Learning a language

À

we learn a language to understand another way

of what and why do we care

if we can communicate with someone who lives across

the sea, in a place where trains run on time

and politicians care about their people

no such places exist yet the lure of language persists

as if in learning, we’ll open our hearts to 

some unknown place that yearns to be discovered

between the conditional and subjunctive for

in between knowing and confusion we search

some version of the truth 

the writing coach

 he greeted me with a generous smile in spite

of my tardy arrival, rushing in from the heat

my poems tucked under my armpit

as if to hide them from his critical eye

my tardiness swept aside, he inquired 

so gently what i hoped to accomplish here

with him, and the security guard sitting so close

did I have to tell him, too

he was not there to pick apart the words, themes, rhythms

and so i responded

very carefully, whispering the question

whether 

these poems tucked under the armpit

will breathe better once released. 

Suspended in space

I dare not wash my hands out of  respect for the spider 

Suspended in her web in my washbasin. 

Is she wondering, like me, what that next step will be, the entry

Into an unknown which may lead to better horizons, or not,

For her,  the freshness of the outdoors, for me, more time inside pondering words,

Syntax and shape, capitalization and story telling.

When night falls and I mount the stairs to brush my teeth,

Will she be there to accompany me on our journeys

Or shall I travel alone.

 

Look closely

Stop.

Look closely now that you are home

In the quiet, far removed from the vibrancy and drama

Of the big city, the sounds and smells, the landscape that penetrated 

Every sense, every cell the moment you stepped outside.

Stop.

Look closely now at the details of the seed head, the dandelion

That insisted on growing in the garden, unwanted, but persistent.

She has so much beauty in her radiating delicacy, each seed waiting

For the perfect lofting breeze to send her skyward, towards

Other gardens waiting for her perfection, even in their not-knowing,

Stop.

Look closely at the clover and the violas dispersed amongst the 

Grass, so carefully tended for the grandchildren who care only

To feel the cool, wet green between their toes.  

 

My Friend, Billy

How could I have known that this lanky boy with a big smile

Would end up as an artist, his imaginings transforming into the crazy folding

Of paper forms decorated by the randomly falling ink droplets emitted

To the timing of humming motors and interlocking gears.

How could I have imagined that this lanky boy would reappear in my life

As a grown man, someone I would want to spend the whole day and more

Wandering past giant-sized photographs the American worker dwarfed within

The bowels of a jet engine, or leaning over silicon wafers in a semiconductor fab.

And loving it all, every minute.

I could never have imagined this as the train clacked its way down from Boston to NYC,

The thing about imagination - anything is possible, we must

Only show up for it when it does.  

 

My half-brother is now my brother

 We had never had times like this, 

I'm panting to keep up with him on this 

strenuous bike ride through the Park, stopping en route to listen to 

West African music, the party goers likely preparing for the upcoming France-Senegal match

There was a lake off to the side, we passed by the restaurant and circled back

To find it together, a generous nod to our time in Senegal, decades apart.

This man is no longer my little brother, the 13 year old that lost his father

Too young, sobbing in the pews of the Unitarian Church in Chicago.

Only yesterday, I opened his front door to gasp at the sublime interior, filled with antiques

The product of an artist's eye, the work of this half-brother, who is now a full

Fledged brother, no longer the "kid" who worried about losing his siblings when

The patriarch passed on so young.

Let us not pass up any more opportunities to be together, to ride and to walk together

In spite of challenges that inspire deep respect and admiration.

We had never had times like this, but we will have them again.

The visit

 

My eyes drifted towards the wooden planks, 

Out the window at the pool cover, sagging from 

The leaden weight of snow, a brutal winter.

Her voice flowed over me like the sea, a myriad

Of pebbles of memories rushing towards me,

The accumulation following decades of silence. 

A frozen friendship waiting to be thawed, 

A seemingly urgent rush of words without a comma, 

Nor the briefest semi-colon, my gaze shifts to

The new appliances, the ones that will help sell

This majestic home that may still echo with 

Children’s cries, small running feet along the 

Floorboards above, the creaking of mattress springs.

Finally I turn my face to her, the jowls of age

Softened in the telling, our eyes meet as we rise, 

The chairs scraping, the wheels of my overstuffed 

Suitcase rolling towards the door.