SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

The sound of the dishwasher, whirring louder than it has to,
The coffeemaker, burbling and brewing and needing to be cleaned out,
Overwhelm the t.v. evening update of disaster; she lets them,
Unstirring, eyes sliding down to a semi-glaze.
Blue chair, feet up, work done,
Until another eight hours go by, then
The same messes, mouths, dirty fingers, footprints,
Asking voices.
Oh can we Oh will you Oh why Oh watch.
Her head reels, end of day, with the drain of information, life-blood lost...
She needs a refilling but this litany, ode to the awfulness of the world, fills no reservoir.
She becomes the mother grasping, gasping for air while the reporter makes sympathetic faces.

She gets her decaf, stirs the cream in,
Takes slow sips in the silence she craved at
7 o'clock when they woke up too early, at
10 o'clock when the baby wouldn't nap, at
12 o'clock when there was no peanut butter, at
3 o'clock when the questions were endless, at
6 o'clock when he was home, dearly come home, and
They smiled at each other across the roar of life.
Now peace, the roar tucked into various beds with blankets, kisses, promises, and
She sits beside him.
It is too much, after all that, to watch the tragedy of a child
Lost, wounded, silenced.

She clicks the button, erases the concerned serious faces,
Pushes away the guilt of not hearing, the
Dread of her own possible losses, the
Fear of being too lucky, too long.

She puts away the words of the worst reality,
Picks up a book of poetry,
A magazine,
A notebook, a pencil,
The phone.
This small quiet space is what fuels her, fills her, defines her,
So she chooses.
Carefully she fills her cup with what is delicious and rich,
Refusing the bitter,
Ready, in the morning, to be again poured out.

Morning

by Frank O'Hara

I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine

although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you'd be proud of

the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone

Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I'll not be cordial

there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is

when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go

Images courtesy of Igor Dugonjic and .Pete.

I'm just saying: it takes a talented guy to use a phrase like "the ooze of oil" in a poem about the grandeur of God and make it work. Read on, read on.

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Read the rest of this entry »

I see you when I look into our laughing children's faces
I sense you in the most familiar and most foreign places
A part of you has gone through me and settled in my heart
Without you I am half myself: unpainted piece of art.

Those once-upon-a-time romances never did come true
Till I stepped through the looking glass and woke up into you.
You scared me into life, you shook me out of the mundane.
The too familiar ruts I walked seem pitiful and plain.

We scurry to the edges of our time

We (waste not, want not) save up all our dimes.

(A penny's none too dear these days.) We strain

With waiting out, wading through the stain,

The ooze, morass, of one more tricky year

That's what we say, in case the neighbors  hear.

And oh the tricks we turn; when rainbows fade,

We pull 'em down and sew 'em up. (Fair trade

Certified, of course.) And clouds we use -

diverse in black and white and all gray hues.

Ingenious Business rolling up her sleeves.

"They must be fed and clothed," she says, "And please

Don't tell me it's their future that I'll take."

A pause. "To gain the present, I will stake

Tomorrow."  And she moves back to her work.

...

Stuck on the last line. Suggestions?

Beautiful traces of death:

This is what we are left:

The aroma of a song,

The inevitable, the longing

And the quick, sweet rush of pain,

The sounds, the empty gain

Of space we cannot fill.

The utter, awful thrill

Of death. We wring our hands,

We kneel, we weep, we stand,

We conquer darkness; we endure

And carry home this lonely cure

We found too late: The star expired.

We would go too, but we are tired.