Salt

(For my father)

It’s time to mow the grass for the first time
This spring – the tousled dandelion heads
Bobbing above great ragged waves of green.
Next to the street, the lawn is struggling,
Burned under mounds of salt thrown down by plows
Last winter. Nothing can live with that much salt.

My father told me once how they used salt
In the ancient world, as fertilizer,
Spreading it on the fields to make crops grow.
Too much salt in one place damaged the soil,
Scorched beyond use. But when spread thin it was
Golden! Life and death in each farmer’s hands.

The good book says: you are salt for the earth.
And I think of how we all get piled up
In great toxic mounds of long-lost goodness.
We poison our own back yards, when we could
Be scooped up and scattered to the fresh winds
Helping wheat and weeds grow up together.


Written originally for a prompt at the wonderful Poetic Bloomings site.

Postsy Toodey

I love nicknames – everyone should have one.
It shows you are loved and special – J.Lo
A-Rod, The Gipper, Deep Throat, Mack the Knife.

Maybe certain movies would be improved
If they had fancy nicknames to go by.
The Sweet Smell of Success would be Smelly

The Lord of the Rings just known as Ringer
While the Return of the Body Snatchers
Would be Rot B.S. – appropriate, eh?

Anna Karenina would be Russky
E.T. would be Mr. T, and King Kong
Could choose: K-Kong, Special K or Big Guy.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2-D
Would be Potsy Toodey, and in 3-D
It would graduate to Potsy Threedee.

As far as I can tell there is nothing
You could do to improve Casablanca.
Great art should be left alone: Play it Sam.

Old Gasoline

Old gasoline smells nasty when it spills
All bungee cords aren’t created equal
It is possible to have too much string
Chipboard doesn’t make a very strong ramp
Teenagers love to prove how strong they are
Especially to other teenagers
Truck rental places lie – get over it.
Leftover rolls and coffee taste like dust
When you’re standing in an empty garage
Watching one of your best friends drive away.

3:05

It was three-oh-five
A suspiciously long time
Here in our kitchen
Till I realized this was
The oven temperature.

Like Jacob

Like a dream half-remembered of an old
Flame, once bright but now guttering wax tears,
These prayers melt into sand, as dark smoke sears
My senses. With each return to this old
Place, I feel my spirit shift as I hold
A taper and fumble for words. The years
When I could answer any person’s fears
With platitudes are gone – that fool’s gold
Plundered by experience. I think on
Jacob with the angel, spent on the floor
No revelation won, all mystery
Left unrelated when the night has gone.
Like him, I have my blessing, but still more
Walk with a limp – as wisdom’s gift to me.

Frosting

I arrived at the Middle School carrying
A three-foot-long model of the U.S.A.
Fashioned out of frosting and rice krispie treats,
With the Oregon Trail marked in green sprinkles.

At first this history project seemed absurd,
Sugar-coating every hill and valley.
But in the end, perhaps all of our attempts
To explain our origins leave us gasping:

Manifest destiny, guts and glory, luck.
We spend our lives reshaping the stories
We tell about how we got here, with frosting
To cover the cracks we aren’t ready to show.

Why I make the bed in the morning

Some mornings, this bed is a fresh-plowed field

Still ripe with dew and softly radiant;

Others, it is all scorched earth, bright yellow

Coverlet thrown off to relieve the heat;

And occasionally, it lies fallow

Waiting patiently, soaking in the sun.

I always do the same thing in the morning

No matter what the night before has brought.

With the shower singing in the next room

I tuck the sheets and gather up the dreams

Place the pillows side by side, and give thanks

For daylight, and forgiveness, and coffee.

Valedictory

Outside the administration building
Of the local high school is a signpost
Bearing two identical “One Way” signs.
One sign points due left, the other points right.

The first time I saw this it made me laugh
Because it so well expressed that vortex
Of high school life, where we stand and wonder
Which of the right answers we should follow.

But today, surrounded by caps and gowns,
This weathered sage turns valedictory:
You have the best of us now - choose wisely.
Once you leave here, there is no coming back.

Flood Plain

They are flushing the hydrants today
Splashing giant rainbows in the spring air.
You cannot escape the sound of water.
Outside the Middle School is a great lake
Where the drains are plugged. Two young boys are there
Staring intently like they are asking

What will be left when the waters recede?

On the radio they are talking to
Farmers in the Mississippi delta,
Poor folk in poor houses, watching the floods
Rising and talking about faith in God
And how they don’t have the money to move,
While engineers are playing Morton’s Fork
Between the devil and the deep blue sea
And admitting that no one really knows

What will be left when the waters recede.

The boys lose interest and wander away
To dig in the sand of the ball diamond.
I change stations and hear an old preacher
Talking about God shutting Noah in
The Ark. And I think, Good for Noah, but
What about the rest of us? Does he want

What will be left when the waters recede?

Ordinary

Thanks to Vivienne Blake for a great phrase "marvel at the miracle of the ordinary" over at Big Tent Poetry.  Here's my response - small beer, but then most of life is that way, eh?  Cheers.

Ordinary

Three blind mice orienteering through our A/C ducts

Squirrels plotting malice on the birdseed box

Graceful mold filigreeing the bathroom

Grass abounding it places it should not

Geometric patterns of unwashed laundry

The majesty of dishes rising from the sink

Long shadows cast by looming bills

The sonic boom of freshman saxophone

And sheer power of teenage deodorant

The flattened mass of a forgotten Twinkie

And pyramid of eraserless No. 2 pencils.

Rainbows filling the room from a hanging crystal

The tenderness of one loving look across the table.

Someday I will write a book,

Hopefully a funny one.  But for now

I walk outside and simply marvel

At the miracle of the ordinary.