just out of reach
you beseech
like flitting birds
you take my words.
i wish i could hold
my hand out bold
snatch you from the sky
take you by and by.
but here i’ll stay
forget our play
disappointment rests
on what you think’s best.
The Wall
how can i make you see
that with bricks stacked up
one by one in your way,
that with no bulldozer
or sledgehammer, you will
have to pull them down
one by one, tossing them
to the ground and climbing
over the remainder of the wall
that keeps you here?
i wish i could actually build it
and you could actually climb it
break it
take it with you
but i can’t. i can only offer
the parts you will need to
assemble your own hammer,
your own destructive machine.
and i can only hope that you will
take the time to put the parts
together and break through the wall.
Three Little Bears
Calling down the stairs
as if reciting their favorite tale,
our three little bears shout out,
their words falling one step after another,
“I have no pajamas in my drawer!”
“The pajamas in my drawer are too hot!”
“My pajama drawer is broken!”
And despite the crying over silly bands,
the arguing over vegetables,
the quarreling over favorite plates,
we have a good laugh
and remember, remember
why we are parents.
War Paint
it started with innocence
plastered on little girls’ faces
like war paint,
pink, blue, ready for battle.
after a long drive,
a stop at the store,
and a mile up the mountain,
after sifting through
golden remnants of fall
and finding treasures
in sticks, under rocks,
the war paint began to smear.
dripping down into the vessels
of their wrinkle-less cheeks,
the pink, the blue, the blood
awakened them to a new reality.
(i want to take my brush,
soft as silk on their skin,
dip it back into the bucket
and paint them, my young,
until they are blinded from
the horrors of everyday war)
but it is too late. for it
dripped and seeped and slithered
into their eyesmouthporeshearts
as they sat awestruck in
the back seat my (motherly) hands
pushed them into.
as their lips wrapped themselves
around their Sausalito saltwater taffy
(blue and pink, like war paint,
a gift brought home, home)
they took in the scene, faces
in the window, knees on the seat,
all innocence wiped away.
shattered glass. hushed crowd.
distant (gapingly absent) sirens.
blue and red blinking lights.
knees on the pavement.
blood on the pavement.
bodies on the pavement.
it ended with…
a long drive,
a stop at the store,
and sticky faces and hands,
war paint, pink, blue,
faded from their first battle.
Spider
how venomous are you
with your crab-shell back,
your daintily long tan legs,
and your sparkling beauty
of a fly-trapping web,
waiting here for our
(lost search) discovery?
Hands
you come into my mind
as i wonder about the state of our world
as i worry on empty stones
as i beseech the heavens for answers
there you are, pop!
with your generous, gentle hands,
your offerings like gold
in the hands of the needy,
your love as pure and smooth
as a newborn’s hands,
and i remember.
i remember that
what it will take are
the hands of people like you
to shape the world into
the place we want our children
to call their own.
Cotton
Try stuffing cotton in,
then maybe you could hear me better,
because even when I SHOUT!
you turn away and talk.
I have a bag right here,
fresh from the store,
shorn from the greatest
polyester plant in China.
Perhaps if I sent you there,
where students must stand
at silent attention when the
teacher enters the room,
and crowd into one hundred
lecture-style desks lined up
like building blocks in their
echoed cave, you would listen.
But for now, let me take a
piece of polyester-cotton ball,
one for each ear, so at the very least,
I won’t have to listen to you.
Twenty Clicks
with twenty clicks
and a bowlful of anticipation
i await the shoes
that will take her
farther than my words
ever could,
even when i walked
alongside her jagged steps
and plucked her words
from the page into my memory.
i can already see them on her feet:
perfect and smooth, the bone,
perfect and smooth, the metal.
and her face? a picture
of deference wrapped up
in an ever-polite smile.
with twenty clicks
and a mouthful of anticipation
i await the shoes
that will take her
farther than my words alone
could carry her.
Advance Notice
with these words
that you think harmless
you have set the tone
for weeks of mediocrity.
thank you, however,
for letting me know
with advance notice
what not to expect from you.
Suffering
how it seeps into our lives
like acid rain in the gutter of our world
and though we scrub our skin
and mop the stained pavement,
it returns, dark and thick, unblockable.
how it creeps into our lives
with chirps and whistles, childlike,
hidden between the pages of our books,
behind the minor notes of major music,
its words and melodies compiled
into a cacophonous calamity of sadness.
how it breathes its life into our lives,
slithering snakelike into the brightest moments,
reminding us of who we could be,
of what within us we have lost,
of who we are in this moment, this
undefinable, sorrowful,
searching-for-meaning moment of suffering.
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