Learning to wash the car

She is a specialist in cleaning and all I know all about space junk 

so she is my savior at the car wash, this place I have never been,

a place where you can swipe your credit card and magic bubbles stream

from wands and brushes, where she flitters about the car while I watch

in total amazement.

I have to pause when I place that period at the end of that declaration,

to impress you on the significance of the event. 

She knows how to turn a knob which progresses from pre-clean to 

scrub, from scrub to rinse, to spot touch rinse, while I wonder what spot

rinse even means. She knows all the tools.  

I study the instructions to learn and have yet a deeper appreciation of 

this cleaning magician who knows how to do such things, who is ensuring

peace in my household when the guests arrive.  

No one will ask me about orbital debris.  

 

Burning at the Holidays

 I wrote this poem years ago, and found it hastily scribbled on a paper.  It seemed worth saving....

The Christmas Tree was burning! 

the hot wax of the candles fueling the flames,

minutes later covered in snowy white powder, 

our gifts glittering in white.

we scrambled to recover them,

like starving animals devouring a carcass.

Something burned every year,

the meatloaf on Thursdays because unattended

children do not understand time.

we burned through money, the last nickel

flung onto the highway somewhere between

Kentucky and Chicago.

I burned my hands every time Dad made me 

flip pancakes over leaping flames,

and our foreheads burned with fever

left to ourselves to heal

somehow.  

From the fires, we emerged 

somehow, the glitter of scarred-over

burns visible only to ourselves. 

Walking towards French literacy...and English?

I admit to having thrown it away, this same book at my feet that 

Arrived with the mail today.  

I had to buy it again because I plan to walk towards French literacy

One wobbly step at a time, one poorly constructed phrase with "de"

Instead of "du", a lazy sentence that my sharp-witted, and demanding professor

Frowns upon, I can see her disdain even without seeing her face.

I know her.

Il va de soi is a phrase worth knowing, as is the beautiful word époustouflante 

A single page of reading aloud alerted me to my knowing a single word, but

Not the meaning, and aren't we so often in that place, thinking we know,

Or should know, then belatedly, and rather sheepishly, realizing that we had 

No idea of the real meaning.

So I started reading aloud in English, and in French so that my spoken 

Words exit my moving lips, enter my ears and are heard again in a different way,

Processed twice by seeing and hearing, and hoping that 

I'll understand this spinning world better in both languages.

I needed this book.

I got it in the mail

Today.

 

Love of Language

We have gotten lazy with language, our lexicon lazily 

Lingers on the same list of some few tens of thousand words,

Soit en anglais, et meme pire en français, mon prof m'encourage

A écrire d'une maniere plus nuance, avec mes milles de mots. 

How can one call themselves cultured with so many words

Having faded from the lexicon of the quotidien 

Late at night, once the lamps have been dimmed, their eyes are closed,

I linger over grammar, I lovingly seek to refine sentences, phrases, ideas,

Soit en anglais, soit en francais, the exercise entries are filled with 

Poorly formed scrawl, also filled her nights with this pursuit.

I can sense her in the room, wherever she may be. 

 

I can't see the red light for the Moon is in my eyes

All the way down the hill, impossibly steep and so slippery, I could only see the Moon.

How did it get so big since last month when I am sure that I hardly noticed it,

And how can it be as large as a red light, the one I can hardly see for the Moon is in my eyes.

I can see the Mare basin, and imagine the dust lofting at the horizon, just like 

The astronauts saw, you know the sketch, the one with lines streaking upwards from the horizon.

It's famous.

The Moon got brighter as I drove home as darkness fell on the City, and by the time 

I drove down the hill, you know the one, the one that has a steep, badly banked curve,

The one with the speed limit of 25, the one that I ride faster on my bike than when I drive.

That hill, the one that gave me final look at the Moon, and I marveled at how beautiful 

It is, that Moon, the Moon that is shining this night, and I wonder when I will see it again

As I descend a hill, any hill, anywhere, in any country.  

I wonder.