Make every day a beautiful day.
Eye on Life Magazine is a Lifestyle and Literary Magazine. Enjoy articles on gardening, kitchen cooking, poetry, vintage decor, and more.
In late summer chirrs of crickets
Add seismic charm to winding
Morning runs through the brush.
As autumn chill slips into the brambles
Chirps subside to a murmur … but still there
Humming like a neutron star.
Winter runs are silent
Save for the soft crush of snow
Subtle as an angel’s pulse.
Yet I wait for the clear winter day
When the tundra explodes
With brassy music from thousands
Of white crickets—
Glittering in their icy coats.
He talked about the early days
of airplane flight,
especially the racing,
some ramshackle crates
a pilot could barely
squeeze his flesh inside
but, once in the air,
they danced like Astaire.
You should have seen
those flyboys skirt the pylons,
he said, so close,
their wind ‘d shake
the b’jesus out of’em.
The story always ended
with the time
he saw an airplane
burn up in the sky,
plunge head first
into the middle of
the panhandle swamp.
Didn’t find man
or machine for days.
I figure it was just
the whims of sky caught up
with that unlucky sod,
tired of being blue and spacious,
it just wanted to be
close and muddy
and overgrown for a while.
Of course, that could have
described the old man then,
bog-brown and features cloying,
a regular quagmire, occasional
memories skirting across his brain
like dragon-flies.
Still, I listened, wide-eyed,
feigning interest.
I was a clear blue sky.
He loved flying in me.
*
They’re eggs nobody wants :snow
all day falling from their nest
and these waves broken in half
—it’s so long since I sang
—I forgot how a word, one
then another, another and I am flying
taking hold a mountain, somehow the top
then stars —even the drowned
will rise to the surface
looking for air and the cold
—all winter this sea kept warm
—some bomber ditched, its engines left on
—four small furnaces and still forging
wings
from bottom sand, shaped the way each wave
still lifts the Earth, then tries again
—each year the sea made warmer
by those same fires every mother
nurses with soft words :this snow
growing strong, already senses
the flight back as lullabies —my mouth
can’t close, a monster eating snow, my lips
swollen from water and cold and loneliness
—someone inside my belly
has forgotten the word I need to say
or sing or both my arms into the sea
feeding and feeding and feeding.
*
This birthmark through my neck
expects these storms, waits
the way an iron rod pointing north
and in the darkness to volcanoes, water
—it learned to wake my jaws at night
for steam, drinking from the patch
and grunts pushed back into the cup
that always cracks
that must like this portable electric range
filled with crushed seawalls, tea leaves
lightning —one o’clock in the morning
—one eye at first, already thirsty
already drilling for water
for the still wanted spark
—cup after cup :a bridge higher, higher
and the sea that was born from these storms
that keeps looking under :waves
that let nothing pass, taste
from one arm holding another
attached to some invisible dog
still asleep, waiting under this table
as if a ladder
and soon more stars :missing pieces
melting this darkness for its thunder
its side to side through my throat
almost water again and my bare scar
as if it belongs
even without the stitches
the wires and craters.
*
And the sun in ashes
leaning against this mist
not yet split into logs
—you once flew through the sun
without its flames, went blind
watching how its light peels off
half born, half glowing in you stove
half no smoke yet, whose shadow
still has some heat left
is older than the ground
and every morning held down
by rope, never loose again
—even without your eyes
the vapor trails still pull the sun
closer to its fire, to this iron gate
left out in the cold the way a net
is carried across a desert, sifts
for missing branches, birds
the light covered over, still breathing.
*
You expect the noon-alarm at City Hall
—it’s the tangled siren from nowhere
skidding corners, trucks and nozzles
and when it’s over
the usual inspections, who started it
who —you almost hear the hoses
clawed open, marking off where a sea
is buried —you’re never sure
what’s wave, what’s warm from the fire
—all you know is that coastlines
and fright have too much in common
with pasture, how panic
still excites, leads back the years ago
eaten to the bone and you
can hardly breathe, cover your ears
the way a thin plume dies out and hillsides
pulling up grass, breezes —it’s always noon
—you dread the one minute leaping overhead
from one time to a closer time
—you almost hear a plane, the ladders
and smoke falling away from you
—you can’t move
and the pain that once could heal
suddenly becomes a cry
without holding on to your hands
or the world.
*
Ankle deep it’s Spring, these stones
already green —to keep from falling in
he’s taught himself to limp, stutters
while I bathe the invisible dog
that clings to his chest, whose fur
bristling with gooseflesh half at the
controls
half iron pail for the drinking cup
—he must dread the splash
is trained to wade slowly and where
the waves are buried, where these stones
harden, climb to that same altitude
they once flew —a sky
still slippery, filled all at once
with 12 dark-green stones
and he looks up, says my fingers
as if the spray reminded him
how his first breath is now too matted
though it tries to leap, its huge jaw
licking its paws —a few months each year
he wobbles into a water
that’s falling off the Earth and he says
his fingers are too heavy, says
hold him, save him.
Here in Chicago I sit in the sun
of an Indian Summer
high on the Water Tower waiting,
chapped hands in a visor
over my eyes, hoping I see
you in that gown,
black satin and grace,
float like a feather
back to Chicago.
I don’t care if you stop
by Confederate streams
on the way from Savannah
to pick phallic rocks
so long as you rise,
release all your hair,
take to the air
and float like a feather
on to Chicago
because this is the last time I’ll sit
on the Water Tower waiting.
I’d rather go blind than see
you in that gown,
black satin and grace,
stop in the air
laugh like a loon
then float like a feather
back to Savannah.
I don’t want
to be
a Chicken McNugget
or a processed
chuck-it-lunch-it,
underneath
a heat lamp
or in a microwave.
I don’t want
Botox
or plastic surgery
or to be
cloned
for infinity.
In the depths
of humanity
is a certain
sort of tendency,
at least
these days,
to process
and preserve
everything
we are
for eternity.
I can almost
see it
floating by,
a planet
stacked high
with robotic,
humanoid
life-forms
that should have
seen an end
long ago.
Some time after
you came
to me
to tell
me that
I was
your son.
Who were
you
and where
were you?
I didn’t care.
You had
a sporty
car
and lots
of stories
to tell me.
I believed
them,
eager to be
everything
you wanted.
Strange how
the ghosts
come
to tell
you that
you
are the one.
*
It must welcome this light
sent up, banished and the sun
overflowing still can’t wait
till morning —you will open the door
for something you’re not sure, make room
the way a tree rests its branches
higher and higher and the room
kept empty for evenings
on their way back, bone-tired
hollowed out, barren, cold
and the door take in
the darkness :the dying down
and the slow, climbing turn
for which there is no word
no sound or below.
*
No! an axe won’t do it
though there’s the need
to stretch out on the ground
—not a bow-saw, it shortens
the way logs once warm
will remember why music
strikes when it comes by
and the wood still not dry
—no secrets! in the open
flash this tiny knife
so the tree sees its reflection
while you carve out its heart
as if all trees once
were twins —two trunks
within call, cut back
by an endless arrow
passing through the Earth
and no one it can hold close
except the emptied sky
and lightning —this blade
can bring down forgetfulness
and all these branches
smoldering over the ashes
the shadows, the still warm dirt.
*
Its power comes from this froth
—never mind there’s no caldron
to make sense, you drink
listening to bubbles work a cure
are healed when the fountain
touches you, smelling from gauze
and nursing homes —the old
have no choice, they let the faucet
run and for a while
wait at the sink for something
they’re not sure
—they have no memory
though the drought is always there
shaped as a stone reaching out
for kisses whose lips are the breath
rising year by year from all water
and once in your mouth, by magic
becomes the word for waiting
with both eyes closed —you drink
what must be your shadow
floating off half foam, half waterfall
scraping your throat on the rocks
—all the way down a spray
made ageless, washing over you.
*
And though the rain has left
tired waiting for the slow descent
become your shadow reaching out
when no one looks —to lure it back
takes deception! you cover the windows
with silk and drop by drop the walls
stay damp while the sky
loses itself in your arms
—it’s not your usual clouds
and you jump, afraid you’ll drown
one hand held out, the other
kept empty for rain and the floor
making its way back —it works
—your shadow already lifting you
feet first, on your toes
as if it sees the sky surrounded
by other skies, in bits
and this dark place you hide.
*
You wipe the way the moon
once warmed the Earth
caressed your arm
with shapelessness
and the fever left over
from some fiery beginning
half shoreline, half
waves still flaring out
staking their claim
and memory —inside this path
a brain, left behind
to deal with the scent
smoldering leaves give off
—you sniff for stars
that have no light yet
only the fragrance stones replace
endlessly cover the dead
with leaves and these dried flowers
everywhere burning in small piles
—what you smell is a smoke
that can only remember.
He wants to know
what it feels like. I think
he is not ready for this.
But the truth
long suppressed,
comes bubbling
to
the
surface.
Just as,
the ancient landfill
on that local highway
hiccups its presence
when the wind shifts.
It feels like this:
All at once.
Everything,
beautiful and painful
in this world
hits me with a weight
so great it
buckles the knees.
Never.
Not with warning.
Maybe some Sunday
the sound of God,
halts me in the hum
of our poor interpretations.
The image of Christ
dying on the cross,
forms a lump
in the throat so choking.
Tears, the only words
on the blank page of a face.
A failing whisper,
we are not listening.
The beauty of a moment
not mine
witnessed from opposite
sides
of a crooked asphalt
street, strips me of this
thin skin.
This veil. Nerve
endings exposed like
the bright white,
several layers deep. Flash,
unbearable burn.
A ribcage filling
with love so deep
it makes a mockery of
any before it.
Now,
this minute.
Perched awkwardly beside him.
The agony of his history
permeates the pores.
I fight a lifetime’s worth
of wrenching sobs, he
was too much
of a man to make.
It feels like this, like
the pinprick of the world could bleed me dry.
And the fear
no one would notice.
Whenever Lolly stops me
on my midnight rounds
just to chat about the night
I shine my flashlight in her eyes
and whisper low so the other
working girls can’t hear me,
“Lolly, it’s your intelligence
and taste I find so appealing.
I appreciate that upper lip
you’ve lit up in neon red
so artfully with lipstick.”
We talk about mortgages and kids
whether hers are back in school,
whether mine are still in college,
whether my brother ever sends a check.
When finally I say I have to go,
she giggles like Monroe, gets all
blonde and bouncy, saucy to a fault,
waves good-bye with a grand sashay,
thrilled again to be on her way, pleased
that once again I won’t take her in.
Who is that girl?
Sitting Indian style on the cold, tiled kitchen floor
gasping for air as the sun slowly begins to rise
rocking steadily back and forth
in a vintage Calvin Klein dress
with pin-straight hair and a full face of make-up
Trying desperately to focus on the aroma of freshly brewed coffee
instead of the pins and needles in her right hand
the numb tip of her tongue
and the blurred vision that transforms her ordinary surroundings into a 3-D movie
Centered only by the two hands compressed on her heart
she musters the power to guide herself through repeated breathing
deeply inward and slowly outward
until she feels she has enough strength to stand up
and face the day
I’m not that girl
I sparkle ~ You stand out
I primp ~ You’re natural
You’re sharp ~ I’m smooth
You’re polished ~ I’m raw
You talk ~ I listen
I talk ~ You listen
You yell ~ I cry
You hide ~ I find you
I float ~ You swim
I’m gentle ~ You’re respected
You’re responsible ~ I’m free
I fall ~ You catch me
I fall ~ You catch me
I’m scrutinized ~ You’re a target
You attack ~ I protect
You’re misunderstood ~ I translate
I hustle ~ You’re starving
You’re scorched ~ I fill your glass, halfway
You inhale ~ I exhale
My heart pumps ~ Your blood flows
Allied soldiers ~ Uphill battle
One light ~ One love ~ One soul
Despite our age and gender, we were involuntarily drafted
by those we trusted most
The battle began long before we knew what they were fighting for
Overnight, we were standing on unfamiliar soil
amid rockets, missiles, and bombs
and the silent threat of the threat of the enemy infiltrating
at any given moment
I had five more years of experience
so I instinctually loaded my weapons faster and knew which rocks provided shelter
and many nights I stood on guard so you could recharge
But when given the opportunity, I immediately fled in search of peace
knowing deep down that I always wanted a life different than this
I will forever carry the guilt of leaving you behind
You reenlisted for another term
for you only knew how to live among landmines and grenades
and you were drafted into infantry, directly on the front line of all the action
where you remained for far too long
Although your uniform is more decorated than mine
our scars are the same
and you’re the only one who can truly comprehend the magnitude of my post traumatic stress
No amount of rain will be strong enough to erase our muddy footprints
but our bond, as strong as the giant purple heart we share, will never be broken
I elected to leave the lights off as I sat in my living groom
gliding back and forth to the rhythm of the deafening silence
in the green rocking chair that once belonged to my father
The moonlight tried to comfort me, sneaking in through the slits of the venetian blinds
that I purposely lowered hours earlier
but I was uninterested
for my heart, my mind, my soul was dark
Until I thought of you
Instantaneously, tiny gold speckles fell from the ceiling
as yellow, purple, and orange hues decorated the air
and the smell of spring overpowered my senses
making my insides feel as warm as your pure, humble smile
When I heard the faint hint of samba music
I sighed
for I knew the clouds were swaying serenely
as they watched you dance
How lucky they are
Tall, sleek, solitary
it catches your eye from across the room
and lures you closer
entrancing you with organic splendor
Luscious, showy petals steal your breath as they seduce you
to slither the tip of your nose against its silky red smoothness
until your insides tingle from inhaling its fresh, delicate fragrance
Enamored, you reach over with one hand and grab the stem tightly from the glass vase
pricking the pad of your finger on one of the many tiny thorns
that are hidden by the welcoming sundry leafs that extend in a range of directions
and are only visible to those that are bold enough to take a closer look
You instinctually draw the cut on your finger to your lips in an attempt to stop the bleeding
as the potent, unmistakable taste of blood on your tongue snaps you back to reality
by reminding you how dangerous it can be
to feel alive
You resist the temptation to place the rose next to your heart
and reluctantly return it to the heavy, translucent support structure that enables it to proudly stand upright
Retracting, you continue to admire the truest symbol of love and beauty
from afar
with apologies to Hemingway
Beyond the frippery and folderol
of bishops and the like,
Father Murphy’s on vacation
with just a week to cast
for bigger fish than pike.
And so he sails the peaceful bay
casting every kind of bait,
praying that a tarpon
suddenly will strike.
Hook the big one, Father claims,
and it will thrash around
as if Satan were a submarine
cruising in its wake.
A fish that big, claims Father,
is always worth the wait
for it guarantees an aging priest,
with just a week’s vacation,
action and distraction from
the frippery and folderol
of bishops and the like.
If you can hear
as I can now
the rose of noun
the bee of verb
the hive of mind
then you can hear
as I can now
everywhere
the zither
of the siphonings
of day
everywhere
the last
letter of
the alphabet.
The Pleiades are little children
playing, or Seven Sisters,
or a tiny Big Dipper,
or a distant question mark moving,
moving apart. Although it is
running away from itself,
I focus on its shiny pattern
and gasp at beauty that only seems
to stay put. My slow sight
is all I need to give myself
a talisman.
The sky grays now
and I failed to go out
under the stars.
Soon we shall ride too near
our star, could blister.
While the distant beauties
disappear, we curse
this overabundance of proximity.
Thunder’s voice says
the instant of peril just passed.
Even as we huddle
in a frail tent and fear,
the rumble, curling into itself,
smaller and smaller with distance,
cheers me. Two days now
with too much lightning to work
in yard or at computer, and still
I lie awake to hear it grumble.
Later it pounds a havoc drum,
frenzied, and the walls around me
echo the tremble. The windows shimmy.
This is blessing, too. It is a benevolent
phenomenon. I have never heard
you say, “He died to too much thunder.”
Like Saturday night …. we applauded
the organist who told us all the tones
of fear and laughter we should share,
his music saying that Buster Keaton’s
dangers would not touch us.
Like good thunder,
he deserved our accolades.