L U M I N A * N O S T R I

Soak Frog songs, again hullabaloo, then quiet. The crowd doesn’t stop them— everyone out there, belching  signature discordant croaks. The crowd emboldens them, Then strikes the listener deaf. It’s stopped. Hear that? Nothin’. Seems Nature has a maestro,  giving all these soloists their cue. Is it the fantom of an owl wing? Or does a shadow, shaped blue heron, stalk through pale marshes at night ?  Or is it that— just like for the rest of us— singing their hearts out is more delicious when they take a moment to stop, to soak in rest?

Frog Music When January is warm out even in the afternoons I hear frog music all jubilee, all bliss. Night may try to dampen their spirit, but no luck. Fool-hearty, they sing Summer, or Spring. I have nothing profound to say not about frog music, anyway. I just wanted to write down that I noticed. 

 I Don't Like Poems That Make Me Sound "Troubled" ~ If I am always going to be in trouble, I may as well  make it count.  ~ Instead of missing curfew by five minutes, I am on time ~ so drunk I have to crawl, hands and knees, to our front door. ~ Instead of staying up too late chatting on the phone, or internet,  ~ I am busted for sneaking away in broad daylight to meet that boy in the parking lot of our store.  ~ Instead of tardies,  I skip class altogether. ~ I get high in that neighborhood, watch raindrops race to merge on the pane. ~ If I am always going to be  in trouble, I may as well make it count.  ~ Does this count? ~ Does this?

Beware The Objective Genitive (alt. title: Grammar’s a bitch) ~ My business’s name is a mistake,  Yet, there are no mistakes. I’ve found  ~ in languages that are not my own I often tell on myself, reveal ~ my intentions more awkwardly than the subtleties of my mother- ~ tongue. There is no hiding when Grammar comes to call, “lumina nostris [sunt] and Lumina Nostri are not the same.”  he spits. ~ My business name is not Our Lights as my mother-tongue first lead me to believe. ~ It’s Lights Upon Us, but only if we believe  that which we create— ~ those over which we endure our passions are never within our possession. ~ No,  not really. Rather, they are what we reach for  sempiternally.

 Morning Space When you have dreams that from the floor you see your favorite student shot; that your partnership with the man there is founded on being brave enough to treat the wound in his groin— those are the mornings you say yes to the light you want even if you have to scootch the cat. You go outside to go inside, and try to keep finding, —from ridge to crow to purple flower to leaf— that great sky everyone keeps talking about. You fight the urge to text your gal pal, hold off on listening to that voicemail from a certain him. You allow yourself to check your virtual car windshield, see if anyone in your community has left you a little note. The emails from your poet friends and that one comedian, so skinny and cute, these make it in, make you smile. This is the best you can do. This is the best you can do.  

 In the House of the Poet I arrive thirty minutes early, palms sweaty, pen in hand,    pause at the poetry library.   When, there while I stand, a little bird tells me "Not yet! You're too soon."  So, I dash away to be not seen from that front room.  I drive to get coffee, but end up with a plant, a new journal a moon garden, a new pen for my hand.  "Is someone here," the women whisper, as I come through the door "Hello, yes it's me, I thought that's what it was open for..." "Welcome!" they say, eyes bright and mouths full "Welcome in, and thank you dear," I watch for the rules.  Shoes on or off? Which seat is required? "Did you see her library? Come, look, be inspired!" That's when I realize, I've walked into a dream her home is a vision I've both always and never seen.  Poems on poems, shelves upon shelves I stand there and marvel, were they sorted by elves? Ceramics, bronze sculptures, figure drawing...

Question re: the Daytime Moons 🌑 🌒 🌓  What if like the moon we submerge ourselves in light caring not for the time being that our edges disappear?

  You know what I haven’t done today? I haven’t written a poem sat down and listened to more than my own heart thrumming “Oh my fucking god!” Haven’t listened to more  than my friend’s heart thrumming “This shit fucking hurts!”  haven’t listened to more  than my kids heart thrumming “Don’t you fucking dare!”  I don’t want to be still in a place where  under the same school roof children are trying to    pass  their quizzes on math facts teachers are trying to meet the moment with strength and patience, office staff are trying to attend to  the systems work of another institution,  in the USA when she’s dead, and he’s been shot, and by the way there’s seven more, and more beyond that and their trapped, and their fundraising and whose organizing, and everyone is  scared, but only some  all  the  time Speaking requires taste, and touch, and feeling, even when we feign otherwise.  Say anything, whether it’s in S...

Morning People ~ Some mornings wake up heart a flutter, first-day-of-class optimism a sense of the day’s infinite possibilities. For those mornings every particle has potential And nothing has as of yet collapsed into waves. ~ Other mornings wake up late. It’s cold. The finite nature of time, open doors, closed ones, cold floors, of unending unmet needs they stand around, gawk, seem to say “Get up. Times a wastin’” ~ Is there not a third option?  A morning who sets the table for both  pours hot tea, offers warm bread and after all mornings have supped and given thanks, bellies full they can all agree ~ That the nature of things is not morning business, and morning business is a bit better without an argument.

In the dream In the dream you are still here at your best, giving me what I want. The ache is still here too. Someone dies something is lost but not you. You call me “sweets” and hold my hand and smell like you always do good. I wake up and starfish, limbs stretching over your absence as if just to check. In the waking dream too then, you are never                        really gone. 

  I found my poem!   I’ve been looking for my poem all day,  and most of last night.  Checked for it under all the blankets  my kids left on the cold floor of our living room,  Kept my eyes peeled for it through  job postings with the city, the county, on Craigslist, Scratched for it the back corners of the fireplace where I stoke the embers to burn anew. Watched for it behind the blinking signal, the blinking cursor, the blinking light.  Dug around for it in that final yoga pose, that hug from my sister, those isles of paint and epoxy too.  Finally I sat. I ate. I gave up. I surrendered my deepest and darkest fears to the page and still, no poem. In defeat, I listened to the writing of my friends, Had the joy of them listening to some old verses of mine. Made jokes, got compliments, and let out some really girlish giggles to top it all off. And wouldn’t you know, my poem came then somersaulting in like I’d known it all along, and together we...

What Amazes Me Sometimes I read poems to inspire myself to write, to sit down and notice and feel. Draw my container for whatever we are going to agree to call…this. When that happens, the acumen and deftness of my mentors leaves me dumbfounded, gaping  My hands go clumsy and childish and I throw out my version of “no, you do it! I can’t.” When that happens, I play with my kids, I do the dishes, I feed the kitties, I take a nap.  My dreams work the work for me, and I awaken as if never having heard of poetry at all. What amazes me, then, is the number of times in my waking, still not knowing and curious,  I reach for a pen and paper… I start playing around again.

  Gift Card Adventures   ~  Before you take them to Target Make sure they brush and floss their teeth. Tell them the night ~ before so they giggle in their beds the way you did as a kid at sleep overs. ~ Help them straighten up their room and imagine what they can put where. Stop by and pick up your mom, who’s willing to tabulate their piggy banks, ~ set limits in advance on how loud, how fast,  how much ~ Make sure you have the gift cards and then steal a minute to write  a poem with which you’ll steady yourself when inevitably, expectations shatter ~ and you are confronted by the plastic mob. 

  New Year’s Day ~ the man of the balancing sticks is up to his tricks again. Tried to fool me  with a pile of stones, almost did but still,  I knew him.                 What is it that makes a young woman’s fish-forearm tattoo pause, rise and picture Cliffside’s geological fingers, washed clean as they have been by this recent storm?  While the man of the balancing sticks weighs  and measures his treasures, a grandfather gets used to the title a year in, maybe two.                      His shoes on at the beach are not letting his unfailing attentions show. They too pause, picture the rocks, or is it the tide pool to the side? Maybe even those seventies jeans scribbling away under a dad-hat ineffectually cocked to one side?  ~ New Years Day in 2026. The sun is out, but the water’s still muddy. The pelican flies low, the poet bites her nails.     ...

  Hearing “Yes!” ~ Hearing “yes”  is a funny thing. ~~ The sound first sizzles on your tongue like those candy Pop Rocks, ~ next, dissolves into nothing  but sweetness ~~ “Yes” settles somewhere deep down, not in, but near, your heart  ~~~ who is already thumping “What’s next, what’s next, ~~~ what’s next?”

Morning Catch The western sky teals before sunrise the water breaks   World, now upside down reveals, calm sea the water stills Upward, my eye peels, as if a dolphin the water bursts   My body rises, my body feels stars slip  the water grey away.

  Am I a Buddhist? (Alternative title: Why We Go To the Theater) ~ ”Is this seat taken?” Judy smiles, says no and my affection for her blooms over the terrible time she’s having arranging her coat.  “Maybe you can put it over your legs, like a blanket?” I offer  in spite of my earnest hope only moments before to engage with no one and nothing and sit in a dark theater like a chair. ~ ———-/—/——————— I was thinking, what if the daisy bush knows from the time she’s a seed, the same way her mother knows from the time she’s a seed and her mother before that, that the morning glory seed would be planted next to her and would be in need of a way up? ~ By the end of the play I  cherish Judy how her stories spiral, unfurl double back upon one another and twist the details into plaits she arranges across families across times. Her son, his wife Her mother, her husbands father, A daughter, a grandchild, thirteen, six, birth, now. She’ll be one hundred in 2044 a mere nineteen ye...

  Ambition of the Morning Glory ~ Last year’s morning glory seeds quit their dreaming their wishing, their pining and shot up, one day in late summer (or was it fall?) ~ They were trained by the daisy bush wrapped themselves in circles around a few of her limbs  and one day,  for no reason at all,  bloomed. ~ Imagine my surprise then, smiling upon my  yellows and greens to see a periwinkle blue. My eyes had to follow its spiral all the way down before I  understood the ambition of the morning glory ~ The daisy bush did not remind her to reach for the sun. She did not reward her for drinking rain water when she could. She did not punish her lest she not push her roots deep and keep them fat. ~ The daisy bush simply took care of herself and by generous example  held open a way. 

  Enchantment   -  She sings upon herself, bids welcome      smells of mint -  By night she’s a silver-leafed silhouette     the invisible breeze, damp soil skin underfoot. She needs no moon, For her, an owl hoots in the dark. From her cup arises the steam of  Potential, with a pinch of Fear. -  By day, Mischief fills her sly mouth     the flooded gates of love, surprise, guffaws A murder of crows laughing across morning skies that never break how great the storm -  When Sadness and Anger and odious Jealousy arise Enchantment pours them a cup of tea and listens      until everyone is ready to play dolls again,  or drawing class, or delight in the click of bright plastic heels across tile floors of every hue. - In Enchantment, Joy and Danger flirt until she’s left breathless at her own strength of living. Even then, when all she can possibly do is collapse     back upon sands,  she st...

  The first time The first time I went to Peru  I almost didn’t go. I sat staring at the map in my bed pondering all I did not yet know Could not yet know And felt like this trip Was a winter’s roaring wave About to crash on my head. So it is, then, tonight One sleep away from a little known Country- my inscape awaits me at the door of my first silent retreat. Silence offers no map to study no time zones or place names or pocket dictionaries to boot.  Silence perhaps my furthest trip yet.