Lunes (3 words/ 5 words/ 3 words)

Blue heron stands Knee-deep in the Hocking River Awaiting his lunch. Watching the joggers Along the bike path, he Turns to stare, Thinking, perhaps, that Humans chase down their meals-- Such an effort!

A Sestina Rant

Wet towels left on the bathroom floor,
Toenail clippings under the cushions of the couch,
Broken, eraser-less pencils, my size ten feet,
Loose buttons and zippers that stick
Arriving just moments after the traffic light changes red,
Arriving home after dark, fumbling to find the slot for the key.

Late of a morning, running in frantic search of the car key,
Orange juice spilt on the kitchen floor.
Paper cuts, especially those I don’t notice that bleed red
Onto the arm of the still-too-new-for-stains couch.
There’s the bedroom door that sticks
And sleepless winter nights I suffer with cold (size ten) feet.

That I, an educated woman, fail to grasp poetic meter (in feet)
That I lack the confidence to remove from my key ring a key
That opens nothing anymore. What’s wrong with me? I’m a stick
In the mud tracking footprints over the poorly-installed linoleum floor
As I cross to the family room to find the afghan rumpled up, left on the couch,
One arm cover of which, despite my cleaning diligence, holds the faintest red.

That I’m too old, my face too lined for hair the color red,
That arthritis has spread from thumbs to knees to feet
So that without kneeling I fail to reach the dust balls under the couch,
That my favorite old hymns are written in the most difficult of keys,
That despite my caution, water overflowing the plants’ pots stained the hardwood floor
And speaking of old, that envelopes matching my note cards have lost their stick.

In the sink the dirty pot to which rice sticks,
Robbing me of precious time with the newspaper I would have read
Earlier had it not been for the recycling and towels tossed on the floor.
The injustice that I, too, will develop bunions on my feet--
As if the arthritis isn’t bad enough-- is key
To the sense of defeat that leads me to the couch,

Where I remember another stain, one on the underside of the cushion on the couch,
A stain he stupidly tried to remove with a bleach stick.
That even with my reading glasses I cannot read the street names on the map key.
So it isn’t the glasses. That even when I steal a few minutes I don’t get much read
Before I fall asleep. That I buy only sensible shoes for my feet,
That one day I’ll have to consider moving the washer and dryer to the ground floor.

That the key wardrobe advice to dress in bright colors like red
Will one day fall with “No eating on the couch” and “Sandals hurt the feet”
Into the abyss of drivel that no longer sticks in my mind as I rant shuffling in my bedroom slippers across the stained hardwood floor.

Why I Write (journal entry)

I like how Joan Dideon put it when she said, "Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write almost entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear." That's true for me, too. Students tell me all the time, "I don't know what to write about." Neither do I. I just write. Freewriting is maybe the way I come up with the what that I'm going to write. I can't imagine how J.K. Rowling could plot out, before she wrote them, all seven Harry Potter books on napkins at a coffee shop. I also appreciate how Joan Didion admits to being "not in the least an intellectual." That's not the same as not in the least smart. I'm that way, too, and I remember images over facts, too, like what sweater I was wearing the day that Claudia Solt vomited all over me on her way to the pencil sharpener one morning in third grade. I remember the warmth of the liquid as it spread across my back. I don't remember the names of books I've read or movies I've seen. I can't remember more and more these days, but images I do remember. I write for the challenge of writing, and I find that I have more to say once I write enough to uncover them. I write to communicate, certainly, though I sometimes doubt my ability to deliver a cohesive message. I don't want to bore anyone or lose anyone, and I think that if I could write more succinctly, I'd avoid that and probably still communicate. In the interest of succinctness, then, I'll quit here.

4 haiku and a tanka

Wonder what monster ants
Go wandering through tunnels
Inside mounds of mulch?


Just a little wind
Stands between John Siemer and
his haiku poem.


No matter which way
I turn my back to the wind--
Hide and Seek I lose.


Single brown oak leaf
Lies in the grass at my feet,
The start of a pile.


The roaring of trucks
On the divided highway
Overpowers birds’
Peeping and cheeping—even
The protracted locust buzz.

Each Day Without Her

Each day is, above all else, a day without her.
I wear her bathrobe (without the tissues in the pockets),
With her paring knife I cut peaches for my cereal,
I read Newsweek by the light of her floor lamp.

I wear her bathrobe without the tissues in the pockets,
I toss my recycling into her red bin.
I read Newsweek by the light of her floor lamp.
My face becomes her face in her mirror.

I toss my recycling into her red bin,
A squirrel comes to eat at her bird feeder.
My face becomes her face in her mirror.
If she could just join me for tea at her table...

With her paring knife I cut peaches for my cereal,
A squirrel comes to eat from her bird feeder.
If she could just join me for tea at her table...
Each day is, above all else, a day without her.

Lesson

When his mother pushes, he resists.
"Lean back, I've got you. I won't let go," she coaxes.
On his back he struggles to stay high in the water.
"Stretch your neck out, stick your chin up.
I've got you," she lies.
When he relaxes, just a little,
she withdraws the supporting arm.
He chokes on water and cries,
"That's enough. No more swimming lessons!"

She retreats to a lounge chair in the sun.
He plays, steering a toy boat at the side of the pool.
Soon he calls, "Mom, watch this!" and
he dunks his head under the water,
lifts it up and grins.
Beaming, she claps her hands.

"Get ready, get set, go!" and
he races another five-year-old into the pool.
Later, he flops over sideways in the water,
then kicks and squirms to the other side.
For an encore he performs an underwater somersault.

Katrina of Avon Place

I cleaned up by writing a check for
$2169.09 made out to Jagers and Sons.
I say I cleaned up.
I didn’t, of course. My work was easy.
The Jagers took care of the cremation,
the interment of the ashes next to my father’s,
the engraving on the headstone.

That same check covered the death certificates,
the guestbook at the service,
and the placing of obituaries in The Messenger,
The Public Opinion, The Ocean County Observer.
I drew the line there.
We didn’t need to send to The Dispatch or The Asbury Park Press.
That would be excessive.

Peter and Mark asked why.
They wondered was I being tight.
I didn’t want to waste her money, true.
I say her money.
It was our money by then, of course.

Anyway, one week after the D.O.D.
Mark drove off in her LaSabre loaded with the Spode
and the Westmoreland for the granddaughters.
Peter and I divvied up the stash of soap and toilet paper.
He drove off to Louisville with the boys
and with frozen vegetable soup she had made
I wondered when. I couldn’t have eaten it.
Funny, I could eat what was left of her bag of bite-sized Snickers.
And I grabbed the ball of string she had wrapped,
tying maybe a hundred small pieces together.

Before I left I ironed the white t-shirt
she had left on the ironing board.
I changed the message on her answering machine.
I thought about saying “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”
I say I thought about saying that. I didn’t, of course.
I turned the heat back and shut off the water.
I pulled the door to 43 Avon Place closed
and locked it.
That was easy, like pushing the red Staples button.

I say easy.
It was strikingly easy to clean up the pieces of her life.
Of course the storm hadn’t yet hit.