Coyote

I think the coyote was eating something small.  As I watched him, a chipmunk chirped incessantly. Wild kingdom continues to live in our backyard.  I would prefer everyone ate lunch somewhere else.

Wild kingdom continues to live

In the backyard.

Right of the crab apple,

Behind the garage

A coyote stands

Plain as day

Right as rain

Bold as you please.

Thankfully our cat

Lives indoors.

The coyote and I

Stare each other down

Except neither of us

Stands down.

Eventually

Points made,

We both leave

At exactly the same moment.

He might have walked through

Any of three open gates.

Instead he slips through a hole

Under the fence.

Discombobulation

I would prefer to have other things occupy my mind.  When something vital, like a professional calendar, goes missing, all the creative spots go missing as well.  They are taken up with anxiety. My daughter and I leave this afternoon with a friend and friend*s mother to visit schools in Boston. We all have different ideas of what such things mean: trips and college visits et al.  Meanwhile, the floors are being cleaned downstairs.  I cannot locate my calendar, which has our flight arrangements clipped into the front of it.  I think I must have put it somewhere safe.  Right.

I sit upstairs

While the floors are being cleaned

Underneath me.            

It began

It continues

As a day

Of discombobulation.

I try to settle

In an upstairs chair,

Green,

In the bedroom.

This room is already clean.

My calendar

Has gone missing.

I know it is somewhere

Downstairs.

Perhaps I can blame

The cat.

I consider the implications

Of a calendar

Lost in thin air.

I reconstruct it

In my head.

Again I settle back

Into the green chair.

I would like to write creative things.

Not this.

Shift

We have all had versions of this conversation.  Sometimes we are the questioner.  Sometimes we are the listener.  Sometimes we give advice.  Sometimes we don*t.  Sometimes these conversations are on the phone late at night.  Sometimes they are over the dinner table.  Roles are reversed. Sometimes merely hearing such things out of our own mouth, out of the mouth of a loved one makes a difference.  Sometimes the shift comes overnight in our sleep.  I have learned there*s no telling exactly when.  I have learned... to put in the time... and wait.

How can I make her see a counselor?

He asks.

You can*t.

I say.

She could see my counselor,

He says.

No, but you could see

Your counselor,

I think to myself.

I know this is going

Nowhere at all.

I have had this conversation

Before.

I know the lines by heart.

I know we will have a version

Of this conversation

Again.

Strange enough

I know it is actually

Not hopeless.

A shift will surely come.

It will not be my shift.

It will not be her shift,

But his.

A cold that refuses to be called Common

Sometimes an illness claims a life of its own.

Yes this counts

As an end of summer

Cold.

It has me dragging around,

Hoping that a hot shower

Will make a dent.

Yes this counts.

This cold has me by the throat

And nose.

This cold says

I have blamed

Mere allergies

Too long.

Call me by my given name

It says,

Accuracy is paramount.

I am not a simple spell

Of allergies.

I will not be called

“Common.”

I am your End of Summer Cold.

Hot showers be damned.

One more step

And so it continues.  I watch my friends drop their children off at college.  I think we*ll be doing the same with our second child same time next fall.  Right now it*s the 250-500 word essay for the Common Application.  This is something which did not exist when our son applied.  Then again this child writes her own book, even as the first one did.  It does not fit in 250-500 words.  No one can write their book in 250-500 words.

Every day brings one more step

In letting go.

At Christmas

His senior year

In high school

Our son gave my beloved and me

A book on parents

Letting go

Of grown children.

Every parent

Every child

Writes his own book,

Writes her own book.

Everyone

Has advice to give

The other.

Still

The letting go happens

One step at a time.

This advice

Is not in book form.

This advice I think
May even be

Universal.

How does that work for you?

I often write to figure out where I am right now.  My clients, my friends, my family... they do different things.  Sometimes writing.  Sometimes drawing.  Sometimes yoga.  Sometimes other things.  How does that work for you? I ask.  Then I listen to the answer.

Do you write?

I ask.

Do you draw?

I ask.

You mentioned yoga:

How does that work for you?

The list of questions

They come to me

Out of thin air,

Out of a client*s mouth,

Maybe they fly in

Through the sunlit window.

How does that work for you?

I ask.

I want to know for me.

I want to know for you.

Most of all

I simply want to know.

Perhaps some answers

Are buried there.

Perhaps some answers

Lie on the surface

Ready to be gleaned

Like corn left in the field

After harvest.

Under the altar

I remember when I first came back to St. Mark's in 2007 it was difficult to figure out where to sit.   I tried out many different pews.  I filled in as supply priest for a couple services.  Now I have a counseling office almost directly below the altar, next to Parents' Day Out, down the hall from the choir room, across from the vesting sacristy.  I have a window that opens and shuts and is half above ground/half underground.  I am anchored here.  Finally I am anchored.  Under the altar.  I am home.

I am anchored

Under the altar now,

Next to children singing Jesus loves me.

I am moored

Down the hall from the choir.

They practice to sing

Upstairs in the loft.

I hold the windowsill.

Outside my window

Jesus sits on a bench,

Draws pictures in pencil

In the shade

Of the heat of the day.

He sits in the shadow

Of the crooked pine.

I am anchored

Under the altar.

Footsteps above me

Walk to communion.

They echo

In this space

Under the altar.

I hear what happens

Underneath it all,

Down the hall.

I grab the windowsill,

Watch what happens

Outside on a bench

In the shade,

In the shadow,

Of the crooked pine.

Jesus sits there.