That Morning You Have To Get Up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That Morning You Have To Get Up

And that morning you have to get up

after the adrenaline and the cortisol have drained 

and your mind has dropped the gun it was holding to your body 

and you have to leave the blankets 

and you have to eat 

and drive and answer questions and be looked at… 

Notice the empty chair they saved for you 

and quietly take it. 

Let them talk around you for a while. 

Let their attention approach you gently; 

take their oblivion as a blessing. 

Trust that you are expected. 

You may not get everything you want— 

one of them looking deeply into your eyes, 

another squeezing your shoulder— 

but sometimes all you have to do 

is rest in the place that is yours 

to get what you need.

2.3.21

cls

A Lesson From Quarantine

A Lesson From Quarantine

What was that
animosity
I felt for my things?
No time for scrubbing the sink,
so I hated the sink.
No time to sweep the cat hair from the couch,
so I hated the couch,
and sometimes the cat.
I couldn’t unstop that drain;
I had to work.
All that endless laundry,
washing unsatisfactory clothes.

Then, the sickness came,
wiped me from work and world,
and set me down amidst all my burdensome things.

And the couch and the cat
wrapped their arms around me;
the sink held so many onion skins and cabbage cores
from meals prepared quietly
after days of solitude;
the drain opened with only
the time it took to boil water;
and the unworn dresses
needed no washing –
they hung, ready and waiting,
for the cured world.

This is how I learned to love my things.
They’ve been here all along,
shabby and unfailing,
keeping me safe, fed, and dressed,
rooting me in the upheaval.

The world will find a remedy
and resume its reeling;
as for me,
this was the first shot
of the vaccine.

8.4.2020
cls

Singularity

Singularity
by Marie Howe

   (after Stephen Hawking)

Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?

so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money—

nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone

pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.

For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you.   Remember?
There was no   Nature.    No
 them.   No tests
to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf    or if

the coral reef feels pain.    Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

would that we could wake up   to what we were
— when we were ocean    and before that
to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not

at all — nothing

before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.

Can molecules recall it?
what once was?    before anything happened?

No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb      no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

is is is is is
 
All   everything   home

Where I'm From

 The Where I'm From poem project started with George Ella Lyon, who wrote this stunning piece. Now, it is used in classrooms across the country help young poets express themselves. I used the form to create my own version. This is where I'm from.

Where I'm From

I am from a paper grocery bag of dried mint leaves,
from church bulletins hot from the copier,
and a washed evening kitchen.
I am from the suburban bilevel set
into the Pennsylvania hillside.
I am from the canna lilies,
the fiddlehead ferns who unfurled beside me.

I'm from ice cream sundaes for dinner sometimes
and mountains of peas to be shelled.
I am from Warren and Richard and Jeffery,
from Verna and Anna and Maietta.
I'm from church three times a week,
from the kitchen classroom and the lily ponds.

I'm from bless this food to our bodies
and don't slam the door,
from the keys jingling it's time to go.
I'm from takeout pizza and adventures in the stars.

I am from Neversink Mountain and the Schuylkill River,
chicken pot pie and potato filling,
from four black Bibles and a pair of handcuffs.

On our wall was a portrait of two great horned owls,
always silent and watching.
I am from them too,
waiting in the forest,
guarding this house,
calling this land my own. 

 cls
Fall 2019 

The Low Road

The Low Road
by Marge Piercy 

 
What can they do 

to you? Whatever they want. 

They can set you up, they can 

bust you, they can break 

your fingers, they can 

burn your brain with electricity, 

blur you with drugs till you 

can’t walk, can’t remember, they can 

take your child, wall up 

your lover. They can do anything 

you can’t stop them 

from doing. How can you stop 

them? Alone, you can fight, 

you can refuse, you can 

take what revenge you can 

but they roll over you. 

But two people fighting 

back to back can cut through 

a mob, a snake-dancing file 

can break a cordon, an army 

can meet an army. 

Two people can keep each other 

sane, can give support, conviction, 

love, massage, hope, sex. 

Three people are a delegation, 

a committee, a wedge. With four 

you can play bridge and start 

an organization. With six 

you can rent a whole house, 

eat pie for dinner with no 

seconds, and hold a fund-raising party. 

A dozen make a demonstration. 

A hundred fill a hall. 

A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter; 

ten thousand, power and your own paper; 

a hundred thousand, your own media; 

ten million, your own country. 

 It goes on one at a time, 

it starts when you care 

to act, it starts when you do 

it again after they said no, 

it starts when you say We 

and know who you mean, and each 

day you mean one more.

Call It Dreaming [One Year]

On this day one year ago, I started writing and posting poetry again after eight years. I have been no victim of tragedy; I think I just... fell asleep. To the one who woke me up, I love you. Life is brutal and beautiful and its story deserves to be told by all of us.

Call It Dreaming
by Sam Beam

Say it's here where our pieces fall in place
Any rain softly kisses us on the face
Any wind means we're running
We can sleep and see 'em coming
Where we drift and call it dreaming
We can weep and call it singing

Where we break when our hearts are strong enough
We can bow 'cause our music's warmer than blood
Where we see enough to follow
We can hear when we are hollow
Where we keep the light we're given
We can lose and call it living

Where the sun isn't only sinking fast
Every night knows how long it's supposed to last
Where the time of our lives is all we have
And we get a chance to say, before we ease away
For all the love you've left behind
You can have mine

Say it's here where our pieces fall in place
We can fear 'cause the feeling's fine to betray
Where our water isn't hidden
We can burn and be forgiven
Where our hands hurt from healing
We can laugh without a reason

'Cause the sun isn't only sinking fast
Every moon and our bodies make shining glass
Where the time of our lives is all we have
And we get a chance to say, before we ease away
For all the love you've left behind
You can have mine

Remember

In honor of Joy Harjo, newly named the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate.

Remember

by Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the star's stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother's, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people are you.

Remember you are this universe and this universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.