You be the rocks. I'll be the river.

 You'll be the rocks. I'll be the river.

You are steady and immovable. 

Compressed, hardened, stoic 

Faithful and steadfast. 

I change shape with the weather. 

Flow and freeze. 

Rage and ripple.

We bend and flow in a timeless dance

You hold the path in

clear sharp boundaries

I wear the hard edges to smooth and round

We are glacial valleys

We are waterfalls

We are cliffs and shore

We are babbling brooks

We are deep mountain lakes

We are.

You'll be the rocks.

I'll be the river. 

We will go on

Together.

Love in the time of Covid19

We have been on lockdown in Nashville for more days than I can count.  March 2nd was the tornado that closed all the schools for a week. Then the kids went back for tree days and then school has been closed ever since. We don't leave the house much beyond taking the new dog for a walk. Our 16th anniversary came and neither of us remembered until halfway through the day and Facebook reminded me.

All activities are cancelled. Parks are closed. I am attempting to homeschool the children but it often goes south before too much gets done. We watch movies. We write and draw and play outside. The kids run loose like I used to in the woods on Hamby Road.

But in the loneliness is a quiet and a contentment that I have not felt in awhile. It feels good to be still. It feels good to be quiet. The dishwasher hums, the dryer spins, the boys write poems with sticky letters while my girl reads yet another novel on her Kindle. Hubs retreats to his man-cave to play games. It's a good life. We are lucky. And I am happy today.

Love (and Parenting) in the Time of Covid19

My darling I love you
But don't cough on me
We have been here for weeks
In this wretched quarantine

The groceries are scarce
The toilet paper runs low
We are stuck in this house
But there's nowhere to go.

The parks are all closed
The stores are all shuttered
We are shut in with these children
And the house is getting cluttered

With Legos and books
And homeschool papers
We Facetime and Zoom while the
Kinder cut capers.

We attempt to do work
But get nothing done
We send out the kinder
Out into the sun

They explore and they argue
They create and they wander
They ride down the hill on their bikes
And they ponder

What does this dead snake
That I found feel like?
Can I run over this roadkill
With the wheels of my bike?

Can I have another snack?
Can I dig a big hole?
Can I paw through the fire pit
And paint my face with charcoal?

Do I HAVE TO do Math?
Do I HAVE TO write cursive?
They are making me use my mom voice
In threats most coercive.

Wash your hands, wear your mask
Please don't ask again why
If we follow all the rules
We might be free by July

Poem : : My Feet Use to Be

My Feet Used to Be

My feet used to be
Bare and free
Calloused and agile
Gauging the bark
and strength of the branches
as I climbed.
Sinking into the soft red clay
of the well-worn path around the lake,
in spite of the carpet of pine needles,
gallantly thrown
like a cloak over a puddle.
Expertly avoiding the crabby crawdad
under the rock
who did not appreciate two giant invaders
into his watery domain
Quick stepping
on the hot black tar-top road,
softened by the sun
so my indented footprints
were left behind.
An advance scout
Sent out
test the strength
of some cobbled together invention
made by kids with too much time
and too little building experience
on their hands
Now they are prisoners
of age, injury, fitness goals, work, and propriety
Swathed and suffocating in cotton socks
and always shoes
My feet remember
how it used to be
to breathe

As the Day Ends

In the click of the lock as the day ends
In the hum of the a.c. outside
In the thrum of the mower that the neighbor uses at 9pm as if that is the perfect time for firefly lit yardwork
In the woosh and spin and click of the hookup of the dishwasher that is
An anachronism in this kitchen made for the 50's
In this house made for the 20's
In the stones that hold 100 years of time in the history
of earth and death and grass and Hackberry star seeds
To the rhythm of the breath of sleeping babes
Who dream and become old men and old mothers
In the passing of the sun and the moon as it grows fat and lean
In the seasons and the years and the lifetimes that this place
Held and lost and held and lost until this moment.
My bare feet on these creaking boards, once trees, once seedlings, once acorns,
Once one hundred feet high on the limbs of their mother
Carried here.  To now. Where the mint takes root in the glass on the sill
And the van beeps as I double check
And the lock clicks as the day ends.

Dust if you Must - Poetry I like today

Dust If You Must

by Rose Milligan

Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better To paint a picture, or write a letter, Bake a cake, or plant a seed; Ponder the difference between want and need? Dust if you must, but there's not much time, With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb; Music to hear, and books to read; Friends to cherish, and life to lead. Dust if you must, but the world's out there With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair; A flutter of snow, a shower of rain, This day will not come around again. Dust if you must, but bear in mind, Old age will come and it's not kind. And when you go (and go you must) You, yourself, will make more dust.

Text Source

Poems I like today

I am grateful for the internet.  The eternal source of poems that may have been forgotten, lost in obscure books long out of print.  Instead they are fresh and real as the day they were written, there in front of me.  I may need to look up the obscure verbiage or antiquated language, but I CAN do that.  So here are a few.  Found (in part) in the introduction of The Inquisitor's Tale Or, The Three Magical Children and their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz (Illuminated by Hatem Aly)

Pied Beauty

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.

 Text Source and to hear it read aloud

 

As I Walked Out One Evening

W. H. Auden, 1907 - 1973

As I walked out one evening,
   Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
   Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
   I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
   ‘Love has no ending.

‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
   Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
   And the salmon sing in the street,

‘I’ll love you till the ocean
   Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
   Like geese about the sky.

‘The years shall run like rabbits,
   For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
   And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
   Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
   You cannot conquer Time.

‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
   Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
   And coughs when you would kiss.

‘In headaches and in worry
   Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
   To-morrow or to-day.

‘Into many a green valley
   Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
   And the diver’s brilliant bow.

‘O plunge your hands in water,
   Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
   And wonder what you’ve missed.

‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
   The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
   A lane to the land of the dead.

‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
   And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
   And Jill goes down on her back.

‘O look, look in the mirror,
   O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
   Although you cannot bless.

‘O stand, stand at the window
   As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour - (Love this line!)
   With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
   The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
   And the deep river ran on. 

Text Source