Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Seating

I never know where a new client will sit.  Sometimes they ask, most often not.  These are often not small decisions.  Of course, sometimes they are.  I am never sure which ones count.  My rule of thumb is that clients need to sit somewhere. 

I never know where people will sit.
All the possible seats in my office
Have been occupied by clients
At one time
Or another.
Last time around I had a client
Who liked to sit
On the floor.
The question for me
Was
Do I sit on the floor
With him?
I didn*t.
People often choose their seats
In not so random ways.
Me?
I wait to see
Whether the seat is chosen
By whim
Or purpose.
Even then
I never know for sure.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Inside/Outside

It is often difficult, on the inside of any organization, to remember there is an outside as well.  Sometimes a change on the outside reflects a change on the inside.  Sometimes change goes from inside... out.  Still, on the inside, no matter the lighting, it is entirely possible to forget the outside... exists.

I sit inside under fluorescent light.
It is possible to forget
There is an outside
To this particular
Inside.
It is possible to forget
There is an upside
To this particular
Downside.
I hear the radio.
The cars pour by
On Roosevelt Road.
Glints in the cracks
Of the vertical blinds
 Remind me there is an outside
To this inside,
This place only certain people
Know
Exists.
Today the outside sign was changed
From
Financial Assistance Needed
To
Thank you for your contribution DMG
Today the outside changed
A little.
Today, here in the neon,
There are signs
The inside might perhaps
Be changing
As well.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Seismic shift

When I can wait long enough, I see the cracks where the grass grows.  Maybe the ground shifted awhile ago, and I simply didn*t notice.  Really I know the ground is always shifting, the grass is always growing, the earthworms always renewing the earth.  Sometimes I notice... and name what seems a seismic shift.  Really everything is always shifting.

Some days,
Not often,
But often enough,
There is a seismic shift
In the rock layers
Under my feet.
Some days,
Like today,
I notice new cracks
In the pavement.
They are green
With grass:
It has found the dirt
Underneath.
I think
I have not thought this way
Before.
There has been
A seismic shift.
The grass seems a sign
Of earthworms
Reworking the dirt
Under the grass
With their castings.
My eyes go down from there.
There are layers under layers
Upon layers.
But first the shift,
Then the crack
Before the grass
Can grow.
Then all the rest.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

New territory: dream at fifty

Sometimes dreams are worth revisiting, maybe especially a few years on.  Now I am fifty-seven.  I remember nothing from the list I made in the dream ... only that I could fill it halfway, so I somehow wasn*t done.  I have the rest of that newsprint to fill before I*m done.  I take comfort in my package of markers, with all the colors of the rainbow.  I regularly tell people that there is a richness to being in one*s fifties, a richness I could not have predicted, a richness worth many orange Dreamsicle cakes.  It is new territory indeed.

When I turned fifty,
The hundred year old woman
In my parish was soon to die.
Another woman in the parish
Made me an orange Dreamsicle cake
In honor of my passing
Into new territory.
I shared a piece
With the hundred year old woman
In honor of her passing
Into new territory.
That week I dreamed I entered
A huge courthouse,
Gray and stone and somewhat dim.
Many of us waited there.
While we waited we were each given
A Large piece of newsprint,
Our own box of colored markers.
We were told to list our accomplishments
Before we left by the door
On the other side of the building.
I began but only filled the page
Halfway.
I left the newsprint
Where it was.
I kept the markers,
and exited the building
The way I came.
I went back out
Into the sunlight.

Global warming

Again... I was going to write a reflection about something else, about how looking at statistics for my blog show me I have readers in Russia and Romania even though I have no idea who they are or why they might link to such a blog.  Global warming came out instead.  So there it is.  I have no idea what the Russians will think.

It seems
Saying global warming
Doesn*t exist
Is similar to denying
God.
If I can*t see it
Because I*ve covered my eyes
Or pulled the shades
Or God forbid
I have decided nothing
Will convince me
Of anything,
Even ice caps melting
Won*t do it,
Even polar bears on ice floes.

I do believe in God
Way more even
than global warming.
Everything conspires
To show me
God is at work,
Even despite
Global warming.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Punchline

I am not the family joke-teller.  Often I only remember the punchline.  That*s no way to tell a story.  It*s important to remember the lead-in...

Why do I write?
I know it is not
To be preserved in a book
For Posterity,
Whoever
Posterity is.
The blog makes it easier
For me to return
To past days.
I often forget
What I saw
Yesterday,
What I heard
Yesterday.
I never was a good joke teller.
I always seem to tell
The punchline
First.
Why do I write?
I write to remember
What I saw
Yesterday,
What I heard
Yesterday,
What I felt
Yesterday.
It seems important to return
To past days.
Otherwise I mostly remember
The punchline.
I know
That*s no way
To tell a story.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

What shall we call it?

I am in new territory... again.  The rules and constrictions don*t exactly fit.  I have an office... yes.  I meet with people... yes.  I charge by the hour... yes.   How to name it?  How to advertise?  Is it therapy?  Consulting?  Spiritual direction?  Pastoral counseling? What shall we call it?  And...does it really matter?

What shall we call it,
This thing that we do?
If it is marked on my calendar,
An hour is allotted.
A particular fee charged,
What shall we call it
This thing that we do
Together?
If I listen to your edges
And trajectories;
If I name what I hear,
The bits and pieces
The themes
So they come alive
In the center of the room?
What shall we call it
When we dance
With what we find,
Sing along,
Befriend.
Maybe even
Cast it into outer darkness.
What shall we call it
This thing that we do
Together?

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Sometimes I wonder

Ah, morning dreams.  I decided last night to work from home today.  No office appointments, so I slept in.  Today promises very hot and sunny, so I will stay in the cool, write, clean baseboards, and contemplate living on the seventh floor, endless food courts and dolphins. 

I dreamed we came back from vacation;
Our house was now in a neighborhood transformed
Row upon row
Of identical bright blue gridded buildings.
We were told
We now lived on the seventh floor
Of one of the buildings.
To get there
We took the front bank of elevators.
When we arrived at our condominium
We were introduced to our neighbor*s friend
From college.
She was project manager for our transformed neighborhood..
Her company had just declared bankruptcy,
So she had decided to teach high school.
The seventh floor
From the back bank of elevators
Was an endless food court
And a dolphin habitat.
We looked for the connection
Between the two parts of the seventh floor.
We never found it.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Mondays are a learning curve

Mondays are my volunteer days at the Clinic.  I am there from 9 to 5:30.  At the Clinic I learn a whole new way of keeping charts and treatment plans.  I learn new clients.  Here there are different rules, different settings for different rules.  Here I have to fill out progress notes which say that we worked on Goal number one, objective number one.  Mondays are a learning curve.  In comparison, the rest of the week is a water slide.

Mondays are a learning curve.
I don*t know who will come,
Who will cancel
Because of a possibly phantom
Earache.
I learn treatment plans,
Updates to treatment plans,
Progress notes with a newly-acquired
Provider number.
I am now a number;
My work can be entered
Into the system.
Mondays are still
A learning curve.
Every Monday
I find myself in the neon-lit office
Of the old motel
Next to the car wash.
By the end of most sessions
I come up with
Directly applicable
Homework.
Yet Mondays are still
A learning curve.
The rest of the week
Is a waterslide
From there.

Monday, July 23, 2012

One lone fly

The fan vent finally has a new cover.  It promises to keep out birds and insects.  The sparrow party over the last two weeks included three live baby sparrows in the house, one (it seems) for each of us to find, the cat helping.  I found a dead sparrow under the boot bench after the fly population seemed to increase for no apparent reason.  We are now down to one fly.  

One lone fly is left
In the house.
The rest of us who live here
Have figured
Different ways
To rid the house of flies.
I favor the swat.
My husband
Thinks catch and release
The best method.
My daughter prefers
Someone else take care of it.
One lone fly.
The cat prefers to watch and leap.
One lone fly is left
To entertain the cat
While the rest of us are gone
For the day.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Tut tut

I grew up with Winnie the Pooh, long before the Walt Disney version.  Pooh was pen and ink, with a gravelly voice; Piglet pen and ink as well, his voice high and squeaky.  My mother had a different voice for each one, though I remember she did not do Tigger the way I thought Tigger should be done.  Still, on a day such as this one, I hear echoes of the Hundred Aker Wood: : Tut tut, it looks like rain.  I do not remember who said it: Pooh or Eeyore or Rabbit, perhaps Piglet.   I do hope the rain comes

Tut tut. it looks like rain.
Words from Winnie (the Pooh)
Offer the promise
Of more moisture
For this thirsty land.
Gray clouds,
Occasional water drips
On the windshield,
Green crabgrass
Through last year*s mulch,
The air itself
Feels wetter than yesterday.
It looks and feels
Like rain,
Possible rain.
Tut tut, indeed.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Wealth of broken pieces

I set out to write something about putting together a mosaic, and found that I am in the place of contemplating which pieces belong.  I*ve been here before, many times.  It seems this is a time of waiting to know what fits, which are the pieces that belong.  Of course I thought I knew this already.  No.  Darn it all.

Early on
When the Whole
I thought I*d begun
Broke into smaller pieces
I found it all
Shattered into possibility.
The Whole somehow
Had to include
Stray bits from the wayside
Polished pebbles out of the riverbed
Shards of broken glass from the street
Chunks of rock.
I knew I would never get back
To the original picture.
Indeed
I never knew original
Anyway.
Here I am
Later on
The Whole broken
Into smaller pieces again.
There is a wealth
Of broken pieces:
Polished pebbles smooth to the touch;
Shards of colored glass
I hold up to the light;
Chunks of rock I can sit on
While I wait,
While I figure where and if
They fit.
Here I am again:
More pieces,
A veritable wealth
Of broken pieces.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Weeds

The weeds are ecstatic
For the recent rain.
They sing in the front yard.
They green
The brown spaces.
They are the first
To return,
Hardy souls 
They have lived underground
As seeds
In the drought.
They green
The brown spaces.

Other than Sunday

I received a job posting a couple days ago for a counseling position on and around a military base.  Flexible hours (it said).  It sounded appealing then and it still does today.  It took me a day or two to realize this is a lot of what clergy folk do.  We use the walk-around/coaching approach.  It was even in quotation marks in the ad.  

Other than Sunday, what do you do?  I wonder how I would count hours on a military base.

Counseling services need to be delivered face-to-face using a "walk-around/coaching" approach
                                                                              Excerpt from a job posting received by email two days ago

I have done this for years.
I still do.
When people ask
What a priest does
They usually have a postscript.
It reads
Other than Sunday.
They know where you are
On Sunday,
Easy job if you can get it:
Lead a service
Preach a sermon
Hang out with the family
The rest of the week
Unless of course
someone dies
Or needs
to get married.
Other than Sunday
What could you possibly be doing
With all that time?
Now I am a real-life advertisement
For the walk-around/coaching approach
I do the exact same thing
On Sundays
Even on Sunday.
When people ask
This is what I do.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Well

I wish I knew what exactly brings about a change of perspective.  Somehow God seems the logical answer.  This morning I woke up well.

This morning I woke up well:
Well in spirit
Well in vision
Well in possibilities
On the horizon.
I still have no idea
What will happen tomorrow
Except I woke up well
This morning.
I could see
There is more to all of this
Than meets the eye.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Knitting redux

I chanced upon the women*s sewing/knitting group this morning at church.  Not being on my own driving schedule, I arrived way before any appointments.  So... I had the chance to talk and realize once again how such groups can offer the space where so much more than handcrafts dwell.  It brought me back to the knitting women at my former parish, and the way they knit their way through life and death and everything in between.  It happens here as well.  Who knew?

I had no idea
There was so much more to learn.
There is so much more,
Therefore
There will be
So much more.
It simply
Stands to reason.
It even stands
Beyond anything
That passes
For reason.
I attend the women*s sewing group.
There is so much more
Than sewing
Or knitting
That happens here.
I remember the knitting women
From before.
They knit their way
Through life and death,
And everything
In between.
I had no idea
Or perhaps
I simply forgot
There is so much more to learn
Here
As well.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Halfway

It is a blessing to have an office halfway under and halfway above the ground.   Best of both worlds, as well as a connection with both.  On a hot day like this one, it is a particular blessing.  I can sit here and give particular thanks for earth and sun and sky, and still know I know only a small piece of why this is a blessing.

Here in the office
I am halfway above ground.
The window lets in light
From the sun and sky,
Here in the office
I am halfway below ground.
On a day such as this
Hot and bright as anything,
I can almost dig my toes
In the earth,
Feel the cool,
It rises out of the dirt.
Here in the office
I am connected to both,
Here there seems reason
For both.
Here in the office I know
Reason
is only
The small of it.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Sparrow number three

It*s been a full day.  Now it is fuller.  I am wondering how many more baby sparrows are figuring out how to come up or down the vents.  The last one was covered in lint... which now makes me think perhaps the dryer vent...

I am greeted at the front door
With sparrow number three
In the daughter*s hand.
Yes
He is cute and small
Yes
I know people keep finches
As pets.

No
We can*t
No
I*m so sorry
He is cute and small.
I know
Some people do keep sparrows
In bird cages
As pets.

We still do not know
How numbers one and two
Came in.
Here is number three.
I imagine our walls
Filled with sparrows
Cheeping chirping sparrows.
They live in our walls
Somewhere
Somehow.
It seems the cat has decided
To adopt them all.

Sparrow number two

I know God cares for sparrows.  It*s in the Bible, after all.   Maybe the newly fledged sparrows are making their appearance, one at a time, every three days, for a reason.  God cares for the sparrows.  I know this.  I would prefer to contemplate such things outside of the house.

Sparrow number two
Arrived this morning
Next to the sliding glass doors
Inside.
Like sparrow number one,
We have no idea
How he got in,
How she got in.
The cat has never known such excitement.
Over the weekend
We eliminated the bathroom fan
As a source
Of entry.
We each have a theory
But no solution.
We each
Are gone
For the day.
The cat and turtle
Will hold down
The fort.
I have no idea what we will find
When we return.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Cowbird

How to make God laugh?  Make plans.  This seems one more illustration of this.  Think, Catharine:  why would there be one more largish bird left in the nest, without feathers?  One more cowbird for the world.   Not the plan.  Not the plan at all.

The plan
Was to empty the fan duct,
Make it impervious
To re-nesting sparrows.
God laughs at our plans,
Maybe not so much
To make us feel foolish
But maybe
To show us
There is always more
To the story.
My job was to clean out
Old nesting material.
At the end of the wadded grass and weeds
A baby bird fell out,
Naked and the size
Of a mostly grown sparrow.
We put him back,
Moved the task to fall.

Today we realized
It was probably
A cowbird.
We shoved a cowbird back
Into the sparrow*s nest.
Now there will be
One more cowbird
In the world.
Not exactly
The plan.
Still
It matters
To him or her
And cowbirds everywhere.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Sometimes all it takes is a story

Stories and metaphors have a way about them.  They help us name things in a different way: dress them up, dress them down... sometimes laugh at the silliness of ourselves, in the guise of such as the farmer buried in corn. This is a Garrison Keillor story (Minnesota humor).   Despite my having been reared in the big city of Minneapolis, it names truth about my story as well.   I am still regularly buried in corn, despite having lived away from Minnesota for years.

Sometimes all it takes
Is a story
Like this one:
There once was a farmer
In Minnesota,
Trapped by corn
In his silo
While his children waited
For the school bus.
The farmer did not call out
Until his children were dropped off
In the afternoon.
School was important
After all.
I know that farmer.
I was that farmer
Often
I am that farmer
Buried in corn.
Sometimes all it takes
Is a story.
I could wrap myself around that story,
Claim it for my own;
Dress it up,
Dress it down,
Hold it out
For viewing,
My own and others*.
There is often great power
In a story.
Sometimes all it takes
Is a story.
The Minnesota in me
Buried in corn
Sometimes waits and waits
No trouble at all
Nope
No trouble at all.

Friday, July 13, 2012

I am not my Father*s daughter for nothing

I have been here before, in this struggle to deal with changing rules and regulations and human systems.  I realize how much my own father taught me to approach things creatively, while honoring the rules and regulations and systems, to stand back and see where the stepping stones are.  I am not big on praying to or imagining God as Father, but here it seems I am my Father*s daughter as well.  This is a huge comfort, all by itself.

I am not the daughter
Of an attorney
For nothing.
I learned at my father*s knee
To question
The Understood.
I learned
To approach things
Creatively,
Wade in the shallows
On the edge of the lake
Before
Jumping in;
Then
Climb out, get dry,
Consider the water
Again,
See
Where the rocks bump up
Against the surface,
Provide
Stepping stones
To the other side.
I am not my father*s daughter
For nothing.
I know this very familiar place,
This place where
What I thought was true
Isn*t,
What I counted on
Must be refigured again
And again.

I am not my Father*s daughter
For nothing.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

I should have known

Things have a way of repeating themselves.  Still... I was not expecting the foray into professional counseling would bear such a startling resemblance to the ordination process.  It seems I will have to follow a different path here as well.

I should have known:
This foray into licensing
With rules that change regularly
Regarding
What counts,
How to count,
And who does
The counting;
This foray
Is strangely reminiscent
Of the way things were counted
In my twenties.
Thirty years later
I recognize the boundaries
Of this potter*s field.
Here
There are even fewer things
That count.
Yes, I should have known.
Clearly
I should have known.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Fan duct

I don*t think the duct is big enough for robins, though they certainly sound like robins.  Perhaps they are sparrows?  Perhaps all babies have insistent chirps that must be heard.

The fan duct in the living room ceiling
Has produced
A new brood
Of tuneless baby birds.
They echo.
This haven of mine
Is crowded.
For now
The birds live
Over my writing chair.
I think
They are learning to walk
In the metal duct,
Maybe pace,
While they out-of-tune clamor
For food.

I wait
For the fledging.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

When the world shrinks

I am continually surprised at who is paying attention to my life, and how.  People enter from unlikely places, say unlikely things.  Heck... sometimes they are unlikely people.  Really unlikely people.  Why should I be surprised?  I got a book recommendation from a woman writing a biography of my great grandfather, a very apt book recommendation.  I have met her once.  I thought of you she said.  It seemed appropriate.  It is  appropriate.  Stage left, stage right... sometimes someone pops up out of the audience, and you were not aware they were attending the play.

Sometimes when the world shrinks,
It expands beyond belief.
In the space left behind
Other possibilities emerge:
Slide in
From stage left;
Skip  in
From stage right.
They even pop up from part of the audience
You didn*t know
Was in attendance.
Fan mail from some flounder?
Even as my vision comes and goes
Even as I make jokes
About seizures
Every nine months
When the state thinks six months
Is a guarantee;
Even as the world shrinks,
It expands beyond belief.
In the space left in front,
Possibilities emerge.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Different things

I am sitting at my volunteer counseling place.  Client number 1 cancelled.  I wait for client number 2.  I was driven here by my beloved.  I will walk the streets of Wheaton and Glen Ellyn when I am done here, probably my clients will be among those with whom I walk.  Still learning as I go.

Once again
I pay attention
To different things.
I walk,
See the people who walk
With me.
I discover
Renewed vision,
Realize the blur
Of fluorescent lights.
I notice the comfort
Of indirect daylight.
I take things
In stages,
Read accounts of those
Whose challenges
Are so much more
Than mine,
Those who walk
All the time,
Those who see
The corners of things,
Have to extrapolate
The rest.

Once again I see
Different things.
They remind me of things
I did not learn as fully
Before.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

-ing

I spent a year or two excising -ing from my daily reflections.  The workshop folk had a point.  There were many times I used it unthinkingly.  As with any rule, though, applying it to every situation is unwarranted.  I am also less certain of the importance of being definitive: past, present or future.

When I attended the poetry workshop
I learned
-ing is to be avoided
At almost every cost.
It is important to be definitive,
Certain:
Past certain
Present certain
Future certain.
-ing weakens the poem.
-Ing makes the verb
Into a process.
The process dampens
Into a noun.
The dance becomes
Dancing,
The song
Mere singing.
Death ekes into the gray
Of dying,
Life becomes living.
-ing forces the verb
To stay on
Like the guest after three days
Over-staying his welcome,
Her welcome.
The poem is meant
To be shorter
Than prose.
Soon there comes the time
For leaving.
Like now

Mortality

I find myself more captured by mortality, including those people who are dealing with it, up close and personal.  My book list has expanded to include brushes with cancer, ALS, cystic fibrosis.  My friends who know more intimately their life with inherent challenge, mortality, the reality of life and death... I am awed in the company of these who have a better sense of what awaits all of us at last, what can inform us even now.

Seizures may return
Or not.
I figure they are knowable,
Even as I am not present
For them.
It seems apparent
My mortality
Is not mine
At all,
But perhaps
 Indeed
Someone else*s
Somewhere else*s.
Mortality has moved
To a different realm.
Seizures may return
Or not.
The words to describe them,
I cannot know
Except perhaps in words of those
Who watch.
Still
They are not my words.
I am told the last one
Was different:
More expected
Certainly quieter
No drool
At all.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

36.97916 per cent

Yes, I am still counting.  Perhaps we are always counting our way to something:  time to the achievement of a particular goal, time to retirement, time to when our child goes to kindergarten (or leaves for college).  We can look at it as an only, or even as not enough.  Me?  I am counting hours to the time I can take the licensure test for the LCPC.  Meanwhile I get hours that count toward a more complete life, somehow.  More hours to ride with other drivers, hours to walk the streets of Roselle and Glen Ellyn, hours to pay attention to who else is walking with me.  I get hours that don*t count in the time to licensure, but hours that train me nonetheless.  No, I am not yet convinced of this.  But I know I will be.

Yesterday I added up the hours
After two years.
I have counted
Everything possible:
Hours in my office;
Hours as chaplain
To the Daughters;
Hours with recovering alcoholics
In the halfway house;
Hours in the free clinic.
I have counseled life
And death
And everything
In between.
In the midst of it all
I have added the specialty
Of new dependence
And interdependence.
I know whereof I speak.
I know whereof
I counsel.
Yesterday
I added up the hours.
I have arrived at exactly
36.97916 per cent
Of what I need
To take
The next step.
My beloved tells me
I am over one-third there.
I consider four more years
At this rate.
I continue
To consider it.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Oasis

The weather forecasters say it will be cooler next week.  I*ll believe it when I feel it.  Hopeful friends think that with all the power saved in the outage this week, we*ll be in for no brown-outs.  This is a desert year.  And... life still reaches for life, wherever oasis may be found.

Other summers
We have opened
The windows
For breeze
And cool night air.
Not this year.
This is the desert year.
Heat in the day,
Heat at night.
This year the backyard raccoon
Bites and scratches holes
In the backdoor screen.
He hopes to get in
To the cool,
Drives the cat
Absolutely
Mad.
This is the desert year.
The tree by the upstairs bedroom window
Wears a hole in the screen.
It too hopes
To grow inside
Into the cool.
This is the desert year.
Everything seeks
Oasis.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Power outage

Our post in the western suburbs lost power twice in the last five days (once on Sunday for five hours and then again on Tuesday for seven hours).  It was not at all what our neighbors two suburbs south had to endure (or still are enduring).  We were fortunate.  We are fortunate.  I am grateful for the reminder.

Power slowly returns
To the western suburbs.
Yesterday we ran into friends
At the supermarket,
They were restocking their freezer.
The thrum of washers and dryers,
The hum of air conditioning,
Replaces the neighborhood generators.
Already the cardinal,
The occasional blue jay
Fade
Into background noise.
The neighbors fade
Indoors.
It is still overly dry
And hot.
Today will be 105 degrees.
Power undergoes
Restitution
Redefinition
Reordering.
We will remember part of this.
We always do.
We will forget as well.
We always do.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Borderless love

I am a priest and poet and now a therapist.  I am married to a political scientist.  We bring different things to the table, to our conversations.   On this Independence Day we are both grateful for this country in which we live, and not so grateful for the things which separate us from loving those beyond our borders.  This quotation came from inwardoutward.org today.

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?
                                                                                                Pablo Casals

Consider the borders,
The edges we create
Between us and them,
Them and us.
Then
Imagine the borders
Not existing at all:
Artificial countries
In pink and green and blue,
The United States
In the middle of the map
Somehow bigger
Than the rest.
Consider the borders
Then
Consider them
Gone.
Remember the chalk erasers from first grade?
Remember when we wrote things
We could erase?
Consider the borders
The edges
Erased,
Chalk dust clapped into the air
Behind the school building,
The chalkboard washed clean
To begin again
Tomorrow.
Consider the borders,
The edges we create
Then
Consider them gone
Erased.
Consider maps with no borders
No country
In the center.
Consider love
In the middle.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Air conditioning

I do not do well in heat.  I never have.  My thinking shuts down, my vision blurs.  Are there people like me in the tropics?  What do they do?  Do they do their thinking at night?

I am more than grateful
For air conditioning,
Even for fans that blow
Over iceblocks,
Enough coolness
To think straight,
To recapture that bead
On sanity.
I wonder about people
Who live in the desert,
The perpetual hot zones.
Dry heat is still heat.
Do they do their thinking
At midnight
In moonlight
In starlight
Do they adapt?
Do they walk the sand,
Pray for watering holes?
Do they think of moving
To Antarctica or wonder
If all the ice in the world
Will disappear?
Do they even remember
The existence
Of ice?