Betelgeuse

All light is former mass
she heard a man say.
Deep in the shape
she has made
rests a glass lotus, no,
a bottle of colored sand
swept from a mandala,
no, a black hand.
In the palm is a wheel.
It spins her into sets
of five limbs: arms, legs,
head, each arrayed
with five ways to take
the world, take it in:
five fingers, five toes,
five monstrous senses:
eyes, ears, mouth,
nose, skin. Some
centrifuge pulls her
out from a center
like carnival taffy or light,
a star exploding slowly
in the shoulder of Orion.
Up close, she shines.
From far enough away
she’s already dead.

with thanks to Rilke for lines 3 and 4

The Reverence of Dogs

Hank drops his humble offering
sat the feet of the household yard gods.
All winter, snow does what it does.
Generous, he lays down more. I do
what I do: ignore his poop till spring thaw.

St. Francis came crumbling with the garden
when we bought the house three years ago.
Face eroded, hips severed from legs, he leans
in crisp sedums against a post, blesses
the perfect pie of a rescued dog at his feet.

Gaia, kitschy relic of early motherhood,
green resin figurine gifted by a dying desert
midwife, perches sun-faded on a stump
in yarrow, smiles serenely over Earth belly
where there is still room for the turd in her lap.

Parinirvana Buddha’s resting head, small town
thrift store find, cracked, epoxied, spray painted
black,  idol I cannot let go nor forget, drifts
in the promise of daisies, eyes high on death,
sweet whiff of long-wintered dung, nearly dust.

doing nothing

I am done mutely berating myself
for avoiding doing things

I told myself I’d do on my days off.
I won’t do them till I do, or must.

Sweep the floor when the feet say.
Suck skin off chai when eyes

take a break from the dog eared page.
Write words to frustrate my future mud,

roll out clay, curl a slab into a cup
only when the body, empty, erupts.

Wonderland

Allison's witness doll
dancing masked
with an egg
with me
over a shallow grave
friends take turns in.
Heel to head
dirt mandorla:
I lie down
in a strange death
pasture, crack
toward sky, gravity
mixing grief, snow melt,
relief, eye water.
So many ways
to make mud.

(a combined response to Wonderland's Pandemic Philosophizing in conte crayon and her 2020 earth installation, Feral Nostalgia's Delicate Commonweath)

Little Rachel Dreams of Regeneration

In third grade,
I read Pets in a Jar
cover to cover,
renewed it for weeks
or maybe months,
until the librarian
reminded me other
kids might like it too.
For the rest of childhood
into my teens,
I sought planarians
in wet ditches
and culvert weeds,
scooped jars of murky water
from neighborhood ponds
crouched in cattail reeds.
I never found one,
would never know
if I had courage enough
to slit its funny face
between the eyes
and split its tail
into a fork to watch
it heal into a living
double-headed X,
or better yet, or worse,
a tiny headless man
with two legs, two arms,
two faces for hands,
four tiny, forgiving
eyes, now twice as wise
thanks to me.

Reteach a Thing its Loveliness

"…sometimes it is necessary/ to reteach a thing its loveliness,/ to put a hand on its brow…/ and retell it in words and in touch/ it is lovely/ until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing/ as St. Francis/ put his hand on the creased forehead/ of the sow…" Galway Kinnell

I’m not sure which I prefer—
a dog-ruined couch
felted with fur and saliva,
my heart unfurled
by that dog’s head on my lap,
mother-loneliness ruined
by unblinking brown eyes,
child-starved fingers sated
by silken ears and skull,
his musky scent a welcome
pocket of ancient wilderness
inside my home,

or this clean couch,
spotless but for drips
of coffee here and there,
bread crumbs tucked
in corded seams,
its arms stained
with my arms’ oils,
my heart in solitary repose
considering a poem
by Galway Kinnell
called “St. Francis
and the Sow,”
while my dog rests
over there on his bed,
his chin on the low
window sill, peering out,
a palm of morning light
upon his brow.

List of Dreams for Yeshe Walmo

Dead mouthed,
I stain red pillows
with drool.
Tape my lips.
My list of dreams
bore dreams.
They found me, bent
me, broke my face,
turned sons
to grandmothers,
trees to saviors,
daughters
to fathers, fire
to prayers.
Better not to list
one’s dreams.
This moment
the required dream.
Shake me, take
my head, bead it
on a twisted cord.
Wear it, blue one,
wake me.

Crestone Poetry Festival:Feb. 27 -28

Please join us for a FREE virtual Poemfest with your favorite poets...

from the Sangre de Cristo mountains and beyond. Our virtual festival this year will be a reunion of the community we’ve enjoyed the past three years. The fourth annual Poemfest will be different from those in years past, but we will feature some of the best writers in Colorado and New Mexico, and we will pass the gourd.

Visit Poemfest.com to register!

Snow Birds

Waxed speed beneath me,
new skis tooled by my son
carry me faster than before
but slower still than he, pole-less,
and my husband, giant snow boarder,
who thrill in the wind and blur,
the skill of the bump
and jump, theft of air,
laugh derailing death again.

They wait, they wait
for me, raise a hand to catch
my scanning eye, shooting
down the backside final slope,
always five or more minutes behind.
They hold my place
in the lift line. I don’t mind
being slow. They don’t mind
being cold.

It is Peter Anderson’s 65th.
Our two families, having spent
the morning separate, meet
at the food yurt to celebrate.
Beer, burgers, and chili cheese
dogs gone, gray jays hungrily
look on, panhandle shreds
of hot dog bun, and my son
and the snowboarders speed off.
I hang back with the oldest three
of the Anderson clan and we
begin our descent, four
leapfrogging peers
of the slow switchback,
the quiet snow.

Soon, submerged against
my will in speed trance,
center of the earth
having its way with wax and me,
my half century knees and hips
somehow managing, I
find myself alone, ahead,
surprised. Not behind!
I stop, look back.
Seconds pass.
The Andersons emerge
as a flock of swans, floating
threesome of silent elegance,
telemarking down the slope,
long lines traced behind,
wakes of huge hearts,
snow an EKG tape
spooling steady, slow.

I let them pass, stop near
where they pause to gather,
confer: mother, father,
grown daughter.
Downed they are,
featherless, unruffled,
barely stirred by slight
breeze carrying to me
Pete’s voice, upbeat, a crumb
of witness and wisdom offered
to his daughter, Rose, who listens
open, bright faced,
to how she can improve
her stance, her form, a language
beyond me, and she,
unselfconsciously, sets off
to try it out. He watches
her knees and toes alternate
lovely angles, oiled hinges
carrying the smooth machine of her
over snow like hushed wings,
and, satisfied, follows, and
her mother, Grace, too.

Audience of one,
I choose to slow to watch
the scene unscroll like celadon ribbons
from above, gravity pulling my friend
toward everyone she loves. Grace,
the final dancer, her symmetries
shifting, disappears in flat light
around a bend, the whispered end
of the mountain ballet.

Instead

Having hoped

in vain

to become a tree

into which no one

carves their name,

I instead

write poetry.

2020