Rock and a hard place

The channel finds me
Between clashing rocks
Scylla and Charybdis
Still
I am not Odysseus
Sailing
Waiting
To get home
Find home
Is not what I left.
It never is.
I can pretend
But pretense is not
What I left behind
Either.
I can choose my rocks
To sail between
Choose Scylla
Choose Charybdis
Choose to sail home
Find what awaits me
There.
It is never
What I left.

I counted

I counted all my life
Until I realized
Things
Did not add up
Not because
They didn't matter
Or
I didn't matter
I was simply
Counting
The wrong things.
The next things
Required
Different steps
In different dances
Different notes
In different songs.
Different stones
In different places.
Still it seemed
I should count.

The shoulds

In every session
The shoulds surround us
Make a circle
Hold hands
Dance
Ring around the Rosie
Ashes
Ashes
We all fall down
Until we help each other
Get up
Send the shoulds
Packing
To live
Where they have always
Lived.
Where they may return
But we will then
See them
More
From a distance.
In every session
The shoulds
Hold sway
Until we
Send them away.

There is no such thing as ordinary

Everyone is a miracle.
Everything
Is a miracle.
Sometimes we miss it
And miss it again
Miss it again
Until it hits us
Square
Between our eyes.
Square
Between our ears.
Oh no
We say
That can't possibly be
That ordinary person
That ordinary thing
We forget
There is no such thing
As ordinary.

Rocks figure big

Scripture says
Rocks figure big
Moses sat on one
Struck another with his staff
For water
To flow.
Jesus rolled one away
Showed up
As a Gardener
In cognito
Until he was recognized
By Mary.
Scripture says
Rocks figure big.

Categories

I categorize my poems
An un-categorized species.
To submit them
I must name
The un-chaptered
Which ones go together
Which ones
Must hang out
By the side
Of the road
Wait to join the next
Convoy.

Someone else to share the naming

One thing at a time.
Emily left a closet
Filled with poems.
Someone else
Gave them titles.
It appeals.
One thing
At a time.
Someone else to share
The naming.

Collection

As I collect
Old poems
I think of new
Possibilities,
Wonder how they will
Measure up
Against
Each other.
It seems the comparison
Never stops.
Never.
Mine against yours
Yours against mine
Ad infinitum.
If or when publication
Occurs
Will it make things better
Or worse
Or simply
Different.

New windows

When the windows arrive
Will they let us see
Differently?
Will gray-blue siding
Give that needed face lift
So perspective
From the outside
Offers the world
A different house
On the street
So the neighbors
Who walk their dogs
Every morning
Every evening
Will say
Amazing
What a face lift can do?
Will the dogs howl
In appreciation?
Lift their legs
On our trees
So other dogs must stop
And smell.
Stop and look.

No mellifluous song here

They complain
The birds
No mellifluous song
Here
On this side
Of the creek.
They complain
In the heat
Wait for the cool
When their song
Will grow more sweet
The birds.
They complain.

Choice does not require force

I get stuck
In either/or
When both/and is really
The name of the game.
Choice does not require
Force,
As in trying
To put the square peg
Into the round hole
But instead
Letting it find
The hole
That fits.

Don't forget

Don't forget
To write the new thing
As you meander
Through the old.
Something new
May appear first
And foremost.
Someone else
May pick it up
Before you see it.