renewal

Circular

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

a bee stung me today
right above my ear on mile 148
my seven-year-old might
start third grade in Spain

my former colleagues
discussed my job opening
the devils of divorce
and the two-faced
behavior of administrators

this is a list poem
i had two beers
and watched my Spaniards
pack up twenty bags
for the journey i will
soon take my family on

this is the beginning of the end
and the end of the beginning
how circular life can be
when in words we cannot express
all the emotions that draw
the endless lines together

Soft Petals

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

just like the cactus flower
so rare and beautiful
that pops up yellow and pink
in the early part of summer

you dart in and out of seasons
shyly sneaking soft petals
up into the sunlit sky
amongst a world of thorns

Cottonwood Colorado

/ lovizmytrio / 2 Comments

trees don’t grow on beaches
and they shouldn’t be here
eighty years old
stacked up along the sand
a domineering presence
of the shade i crave

it is June now
and cotton floats in the air
in and out of our hair
our mouths, our pieces of food
a dreamy landscape
of seeds starting anew

i sit for hours
as lyrics drown out
the blue-collar Bud-drinking
daytime neighbors
i could sit all day
my cottonwood Colorado
a dreamy landscape
of all i will leave behind

soon we will breathe
the salty seascape
there will be no trees
only a faulty umbrella
unable to withstand wind
no cotton bleeding with life
no comparison to this life

and will my girls
sassy as ever in their new bikinis
remember what it was like
in the cottonwood Colorado
of their youth?
or immerse in a
languagefoodculture
that blends together
in a different dreamy landscape?

Dots on a Map

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

yes, it was Hitler.
he gathered them up,
took family members one by one,
and like feathers
tossed into a torrent,
the survivors fled home

that’s my first dot

their home across the sea,
ancestors’ ashes scattered
into a grey Polish sky,
is what brings them to me

my second dot

a rejection letter,
a flyer in a park,
three daughters and a school
quite fluent in Spanish
who years later would fly in
two Spaniards
to fill every moment of our lives

my third dot

was it her Inquisition,
or Hitler’s wrath,
or the coming together
of lines on a child’s paper
that connected the dots,
the dots on a map
that make my dream a reality?

three Colorado girls.
Spaniards full of life.
a doctor from Jerusalem.
with a few words,
desires both evil and good,
we are all connected.

Sprung

/ lovizmytrio / 2 Comments

fire-banning drought
sucking spring rains from wildlife
broken by night’s clouds

Sailor’s Delight

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

i know the old phrase that brings down the sea
each dawn my mind sees the words cross the sky
it haunts the sailors but doesn’t haunt me
the beauty of dawn is what i live by

it shares, red sky at night, sailors’ delight
though surely the pink Pike’s Peak wasn’t viewed
on each red morning with pink clouds so bright
i can feel my whole soul being renewed

it warns, red sky at morning, sailors give warning
missing the mountain peaks’ glorious blue
pink skies at night bring nothing but mourning
to craved-strength muscles that ache to break through

i hear old phrases with opposite terms
as i cycle my way to a new day
what’s beauty to me, to you is just worms
so i’ll take my colors and sail my way

Crossroads

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

every morning
as i come to my crossroads
just after dawn
touches her fingers to sky,
i make my decision–
an uphill battle
breaking my muscles,
the wind of the highlands
an ever-greater challenge
than the meandering creek

i pedal for simple sights:
the middle-aged blonde
with two matching goldens,
(sometimes leashed, sometimes free)
the bright yellow spot
of a SmartCar, and me
always wondering just where
on the curvacious beauty of
a road i will pass it,
the ever-silent deer
who peer intently at my machine
as they stand cautiously
at the edge of civilization.

and today? a gift,
the top of the most tenuous climb,
the wind bending back leaves
and straightening out flags,
pushing against my will,
when what should cross the road
but a lone pronghorn,
its native spirit leaping
over barbed wire and into
the chaparral, leaving me to
finish my ride, open up
a starvation-induced chocolate
whose wrapper reads,
You are exactly where
you’re supposed to be

(i don’t throw it away,
its aluminum words
imprinted on the crossroads
that may lead me elsewhere tomorrow)

Letters of Idealism

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

i see the sky saving sprinkles
for after my ride home,
and tears are close
to making my face fill with moisture,
not because i’m afraid,
but because the mountains,
so far, so close?
they’re touched by the clouds
i can’t quite touch,
their gray-blue beauty
my reason for loving it here

i read two letters today.
one from Frederick Douglass
to his former master,
one from a substitute teacher
to my principal.

the first? a slur of
nineteenth-century idealism
intermingled with self education,
shared amongst
twenty-first century students
whose idealism reads
in between the lines of hatred
that bleed through generations

the second? a slew of
twenty-first century truths
about our shattered system
and the bright light
that shines through
in my second home, my school,
the place where i know
the idealism can break
the mold of those same clouds
that bring beauty,
that save me from rain

One of Those Moments

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

i can’t write without the wind.
i line up my alliteration
against the dustbowl afternoon,
the first time a great gale
almost forced me to the ground

it is one of those moments when
fear forces itself into my forefront
and i could forget where i’m going.
it is just me, my pedals, my perseverance,
and the dust that clings to every pore

i push on through a series of green lights
to the man i love
all the way back fifteen years, and
i tell him today (like so many other days)
of the ride i’ve had,
and in this moment
(it is one of those moments)
with the wearying wind, the look in his eyes,
i see my future lie before me

One

/ lovizmytrio / 3 Comments

no one has called me that name in years.
i mix it with yesterday’s late-night confessions,
the pain that seeps beyond the Holocaust
through the Word Shaker’s mouth,
and the simplest thank you
that is worth to me a million
(dollars i can do without)

there is no irony in the song
that popped up first on my playlist
one
moment that i took to pick up a flyer,
to choose a school,
(i’m familiar with these small decisions)
to go to that meeting,
to start a troop,
to be here in this moment
more than the last.
one
day more than i had before
one
chance to be
the person i am meant to be

i find it all here.
i find you all here–
peppered streams of light
flickering in and out
of the history of me,
everything coming together
to make
one