tomorrow's the day

tomorrow's the day
when I will lift my flute to my lips
and play to the world, colors shifting from
warm to cold, staccato to legato smooth,
composers ranging over five hundred years
the final one resting here, on my shoulders
I will look out at my audience and play my own
notes.
from song, to hum, from low to high, invented
in that moment, never to be repeated.
I will sing my song to the world
it will be waiting with open arms.

Chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter

two sticks of butter,

2 c. of chocolate chips

1.5 c of sugar.

yum

but it's not enough, no siree,

as he slathers on another T of peanut butter

before sinking his teeth, coating his tongue

in pure delight.

never mind the scale.

all of a sudden

all of a sudden it's green

the ground cover, the buds, the leaves

the sunshine filters through

lush green, the sunlight looks green

a harmony of green

all of a sudden life burst forth

the birds are singing

I am singing.

Weeds

they are groaning
pushing, struggling, succeeding
in pushing the rain soaked soil to the side
their leaves opening the moment they hit cool air.
the weeds are winning,
I see them spread from morning to morning,
pushing aside the plants I love, the ones I have planted,
hopefully waiting for blooms and blossoms.
these weeds,
the endurers through nuclear holocaust,
through drought and desert, through snow and sleet,
they wait for the right moment and push forth.
we, the gardeners, gaze at them with wonder
and despair, our small hand tools and knee pads
at hand, we bow to them, we battle them
and we know this will be a battle
never won, only postponed.

the sweetness of life

cookies

for some, loaded with chocolate chips

the dough merely a glue to hold them together

that's my husband.

for me,

nuts rule, with chocolate chips mixed in

to a thick butter dough.

cookies are the sweetness of life,

warm with cold milk,

dipped in coffee,

or cold and crunchy, bites stolen

between lines of Matlab code.

only cookies rejuvenate a stale brain.

Best friends at first sniff

if only

if only

we ran across the field towards each other

tags wagging furiously, yes, a few nips, some teeth

and a couple growls and then all forgiven.

the walls would fall at the borders, 

all would be fed,

there would be no guns and each child would

have a mother and a father.

black, brown and white all play together 

like these two.

if only.

passover seder

we are the gentiles
amongst Jews, the minority,
the unknowing, the ignorant, the importance
of Moses, of Abraham,
of wicker baskets floating amongst the reeds,
of escaping through parting seas
unleavened bread grasped at the last moment.
of the need for Israel, for home.
we are white, the gentiles, the tall ones,
the ones who walk without knowing
the tragic flow of tears, of parsley dipped
in salt water
of remembrance.

Sheep grazing in the fields

i dreamt i was back in New Zealand,

endless hillsides of green pasture dotted with sheep

the peacefulness 

rounded mounds of white fluff, some sheep standing,

some resting in the lush grass

clouds scuttling across the sky, promising rain.

but this was Colorado a couple days after a blizzard,

the snowmen have stooped to the ground, some are

lying down, others have lost their arms,

they look like sheep grazing in a pasture in 

new zealand.

I think about that sometimes

I think about that sometimes.

we are all on the conveyor belt of life,

starting out as white slices, our wrinkled skin

and dark innocent eyes.

we bronze in the sun, bask in the warmth

(we hope) and edge towards darkness

finally looking out towards the light.

our companions beside us, we move 

forward realizing that one day everyone

we know will die, 

we know ourselves, we say

and we too will die.

my new car

like a new baby.
afraid that he would not get through the night.
would stop breathing once we were home.
this morning
I peeked out my window to see if
my new car was still there,
glad to see it was not stolen in the
night,
still breathing, still beautiful,
still new.
it is waiting for me to get in and drive,
but I have nowhere to go today that my
bike will not suffice.
maybe tomorrow,
certainly Thursday I will drive.
I can't wait and
until then I will
look out the window every
morning to make sure it is still there,
still beautiful and new.

Every 25 years or so...

every twenty five years or so

it's time to buy a new car.

no reason to rush it

three thousand miles a year doesn't 

add up too quickly

the paint is still good, the engine runs

the brakes brake, there are no 

monthly payments.

twenty five years, more  or less,

have passed and it's come to that time.

i've wanted this car since 2007,

it's time, it's time.

Written on the bathroom wall

in Boulder,

we are all beautiful,

we are white, but perfectly tanned in summer,

our breasts do not sag and our necks are

long and elegant.

in Boulder, our bodies are lean and sculpted.

No one rides less than a century 

or runs less than a half marathon.

we are beautiful in Boulder and when

we look at one another, we do not see the

deepest need

that which is hidden,

unspoken.

Before the storm

before the storm,

i will gather my posies,

my daffodils and apple blossoms,

bleeding hearts and tulips.

i will fill my house with beauty

and watch the snow fall,

the snow, its perfect hexagonal

flakes drifting so gently down,

i will see beauty everywhere.

Scorched earth

and after the hiss of the flame thrower 

the odor of burnt greens rises to my nostrils,

yes, me, the weedimator, the one who leans

over towering weeds, a delicate purple

purse casually thrown over my shoulder,

yes, I have destroyed this city of weeds,

they shrivel into black, never to rise again.

Scorched earth against a noble enemy.

their neighbors will rise in protest

and my torch will scald them to the 

earth, I will hear their shrieks echo 

against brick walls.

(wow, such violence, kind of scary!)

Feeling Powerful

It sounds like a jet engine.

the hiss of gas exploding into flame with the click of

a switch, I feel the heat on my face.

Burn, baby, burn 

I hum to the weeds as they crumple under

my powerful torch

never to rise again.

my neighbor backs off fearfully

when I try to hand it over.

it takes a real woman to handle this thing,

that's me.

if fish could type

if fish could type, the keyboard would look

convex and their fins would skitter across

the keys, composing works of great 

depth that only their kind could understand,

we are so limited in ours, requiring certain

structures and order

perhaps the fish have already written works

like those of Shakespeare 

(who I never liked all that much, even though

I'm supposed to).

I'd rather read a fishy tale of love and adventure,

of swirling waters and rainbows viewed from

under the sea.

Out Test driving cars

my agent had it pegged as a bad
car at first glance.
custom wheels and stereo speakers,
a 2007 driven hard.
with each mile, the car made more and more noise,
i wondered if we'd make it back to the dealer
alive.
the salesman was a boomerang kid, living at home,
dropped out of college
his parents told him to come home and get
a job
there he was in his pressed grey slacks
and reluctant smile
eager for a sale
by the time we left the 2007 car was
out for the next test drive,
used car salesman are called oily
for a reason.

Episode #267

the enigma

episode 267

the question

whether to go forward or back,

just hit play,

life goes on,

this episode follows #17, that was

yesterday, tomorrow will be another.

life is uncertain, it could be episode 0

or maybe 1702, there is so much uncertainty.

only know that we are in the middle

of episode #267 and yesterday

was #17,
we could never have predicted.

watching listening and breathing

she moves as gracefully as the wind
her hair sweeping across her neck
with each bow stroke, her body lifts and falls
like an angel caught on a rising and falling
cloud, we breathe with her
the music breathes back and when
she puts down the bow and turns to us
her feet touch the ground only then,
she bows, smiles and disappears.

du vin et de la langue francaise

elle arrive par vélo,
j'ai une bouteille de vin,
mon cahier qui était détournée
de français a la science,
elle ne le comprenait pas,
nous buvons et nous parlons,
en français, même a mon mari qui
ne parle pas le français,
nous lui fait comprendre que nous
avons besoin d'une autre bouteille
et il nous apporte deux verres d'eau.
nous parlons des parents, des amis
non fiables, des décisions autant fait
maintenant que deux ans, ou dix.
allons-y, alors.

on vacation

on vacation
we go to bed early
the birds are still busying their nests,
someone is out walking the dog
and the wind is blowing
leaves down the street
the lights are not yet on
but mine are out.

in need of wine

it was a rough day.

a fender-bender,

analysts at the gate

their teeth bared, their reputations 

at stake.

mine is hardly worth noting

a humble offering with no protection

yes, i ran into her, imprinting a red

line across her pristine Audi bumper

she stopped midway through the turn

i followed her only pausing to 

check to the left

and her bumper and mine kissed

she'd say a bit too abruptly.

i'll pay for the red line to turn white,

and drink a glass to ease

the trauma of the day

in preparation for

tomorrow.

i don't have to believe

i don't have to believe,
    just listen.
what's to believe, just try
    open up,
isn't that the way the heart works
   trust
you know in your heart
   even if he doesn't
  wrapped up in skepticism
why bother
   do you believe in miracles
being born
  is a miracle
finding love
  is a miracle
i don't have to believe
  i can live it

I came like the dew

dew

those miraculous small droplets

like tiny babies born on the heads of pins

each so perfectly formed

and yet, whent the sun shines down

upon them, they vanish as peacefully

as they came

so do 

we

Eye in the Sky

from a conference room in London,
a dark bunker in Kenya,
a military base in Nevada,
they shall issue an order  to kill
one innocent life now or let the suicide bombers
kill eighty later,
he put two more sugar cubes in his tea,
he's been on ground zero in market places
strewn with body parts.
meanwhile the drone hummed overhead
as the little girl sat in the hot sun selling her bread,
too close to the target house.
i could hear the humming of the fast steering mirror
i work at the place that makes them
thousands of them
my hands are not clean
the hands of al-shabab are dripping blood
we are caught, all caught in
this bloody war.