A Mellow

Early May 

There were the days when

Nothing made sense

And it didn't really matter.

All our lives are fiction

We make up our own

Stories anyway

Who is ever to say

That we aren't who we are 

As we say we want to be.

So, if I want to, I say I am a poet

Or a truck driver,

Or a journalist

Or maybe I grow vegetables

In the Rio Grande valley and

Call myself a businesswoman, 

Maybe I build a cabin

In a copse of woods 

Maybe I buy an old house,

Maybe I move shelter

As I'm going along, moving

From heaven into heaven

In my allotted nanosecond,

I break ground for new,

I hitch up my Orion's Belt, understanding

The Hunter comes as always, 

Even when stopping to think that 

Holding on could be the death

And why I must remember, in 

My dream, my prayer and lust, 

That in the breathless moment given me

I've determined to depart 

Intent, unafraid, full throttle

And when I think back on
All my longish years

Trying to remember the red-headed days

When I was wild in that freedom I hardly recognized

Until now, I'm beginning to think my

Last of time 

Might show up with some surprises. 

For Now

Never thinking about balance

Until it unbegins, I 

Watch the sky lifting. 

The gray shines shimmering, opening 

Into sun blue light, and 

Washed by shifts in time and season, 

The patina feels forgiving in 

Vast mystery.

Almost there, I'm thinking, 

The structures of my 

Life as I define them,

Relief against the sky that 

I forgot was waiting, and I 

Start to shape some things

That might become significant 

To me. 

I've been watching for the 

Hostas we transplanted along

The drive back to the barn,

Under maples, young maples maybe,

Some are up already, 

Claiming my first glance

As I go about, but every day or so

I carefully step into the russet mulch, 

Bend down a bit to shush away

The rich organics, looking for more

Furls of leaves emerging 

From the winter. 

Maybe this is all there is to 

My small disturbance; maybe I'm 

Not even quite sure just what 

My unbalance really is. Maybe 

It's the winding path that only goes

One way, weathering finally into 

Color, feeling, gratitude, regret,

And love,

So of course I am from

Time to time unbalanced,

From time to time unhinged.

But then, I see that persistence, constancies, every scrap of life 

Upon this earthly plain

Seeking integrity, some frail, some resolute, 

Or maybe waiting 

For completeness in the next beyond

Gives way to death and hostas

Proving there are miracles 

On the journey,

Beautiful and in the way it is,

The pattern of unknown.

Dream

It started some days before

Many things dreamed dreaming into being 

Still, the mundane and irksome

Bits getting about in uneven spring

Though clouds of redbud everywhere

Uneven, when I cross old floorboards

They've deflected for so long

The old square nailheads pop through 

The pine, and I don't stumble

But almost. I don't know but I

Am unsteady, the trick being to 

Say why. I am sorting through the 

Possibilities.

Last night after some surprises,

A deep wound began to bleed 

Among the healed places, so I slept

And there, far, far away, your gentle

Soothing hands upon me

Take time to understand, 

You said. And so I did.