
Tiny notes of hope
"You are not Alone"
Frank’s American Childhood / David Hadbawnik
Walking through the woods, crossing the road to the trail, heading to visit the monument to Frank’s American Childhood. Already there are others milling around at the base of the monument, a stone obelisk with a star etched at its base, a candle burning there in a small red jar. And then, a disturbing scene unfolds: a young boy of perhaps eight years old, who’s been wailing for quite some time, shrieks that from a distance had sounded like a goat in pain. A thin, dark woman who must be the mother watches as the boy wheezes, coughs, moans, and hurls himself down on the ground, violently banging head and hands. The mother, far from comforting him, instead grabs his arms, beats him about the head, admonishing him all the while. At this moment the sky darkens, storm clouds gathering, lightning flashes over the mountain. At first, her party seems to include another little boy, a couple years younger than the other boy, and an older couple; but these latter break off and depart, leaving only the woman and two boys.
The older boy continues having a fit. The mother wants him to go to the monument; he won’t. The younger boy seems fine, simply milling about in anxious confusion, the difficult boy raising his arms, not able to maintain control of them. This seems like a defense against the blows of the mother; later, as though he’s attacking her in turn. She catches his wrists, twists them back, pushes him. Eventually, perhaps out of weariness, or restrained by the proximity of two men who’ve approached on bikes, she relaxes her grip and the difficult boy makes a break, storming away on the path. She turns and sprints for the younger boy, who’s bolted at the same instant towards the monument to Frank’s American Childhood, as if to please her: “See, I’m here.” She scoops up the boy and lifts him in her arms with surprising strength, clutching him horizontally to her breast as she runs after the difficult boy. In a moment she’s shepherding them into a small white car, driving slowly away on the gravel road
*
An old woman walking on the street with a shopping bag slung over one shoulder, half-hopping, half-trotting in the effort to move quickly through Frank’s American Childhood
Here is my poem for tomorrow / Alexander Shalom Joseph
Mary Oliver appears in my car, after I have memorized her poem, a summer day. She asks me to crack the window so she can smoke. I do. She puts her feet up on the dash. She says I’ve memorized more of her poems than she has. She wonders why. I try to tell her that I want to be great like her. That if I can take in her words, hold them in my mind, maybe I can make them part of me, of my words too. She laughs. I ask her about the career of others who are doing better than me. She says they will rise and they will fall. I wonder about myself. She says I will wander on into the yellow grass and that is all anyone can hope for. Then she asks me to put some music on. Something with soul. I do. I open the windows all the way. We both nod along until her cigarette is gone and so is she.
Gentle, Frost / Sally Kuzma
A deep growl of thunder
this dark November morning–
then the gentlest of rains…
Reading Frost’s poems in this soft patter,
I’m curious what gentle was to him.
Where the word is found, the titles alone–
October, My Butterfly, The Housekeeper,
The Hillside Thaw— tell of tendernesses
lost, found, longed for.
A haze over autumn sun
delaying the casual discard of leaves–
Retard the sun with gentle mist, he pleas
like a lover speaking directly to
his October:
Slow, slow!
It belongs to the God
who released the butterfly–
from his gentle clasp–
then ungently took it back, made it
dead.
It's how neighbors want to be seen–
what a gentle lot we are–
in how they hold their hens–
Two at a time’s the rule, one on each arm.
It’s how the moon casts her light
on a thawing hillside, casts her spell
on every single lizard.
Another Workday / Lincoln McElwee
Rain pelts the face like autumn felt.
I stand on a Friday wearing Monday’s socks.
They say, Blame it on Monday,
with little coffee mugs and knitted steam.
Wide field of migraine—
chalk, seaweed, bright light bellowing in the brain.
The train arrives, and we move into morning.
Wind elbows the trees, looking for a fight.
The trees: gold-brown, green-orange, red-red,
a whir of yellow like a wild canary’s flight.
Freeway foliage and steel and rocks
flanked by concrete that, in the rain,
turns into Rorschach inkblots.
The tunnel from Mercer to Judkins.
A man knits in the seat in front of me,
purple yarn against pale, steady hands.
A woman with silver hair reads a red book and squints.
I barely have the energy to stare out the window and sigh.
We open to Lake Washington.
The U-District in the distance. People. Commerce. Work.
The trees reach into the wind, envious too of flight.
Why You Yell at the Dog / Michelle Stoll
The thing that sets you off
is never just the thing
But the way the dog looked
standing in fresh pee
beside the door
waiting
and licked your balled fist
with so much abandon
Undoes you
disowned empty-bowled
shut-mouthed
Who else can know
but the dog
karesansui (枯山水) / Sandra Tan
meaning, a Japanese dry garden, carefully composed to evoke natural elements such as mountains and water.
garden without mountains and water
meant to evoke them.
the way a pink streak across the sky
suggests morning,
or a dropped feather
the act of flight.
leaning on the parapet
at shofukaku
I watch the white domes of the refinery
in the distance, plumes of steam
streaming into the cold.
no waves, so one must rake waves –
in truth, they are the waves
of the mind, in their meandering
and rippling way.
on route to fukadaso cafe
in koto, I pass a walled cemetery
between residential blocks
while a light rain falls,
the sky gray and clouded over.
I walk through the granite columns,
noticing stalks of fresh flowers
placed in empty cylinders,
purple and white, with yellow hearts.
a middle-aged couple
lighting up incense,
so quiet I don’t hear them
beneath the patter of rain.
flowers as signifiers
of the thoughts that carry on.
damp incense in the rain.
