Titles

This was supposed to be a poem about the splinter in my foot.

I think I know

The title

Before I have even

Begun.

No.

Poems

Reflections

Chapters

Whole books

In their richness.

Now that I come to it:

Our lives

Defy summation

In anything

Like a title,

Words

In a neat package;

Words that say

Come read the rest;

Words that say

Come hither

A crooked finger

Beckoning;

A door opened just a crack

With light

On the other side.

Oh she says Oh

When they ask me how I am handling the empty nest, I think:  This baby bird was born in flight.

  

Oh she says Oh

Now I get it. 

I must leave this place

Next to the mountains,

Take Spanish,

Listen to the words

Of Mother Teresa,

Now dead,

But still wise.

Oh

She says

Oh

I must bloom

Where I am planted.

Oh

She says

Oh

Now I get it.

Everything needs company

Turtles live forever, it seems.  This one has been with us since my son was five.  My son is now 27. Felix, the turtle, is still going strong.  He likes company.  He likes blueberries.  He likes his water changed on a regular basis.  He likes the lights on in his tank.  Time to get up he says this morning.  Turn on my lights, he says,  Now... blueberries... he says.  Clink  Clink  Clink.  Turtle Morse Code.

Everything needs company.

We wake to noises

Downstairs.

Clink

Clink

Clink

We fed the turtle blueberries

On a ceramic saucer

Last night.

Now the saucer,

Firmly gripped in his mouth,

Smashes

Against the glass.

Clink

Clink

Clink

For a mostly quiet creature,

He has found a voice.

Everything needs company.

Exciting announcements

Today's email seems particularly uninspiring.  Even the email I have asked to receive on a daily basis... the inspirational kind.  Then there is the email that promises exciting announcements, or the one that offers me a special deal on a haunted corn maze.  OK.  I know.  Grumpy.  I am clearly not in the mood for exciting

The email subject lines

Are anything but exciting,

Even those

That declare themselves so.

I have no desire

To purchase a walk

In a haunted corn maze.

Pictures of the movie

Children of the Corn

Come to mind.

Exciting announcements

Are exciting to those

Who send them.

I exercise the delete function.

I figure if it’s truly exciting

It will come back around.

Sighs too deep

 I am not the family sigh-er.  Somehow my beloved and I have switched roles.  I sit and breathe and sigh.  These sighs have been stored a long time.  Beautiful even in a spun silk kind of way.  Perhaps I will weave them into a scarf.

Sighs too deep for words

Silver gray yet somehow light.

They rise.  They rise.

Still I try

I started this with a title.  Then tried to write something to go with the title.  So often, more often, the title comes last.  So I changed it.

This is the way

I can title

This portion of my life

This portion of which

I know

No beginning

No end.

Really no label

Is enough.

No title

Captures it,

Even partially.

Sometimes

No

Often

I unearth a label,

Try to live into it

For a time,

Then find words

Are not enough,

Never enough.

I climb to the top

Of the mountain.

I sit in the blue chair.

I go to work out with my beloved

In five minutes.

There are no words

No real words

To describe it.

Still I try.

Comfort

More change.  I find comfort in some things which stay the same.

Next door

A woodpecker seeks bugs

On the neighbor’s garage

Tap

Tap

Tap

The cat commences

To tip his tail

In the sun,

Seemingly asleep,

He raises and lowers

One front paw.

Do cats dream

The way dogs do?

The windows are open today.

I take comfort

In some sameness

Even as the world entirely changes

Around me.

Now the cat

Is upside down,

The woodpecker gone,

A blue jay,

Familiar,

Distinctive color and call,

Arrives different

Yet somehow

The same.