Bird by Bird

bird by bird

word by word, first draft

worse by worser, confidence flies away.

bird by bird,

seed by seed, 

watching them drop to a squirrel

who will catch these words, 

bird by bird, who will gather them and reform them

word by word

into second draft, and third, line by line.

she said it's torture, but made it funny,

how many words by words, 

birds by birds did she shoot down with

the gun at her side, in that quiet countryside

before she said these words

bird by bird

word by word.

 

vertigo

 we are not meant to be in a spinning world,

having never noticed the fine structure of the gym floor,

i now notice that the speckles are circles of color.

and the ceiling lights, suspended above me are spinning

at an alarming rate, but the struts hold.

My stomach protests and I call out weakly,

without wanting to make a fuss and try to turn

towards the floor, to force it to stop spinning

My face is burning, my stomach wanting to retch

this is vertigo. 

one moment, thinking about how hard my workout will be, 

the next, knowing that there will be none.

the one moment, thinking about how to always stay busy in the beloved flow zone,

the next, knowing that it's not possible and that when the world

stops spinning, I will have to stop, too, 

and tolerate that state of "not doing"

There is no choice.

looking old age in the eye after a new haircut

we decided that it's a malaiase, that beautiful word that sounds like it 

means.

my brother and me, at 70, he looks it, and I try to hide my own age so I don't have to 

directly face the mirror which asks me what I want to do with my life

now

that I'm no longer leading the team, my mind doesn't solve deep problems

in space the way that it used to, I'm feeling old, my bones creak and my

knees buckle.

Malaise, the sense that the day does not hold so many exciting new things that 

I can't WAIT to open my eyes and start the day! 

I was never built this way, 

childhood photos show a face full of serious worry, there was no joy there

and yet

everyone says that I will LOVE retirement and congratulations, but 

why, when I loved doing what I did so well.

Retirement means that it's time to step aside and do something new, but I'm 

not sure what new will match that sense of focus and excitement at learning

that particular new thing.

What particular new thing will wake me up in the morning, all eager to 

start a new day?

 

It's time to rest

after billions of dollars, hoarse from shouting, after 

the sheer will power to move the "people" did not even nudge them,

no, not even decades of misogyny, or threats of mass deportations, no, 

not even our gaze into the hellish summer heats or swirling debris of

yet more powerful hurricanes, no, there is nothing to be done.

Let's rest then, next to a fuzzy friend, an innocent youngster, 

no more postcard parties, or fantasies that the message we believed in

meant ....anything.  It did not.

In any case,

the wealthy will do fine in an autocracy as long as the house is still standing.

I thought we were fighting for all of us, in fact, but no,

they will fight for themselves, I imagine, or maybe, no

maybe not, they will maybe fight each other?  In the darkness

when their neighbor is pulled from her bed, or will they celebrate

as she was not meant to be the "other", aren't there other "others".  

For now, I will rest, watch the snow fall outside the window,

only momentarily disturbed by the man pushing his cart 

overflowing with blankets, hoping for a better day

tomorrow.

 

Beautiful women making baguettes

thank goodness for big kitchens and multiple

baguette forms, the French one in firehouse red...

with a lid!

thank goodness for beautiful women with brains who love to 

bake, for the husband who helps the Tibetans

navigate revolving doors, for this

beautiful fall day.

Thank goodness for their friendship.

Thank goodness for the art work on the wall that celebrates nature

and ALL people, for the elderly Swiss woman who laughs about all the 

French speakers who don't learn English.

Laughter is good.

thank goodness for laughter, and for the 

crunch of fall leaves under my bicycle tires,

thank goodness for my bike which was waiting for me at home, 

 to ride briskly in the fall afternoon, me fueled by baguette and jam,

bread and cheese calories.

thanks goodness. 

 

The beauty in a braid....and the yummy in an ice cream cone!

How many shades of blonde are twisted and tucked and 

finally coaxed into this braid, 

how lovely, how simple, how long can I gaze, studying how the hair,

so many strands so unruly at first, then carefully gathered by a mother's hand

into a darker collection at the nape of her neck, where brown hair hides

amongst the blonde.  

Somehow

the braid emerges from there, now straight and well mannered, dropping 

down onto her small back, secured with a yellow band

(that I may have even held in my hand when I was there),

a spray of gold emerging into the light.  

...............

And then...ice cream, the just reward for enduring such fussiness!

 

What stories can she can tell

I only remember her later years, of spreading shade over a grassy lawn,

her lower trunk still wet in the morning from the sprinklers. 

Day by day, I never noticed her change, over the years that I walked

by with the dogs, first Buddy and Portia,  then Bella, frolicking, her fur

jet black, now white around the snout.

She was a presence, a giver, this tree, that was one of several who were just

there.

Until she was not, the victim of roaring chainsaws, she came down in large 

pieces, death on the ground, and no sign of illness, the fallen victim of 

a distant bureaucrat who decided that she might fall one day, given her 

advanced age.

now, in her shrunken state, she can still offer of herself, a seat for a 

visitor from Texas, on a sunny day.

what stories can he tell?