Rain

by Raymond Carver

Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgiveable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

december

I am twenty-five and I’ve moved

back in with my parents

My father follows me around

the house, turning off lights.

Tonight he is organizing things

in jars: pine cones of varying sizes,

wooden spools of thread, antique

buttons, clear marbles and pieces

of shell. When I was a girl we

scoured beaches for agates, pumice,

and smooth flat rocks. Driftwood

shaped like the spread wings

of geese. Anything we could see through.

Now the shelves where I sleep

are lined with jars. Wheat pennies

and wine bottle corks. Fourth of July

buttons, and the rubber wheels

of Matchbox cars.  I am fond

of the small celluloid cows

and sheep. I know how it hurts

to lose.  Save everything.

Part two

during the summer i was most happy

twice i was afraid. once

swimming in the canyon falls

and once when we went too

far into the mountain basin

and the trail stopped just as

the clouds darkened. all day

i had only seen two ravens,

one hawk. we had to scale

back up the rock face

we climbed down.

but       so often my sadness

is a type of fear         and

paired with my fear of water,

paired with my dread of heights,

paired with my anxiety of omens

in the form of birds

there too           stood my sadness,

at the thought of losing you.

Poems about Leaving, Part One

Driving through Montana After the Wedding

Already I miss my friends-

having spent three full days

together, drinking, eating,

dancing, laughing. 

Full with the glad warmth

of watching the first of us wed,

we were surprised to find

the high desert cold at night.

So we slept stomach 

to back on pull-out beds. 

And now the golden hills

of Montana with the shadows

of clouds, and the wind

forever moving them around.

i love the last stanza

Self Portrait as a Meadow

by Linda Norton

There is a chair

the heart of which

is wooden

split five ways

and grass pressed flat

where we kissed

where others later kissed

on the same mattress

and solemn nothing

happening under a canopy—

Have you forgotten me?

I will go down wonderfully

as was told in proverbs

though for a long time I thought

I should not go.

Here are things that have

no Latin names

or none

that men would know.

this kind of bird sleeps all day

There is a swift roosting

in the cavity of my chest.  

Every time you enter  

the room, he ruffs

his wings.

june poem

absolutely

The garden roses peak in quick

succession, each a different shade

of circus orange or absolutely

pink. And as one begins to bow,

I am left counting the green

buds left on the bush.

How long does anything last?

Always I have been grateful

for seasons change: the muted

shades of autumn after summer’s

fluorescence. Winter’s quiet

fields of swans and spring’s

quick revival of song—

but darling, already the rain

has mashed the peony’s

layered petals into a brown mitt

and the roses are parading

into summer. Over here,

I blush for you, again and again: 

it is this I am trying to hold on to.

The Extraordinary Occurrence of Words

There is a dream I have

where the mute child speaks.

It isn’t even as if she

has so much to say, but

just last night she was telling me

how her brother is not afraid

of bees and how her father

made her laugh by pretending

to eat her toes. Maybe it is

selfish for me to want words

from her when I already

have everything I need, but

last night I was delighted

to hear she wanted red pasta

over potatoes and green beans.

april 12

After a Month of Rain

by Linda Pastan

Everything I thought I wanted
is right here,
particularly when the sun
is making such a comeback,

and the lilac engorged
with purple has recovered
from its severe pruning,
and you will be back soon

to dispel whatever it is
that overtakes me like leaf blight,
even on a day like this. I can still
hear remnants of the rain

in the swollen stream
behind the house, in the faint
dripping under the eaves,
persistent as memory.

And all the things I didn't think
I wanted, cut like the lilac back
to the root, push up again
from underground.

April 3, 2012

Rain all morning as it does.

Her belly like an apple

about to drop. Any day now

any day now              now.

Outside the ducks

are wearing their best colors

despite the heaviness of rain.

By afternoon the dogwood

has bloomed before my eyes.

Pink camellia petals scatter

the wet drive and even I

can see,

all good things

come to those who wait.

i'll show you my apartment if you show me yours

Let me have

everything

I want

before I change

everything

I want.

Your teeth.

Let me see

your teeth

before I bite.

bean goes to colorado to see her bestie (normally she doesn't speak in the third person but right now it feels right)

mostly, there was beer

and cruising to drake

and breakfast at snooze

and she saw the red rocks

and a fire on the side of the road as she was leaving

or why speaking to you is difficult

Winter of snowy owls on tiny

roofs and juvenile eagles

in the fingers of trees.

This is our winter,

of waiting.

I’ve learned to measure

tides by the smell of the wind

and to nurse a child out of fever.

What I cherish most is this:

the want of some thing

so badly,

my whole torso aches with it.  

don't blame it on me

this is my 200th post

 what we ate when we were with her

I don’t think you understand. My grandmother used to make us pizzas on English muffins, with tomato sauce and melted cheddar cheese. They tasted horrible, but I found comfort in them. Once, my brother and I assaulted her with malt balls. From the dining room, we used spoons to sling shot malt balls at her. She looked up from her paperback romance, over the rim of her glasses, and asked what in the world we were doing. What were we doing? The worst we could do received a “shame on you.” Most nights we had frozen chicken nuggets, which I loved. My mother would come home smelling like chrysanthemums and Grandma would leave in her puffy mauve jacket. She took us to Costco every other week to pick up a deluxe pack of Marlboros for Grandfather. Because in Grandma’s version of Genesis, Eve was a dumb whore. Mornings, Grandma would bring over frosted donut holes and we’d watch the soaps. My brother in his batman pajamas. When my cousin stayed with us, his father gave him a twenty dollar bill for lunch. Which we spent entirely on candy from the corner store called “Sunshine Grocery.”Sour patch kids and malt balls probably. Afterwards, Josh climbed the tallest tree in the backyard and refused to come down. “Shame on you,” my grandmother said, and walked away. She was always forgetting her coffee in the microwave. My mother wondered if she got dressed in the dark. No one is perfect. I don’t think anyone has ever loved us more. My sister with her baby doll dresses. My uneven pigtails and crooked jaw. My cousin, high up in the tree, so still and sad. Years later he stole 8,000 dollars from his father and disappeared. He had red hair the color of some larger crabs. My grandmother moved into the low income apartment buildings across from the Everett jail. She set up a shrine for my dead grandfather on her dresser. It became evident that he was a very good fisherman. I remember our last meal together, on her birthday. We went to the fancy seafood restaurant by the water. Because she wanted to see the water while she ate. But once we were all there, she forgot about the water and sat with her back to the window. This upset my mother. The tiny stroke also upset my mother. And then the aneurism and the larger stroke following the surgery. Josh, who had disappeared, reappeared. Because he knew his father wouldn’t be there. Because it became evident we had lost something we could not get back. We ate dry hamburgers in the hospital cafeteria and my father came straight from his bread route and told that story about the canary, and his own mother. But he embellished it for us all: we all knew the canary that was sucked into the vacuum cleaner did not survive, and that his mother did not build for it a tiny wing cast. This was when my father had the swollen sty on his left eye and the horrible racket of a cough. When the young boy nurse, with the tight scrubs that showed off his boxer briefs, turned her over, my grandmother stopped breathing for over a minute. He thought he had killed her. We all laughed when he left the room, because his eyes were so large. I held Grandma’s hand as she passed. I held my baby brother afterward, when his shoulders shook. I always thought she loved him the most, but doesn’t everybody love him the most? Some people you just want to protect from the world by loving them more. I don’t think anyone can love him more than I love him. Even when my grandmother was dying, she was trying to protect us from the world. Her eye was swollen to the size of a baseball. She had blood on her brain. We were at the county hospital, not quite the top floor. The sun was just about to drop out of the sky, but first it had to hit the city rooftops and windows and cast itself on the white hospital beds around the city. This is just like in Touched by an Angel, almost. “Look,” my grandmother managed to say, “Look how beautiful the sun is as it sets.” And I think the last thing she said, was “Go home.” Afterwards, someone ordered this horrible take out from an Italian restaurant. It was fettuccine and it made my mother sick and it did not bring me any comfort.

"For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again." — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Flowers

By Wendy Videlock

for my mother

They are fleeting.

They are fragile.

They require

little water.

They’ll surprise you.

They’ll remind you

that they aren’t

and they are you.

i love this post by amy merrick

http://emersonmerrick.blogspot.com/2012/01/poppies.html

 My Apologies

The ducks of this weather

are stony. By afternoon

the lake disappears

like swans on the wing.

Someone kind

left apples and pecans

for winter’s varied thrush

and the orange of his belly

alarms me.

Finally I have allowed myself

solitude, only to find

it does not suit me.

I watch birds with ruffed

feathers and recall the white

of my thighs when

we made love by the river.

Of course I miss you.

Isn’t that my body

remembering my body?

Choices

By Tess Gallagher

 

I go to the mountain side

of the house to cut saplings,

and clear a view to snow

on the mountain. But when I look up,

saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in

the uppermost branches.

I don’t cut that one.

I don’t cut the others either.

Suddenly, in every tree,   

an unseen nest

where a mountain   

would be.