Writing

Below are poems I wrote in Fall 2013 for my college Poetry class. Mostly we were reading poetry, but every week we had to either write about a poem or write one.

 29 August 2013 
 It’s Us I Miss
 
When you were twelve and I was seven —
D was nine—  
we made a city in the woods, 
with rocks for homes, collections of treasures: 
old green bottles, shiny rocks, 
all still there but we are not. 
I miss us.

 12 September 2013   
Autumn

You’re looking down at the crackly leaves on the wet pavement.
I want to call out  
but I can’t.

What good would it do; what
if it doesn’t matter to you and  
It is too late.
I can’t say anything and a leaf
falls and
I fall well I don’t really fall; I fall inside.
You know how that is.

19 September 2013
13

The year of tears stays with me still.

The sun is too bright
for saying goodbye.
It warms your body.

Lying in the dust is not
how I want you to be.
Your graceful head should be
proud against the stiff wind. 

But now instead it shifts
your black, black mane.
We watch you,
hold a silent vigil for you.

If horses could cry, your mama standing next to me weeps.
We are inconsolable and empty in this year of tears.

17 October 2013
Courage 

That courage like the thunderstorm
I wish I had, but now
it’s fading fast into myself—
I’m left with only now. 

The courage to speak and ask you to stay—
courage, indeed, at all.
It can’t be found just like the storms
that pass beyond recall. 

Courage is with me today, I think.
I try to coax it out—
it’s behind myself, that oppressive cloud—
but it sparks and then goes out.

31 October 2013
Falling Asleep...Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Robert Frost

Today is coming to a close:
Curled up in the old armchair
Reading Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Purring, my cat is without care, 
Sleeping by the stove while I’m
Falling asleep with miles to go.

6 November 2013  
One

Alone I walk outside; I cannot help but see,
Beneath the sun and new leaves greenly unfurling,
The curling of fingers of one around those of someone else;
A slight secretive smile is shared, because no words are needed.

I stop by a white crocus kept company by the yellow of daffodils;
Each is not one or on their own,
but they are two, connected by a tie that renders
Two one, togetherness out of apart.

Two: two leaves unfurling together out of a barren branch,
Two hands come together out of one and one hand apart;
They find and grasp another so they are two; two flowers,
Different but the same and knowing what that means.

What does it mean; what is it like; I curl and unfurl my fingers around air,
And sunlight filters through them because there is no companion,
With fingers to crisscross mine;
All and every one are two except me: I am one.