Gratitude

This week, the news of the world is bleak, another war
grinding on, and all these friends down with cancer,
or worse, a little something long term that they won’t die of
for twenty or thirty miserable years—
And here I live in a house of weathered brick, where a man
with silver hair still thinks I’m beautiful. How many times
have I forgotten to give thanks? The late day sun shines
through the pink wisteria with its green and white leaves
as if it were stained glass, there’s an old cherry tree
that one lucky Sunday bloomed with a rainbow:
cardinals, orioles, goldfinches, blue jays, indigo buntings,
and my garden has tiny lettuces just coming up,
so perfect they could make you cry: Green Towers,
Red Sails, Oak Leaf. For this is May, and the whole world
sings, gleams, as if it were basted in butter, and the air’s
sweet enough to send a diabetic into shock—
And at least today, all the parts of my body are working,
the sky’s clear as a china bowl, leaves murmur their leafy chatter,
finches percolate along. I’m doodling around this page,
know sorrow’s somewhere beyond the horizon, but still, I’m riffing
on the warm air, the wingbeats of my lungs that can take this all in,
flush the heart’s red peony, then send it back without effort or thought.
And the trees breathe in what we exhale, clap their green hands
in gratitude, bend to the sky.

Happiness

Because yesterday morning from the steamy window

we saw a pair of red foxes across the creek

eating the last windfall apples in the rain --

they looked up at us with their green eyes

long enough to symbolize the wakefulness of living things

and then went back to eating --

and because this morning

when she went into the gazebo with her black pen and yellow pad

to coax an inquisitive soul

from what she thinks of as the reluctance of matter,

I drove into town to drink tea in the cafe

and write notes in a journal -- mist rose from the bay

like the luminous and indefinite aspect of intention,

and a small flock of tundra swans

for the second winter in a row was feeding on new grass

in the soaked fields; they symbolize mystery, I suppose,

they are also called whistling swans, are very white,

and their eyes are black --

and because the tea steamed in front of me,

and the notebook, turned to a new page,

was blank except for a faint blue idea of order,

I wrote: happiness! it is December, very cold,

we woke early this morning,

and lay in bed kissing,

our eyes squinched up like bats.

The Perfect Tear

My father stands in the kitchen
His fingertips dusted with creosote stains - 
The council hasn't done the fence
So he has taken on the task himself
And, oh, how I love that smell
That intoxicating aroma of cut grass and wood protector.

He and my mother have argued about money, 
I heard them.
Hush-hush rasps of comfortable disdain
Seeping through the heating vent
They would be horrified if they knew.

His father fought for this country you know, 
His mother worked instead of mothering
And he, utterly unaware of his role as my Superman
Believes he is Failing.
This is his kryptonite.

He is the Scottish Working Class Male, 
Hands calloused from providing, 
Maybe not cars and holidays and designer clothes
But, 
Enough.

His arms are full of embraces
He is not sure how to give
(Later, I will learn to ask and will be rewarded every time
With a sarcastic comment, to mask the schmaltz
And then, the only hug that kills the Bogeyman.)