Love

how tenderly he holds her

she melts into his embrace

intense happiness.

there is a ring on her left hand,

a promise in their hearts

he is the one

she is the one

I know this

I recognize this

my heart is in their embrace

as surely as any mother's

who knows that she is the one

for him, he is the one for her.

Passing the Test

with some practice

some dedication and humility,

with passion and perseverence

it's possible to pass the test,

not just barely but with flying colors,

with 92% approval, with a smile

I passed the test

I hugged my mestre

and bounced up and down 

and texted my family

and emailed my friends

and am writing this post.

I passed the test, having gone

from struggling on the ground,

to standing up to kicking up to 

the sky.

it feels good.

The bounty of a single tomato

Heirloom tomato:  1 lb 8 oz, organic,

priced at $5/pound buys enough seeds

for the squash and tomatoes, the tomatillos

and cucumbers.

That's one tomato and we've already eaten

many pounds of squash and tomatoes,

of lemon cucumbers and green cucumbers,

of turnips and peas, of Swiss chard and 

don't forget the many pounds of potatoes 

still hidden under the soil.

When snow is still drifting to the ground

and lettuce seeds sit under a fine layer of

wet soil, remember the bounty of the late

summer where the price of a single tomato,

not purchased, but pulled warm from the vine

saves enough to buy all the seeds you need.

Go for it

all five of them tottered on the edge

not venturing to jump off for the first five countdowns

5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1

only leaning forward without launching

until finally

finally one jumped, 

then another

and another,

the little girl with the ponytail jumped last,

her delicate feet disappearing into the swirl

of the cool water, her smile popping up from

underneath,

she waved at me.

i missed it with my camera

but her smile is imprinted onto

my memory.

this is my home

this is my home,

dry and warm, there is no water

running along the floorboards,

I am not perched on a table

helplessly watching water stream by,

watching the levels rise knowing I have 

no where to go, no way to get anywhere,

that I am here amidst millions

isolated in our own homes

without a boat.

My sisters and brothers are huddled

in their waterlogged homes, holding children

and dogs, a warm blanket, waiting and 

watching,

and I am here in my cozy home watching

Game of Thrones,

I can only be aware of the

unfairness of the world.

I can only hope they find

relief,

and soon.

turnip harvest

turnips never grew in my garden plot
across the street, no amount of fertilizer,
compost, water, love...
would produce a single small turnip.
I held small hopes for my new garden
but put the seeds in the ground in Spring
and forgot about them, enjoying
sauteed greens all summer long
until I looked.
Turnips, huge ones, pressing against
each other, rising from the soil like
breaching whales.
turnips may never have grown across
the street no matter what, but feeling the
weight of huge turnips with their
attendent greens makes me happy,
finally happy.

Young Dancers

a moment ago, they were giggling 

in a random swarm of legs and arms,

the flash of braces and bling,

of wealth and privilege.

and then

bodies aligned and sprang forward and

up in harmony, in perfect discipline

in beauty.

I will read this to you when you are older

you, my grandchild, are not yet born,

in fact, only a twinkle in the eye of some future

parents, not even married,

yet I think of sitting here with you on my knee,

we'll look at pictures drawn long ago and 

words in a language your parents do not 

understand, stories of flying angels and white

clouds billowing over rocky shores.

I will point out words like "chat" and 

"chien" noting the importance of cats

and dogs in the world, but also "maman"

et "papa" for the two most important people

in your world.

I hope to be the third.

One day.

Looking towards the sun - a solar eclipse

After inhaling the Moon Pies and donning

my snazzy eclipse glasses,

both compliments of my employer,

I gazed up at the sun,

first a small bite at the edge missing,

then sucessively larger dark bites

until only a thin crescent of sun was visible.

the crows did caw in the diminished light

(or perhaps they always do)

in the last hour, the crooked smile of the crescent 

rotated counterclockwise until it finally

opened to a wide grin and the sun reappeared

as round and bright as ever.

Afterwards, we wandered back to our offices

with stiff necks, eclipse glasses in hand,

perhaps wondering if we should have gone

to Wyoming to see the full eclipse.

Maybe next time.

In the dressing room

don't look too carefully in the dressing room,

a sideways glance is good enough to decide

and I said yes

yes to stripes and corrugation

to red, black and white, to a silky black top

at 40% off, affordable.

it's summer and I'm wearing the same style

of sandal as K, who advised me never to 

wear a T-shirt again

at my age, I guess I should have known better

how difficult and tortuous is the path

to adulthood and beyond.

on the bus

on the bus home,

really, home, where there's blueberries

in the side yard, and stacks of cucumbers,

tomatoes on the vine,

a black dog who won't bother to greet me.

there will be a husband who will hug me

and a bed covered with his clothing and 

dirty socks and I'll throw them off the other side.

home is where I belong,

in spite of the black dog who never bothers

to say hello, and the clothes

and dirty dishes.

home is where I belong.

please

please give me a treat 

if I'm good, I'll be good, I'll

walk by your side, I'll do whatever

a dog can do.

please take me for a walk,

I like to pee on the bushes

and  mark where the deer have 

left their scat, I'll come

back whenever you have a treat 

in your hand.

I am a simple soul to love

with my wagging tail and 

liquid eyes, my furry body

and my affectionate for you.

love me, give me a treat,

I'll love you back.

A new phase in life

she will make new friends, she says,

the woman in pink was a private pilot and 

flew all over with her husband, Hank, now 

gone on to his greater rewards.

Florence used to say that.

She's a spritely 90 and will show the way.

Alice in the flowered shirt says she never

did anything interesting but I don't believe her.

they both talk and hear well, 

lunch was delicious.

yes, here she's in her wheelchair but we

left it behind three hours later when she

moved from being Nurse Ratchett's charge

to Samantha who smiles alot.

she's on the move into a new phase,

I hope she finds happiness.

what happened to my flute practice?

what happened to my 20 minutes
lost on plane rides and reruns, my flute
rests quietly in its case, waiting.
my lips are slack, my lungs lazy and flat,
there is no music.
precious twenty minutes, come back to me!
tomorrow, call to me before others are sleeping
one wall away, before dogs doze and stars
brighten the sky.
twenty minutes, you are but a small sliver
of one day, find me tomorrow or let my
sadness fill my evening!

Velcro de-mate

in your dreams

did you ever ponder the uniform rows and columns

of Velcro loops and hooks, of how they mate

and hold your posters to the wall, or the two

sides of your shoes together?

the unsung heros,

the unnoticed,

the unsullied.

they have a life, you know, their own

trials of broken links, the debris of endless

mates and demates, the reason for which

your poster eventually falls from the wall.

we measure such things in the lab

in our white smocks, hairnets and booties.

we work for you, our countrymen, in the 

pursuit of pure understanding of your

Velcro.

old friends

we resumed where we left off,
he's gotten heavy over the years
but his smile is the same infectious one
I remember.
I remind him of the last time I saw him in
a cocaine alcoholic haze and why I looked for him
for so many years just to see if
he survived.
he says I still have the indescribable
magnetism,
we resumed where we left off
taking time to catch up on the last 35 years.
the important stuff and the less so
the stuff of every day, of the daily commute
and the reason why he's gotten so heavy.
there is no reason.
and there's no real reason why I hadn't seen
him in 35 years except that the years
passed by and no one called.

It takes two

it takes two
to mother a young woman like her.
yes, the one who makes brownies and arranges
flowers for the bedside stand,
the one who only wears Lululemon yoga pants in her garden,
the one who loves her more than anyone in the world,
the one who is always
home and never busy.
.
but the other,
the one who is busy, who launches satellites
and writes poetry, who swirls in capoeria,
whose own daughter and son study the data from
the space instruments she worked on,
yes, that one whose cookies taste good but
don't look that great, whose yard is a jungle,
who hires a neighbor to tend to the flowers
because she's too busy doing other stuff.

yes, that second mother is needed for this
young lady launching her own career, her
own marriage, her own life.
she needs brownies and career advice,
we'll be there for her.

Tax Turmoil

everyone cringes at the arrival of a letter
from the IRS, there can be no good news
and most likely, very bad.
what year, what deficiency, what fines
are all in our minds, the dutiful taxpayer
who makes honest mistakes,
small mistakes that pale with the uncollected
fees from the rich who juggle loopholes
with ease amidst the many hands of tax
accountants, lawyers and CPAs.
tomorrow the letters will be reopened,
the errors explored, the checkbook opened,
as if I had money to spare.

alone in the field but not lonely

alone in the field

surrounded by sky and fields of grass

the clouds drift overhead and

birds are singing in the background,

the scent of flowers drifts 

my leaves breathe in deeply and when

the rainfalls, my roots are drenched 

in sweet water,

it is not so lonely here as I stand

alone in the this field

I have the sky, the sun, the birds

and all the Heavens to myself.

Kicking Ass

I have the instinct
honed from years of playing Jass,
no one knew Spades is the American form
of the Swiss National Card Game,
played on so many tables in so many dingy
apartments, in ramshackle houses, but always
with the requisite 36 cards.
I had forgotten that I often won.
I can kick ass in this card game,
saving my daughter from certain defeat
and leaving a grimace on the faces of
my male opponents.
Ah, victory is sweet
when you can get it.

I can trust her now

from here, she could kick me so fast 

I'd fall to the ground not knowing what hit me

she is powerful and only looking to be chillin'

I kept my distance

until she showed me that kicking wasn't her

goal, that she was nervous about showing herself

for the maculele,

she showed me her soft belly, her vulnerable side

she won't kick me

I can trust her now.

10:18 p.m.

10:18 p.m.
and nothing has been done
having to do with me
it's all about her,
the flight reservation to see her
to hold her hand
to be with her
to listen to her
to watch her journey towards death
we don't speak of such things but
we must
we are all headed down this road
I might as well watch it to be prepared.