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

  Try: You can   write a poem before swim ends.

  Time to Sing Birds, even the small ones, don’t trouble themselves with all night vigils. They do not squawk through the night desperate for light’s return. Their instincts, their ancestors, their senses, sinews are so well fortified to believe  the word harmonizes with to know. With divine precision,  every morning, one starts “Sing in the dark, just so just so. Light will come, I know.” Such a song begets light; like the birds Let us beckon our dawn. 

  Some Parents Wake up early to pack lunches. This parent wakes up early to write poems. Some people hustle through the shower, the morning chores, to score on perfect mornings a few quiet moments to drink their protein shake while they check the ESPN app in  the quiet dark.  This person starts all leisure, saves the hustle for later. Let’s her coffee grow cold whiles she is surfing the web of her thoughts. Her only morning “chores” before the kids are up: are toast, warm beverage, pen, pages, poem. It must look the same to them at first when the kids are up: A parents face in the glow of this blue light at dawn. But what comes next looks so completely different: both flawed, perfection shattered,  giving way to the unique kaleidoscope  the kids might call “home.

 (Written 2/25, picture to prove it!) Rare Bird Seriously, though      Your           Choice of words                Haunts me.                    Or rather                       Presses on my lips                             Has me heaving oohs                                  Ahhhs.                                       Never                                            Try to be any other way. You rare bird.

  Just a Game Anyone can slap in anytime. That way, when you’re out, you’re never  really out. When things line up, pause,  but don’t hesitate. Go for it!  When you make mistakes, pay each price, once is enough. No need to over do it. Don’t forget: sometimes, you’ll be  called upon for war.  When that happens, take it slow. Lay it all on the table. Then, try! You’ll win some, you’ll lose some act like you’ve been there before either way. Play fair, be willing.  Shuffle and deal as needed. Remember, above all else,  why you play the game: You play to connect, to be here together, to touch triumph and face  failure in community. You play to remind yourself no matter what happens you are not alone.

 Anniversary A year ago, to date, down there in the tiki lounge of my dead, Camilla first grabbed the mic. Without testing, no background track this warrior, she began to sing. Her words breathy and sputtering, she sang, sang, sang. Does she now pause before she begins? Wait for a spotlight? Hold the mic just so? Is her melody any sweeter for the experience? And what of her costumes, her affect; is there presence? Varied tone? A subtle knowing? So let it be. Let it be so. 

 Belle of the Ball Does anything feel as good as being praised by the head of class? “Oh, I like that.” “Good! Good!” I wag my tail, tap my feet. Days later, I’m still curling my toes over it, in some other worldly room, satisfaction and delight whirring in and out my hot, dark nostrils. “Ah, but you’re still new.” My inner critique says, “The room is rented. Just wait, you’ll see.” Like three of four, I await (the elders too, for my copy-cat demise) the latest new arrival. Rival, rival, come out! I’m ready to spar, but not fight. In fact, come to think of it I’d rather sit back down, tell myself I let you win. 

 Ok. It comes to me now, this morning, after my pages, my children are going to be ok. The same way I am ok. My mother is ok. My father is  ok. Inheritance of perspectives, imaginations, turns of phrase, these are unavoidable. But breaking through, finding their own way, again and again… This is is a certainty like death.

No Use Crying Over a Dead Squirrel That child they pulled  from my arms today is surely not the baby I held  here, in this park,  that April or was it May ago… Remember? When you were still here? Out of everything I’ve cried over these past two years give or take Today was the first time it was the look you gave me—shovel held high— right before you put that maimed squirrel out of her misery.  

  Men Like That All the men I know only cry when their dad dies, and only then in the hospital room. They squeeze out a few hot tears  you want to touch to see if they’re wet. They only sing in church, or hum around the house.  Dancing is for weddings,  (They only participate  in the required songs.) Even these men, however,  are susceptible to human indulgences. Take them to the school yard. They’ll teach you to stand  on the seat of your bike.  And on the tee box, if your good, and alone, they’ll introduce you to their imaginary friend. The one they’ve play golf with  all their life. 

 Class Room The facilitator asks us, "What are you  nourishing yourselves with? What's in your heart's kitchen?"  I quickly scribble Faith.  Next, Hope. At some point Whimsy. My last word?  Humor.  This kitchen feels good.  I like the way it smells.  "Now," the poet continues, "What do you hide? What is in your closet?" At once, I know: ubiquitous and sad fast food wrappers, wasted money piled floor to ceiling.  Fat, sugar, salt. I feel the goo of  my body then. Something slick and thick; all meat, blood, bone,  perishing. I recoil. "What's your favorite musical?"  That's how we started. I said, "Dracula. I saw it in town recently. I found it  spectacular." There was a groan, then, from a man  once a father, a husband, a child. I imagine the groan  is of longing, and want to call out "Sir, do not lust  over my repressed appetite. You should see my closet." 

  Can you believe it?! (A poem to sing out the absolute brilliance of All Fours. Page 36, and as expected, Miranda July’s work is impossibly good.) Miranda July has me thinking about time,  this forward motion nonsense.  As if anyone honest believes in erasure  of their past! Her character says something like   she’s equidistant from twenty five to sixty five,  but twenty five is “moot” because “time moves forward, not backward.” I walk into the magic wood of that sentence,  poke around a bit, touch things and smell them too. I protest. Right now, I teem with as much life as I did at negative one! I think  that spark is immutable as I look up  toward the idea of myself at seventy nine. I am not  equidistant from these discrete values! My ego is. And that’s when I realize  Miranda is telling me we all are the entity that stretches across them both, who does best when all the so called points in life move together in rhythm, in t...

The Artist Returns for my friend She paints again, her first brush strokes since 2016. She captures dawn or is it dusk? Her hand is steady with the brush. Like two dancers who meet  after a decade apart. They join  cool hands and with warmth, begin to move. These are the same steps, familiar, strange.  Life’s rhythm accounts for waltz or tango. 

Valentine’s Day Goals In the life I want, conflict is a butterfly, rising in my path— a reminder to pause, to wonder.

  Could Have Said No Bedtime goes from bad to  worse. My younger set insist we all sleep in my bed, and I’m smitten,  Until the oldest  stretches her squeals  for more space, From one end of the night to the next.   ~ Hope hits when the little one and I  sneak to the other bed, yet vanishes shortly after her nightmare  wakes  the whole house up, again.  We try, in “Mom’s bed.” Everyone’s all elbows ~ and knees. They shout each other’s name with the epithet “move!” At ten minutes to five, the little one ~ and I call it quits, hit the coach. PBS sounds float up in time with the steam from my coffee. ~ Another one is next, who sounds like defeat when they announce they wet  my bed.  One in couch, one in the shower, now my third wakes, ~ demands YouTube, and breakfast, ~ like the breaking dawn.

  Raison d’etre   Mustard yellow rubber squeaks slimy against the sole of my foot. “I forgot my tennis shoes.” “We can make these work.” Sticky fingers, not mine,    clack clack across keyboard under the hallway’s yellowish sheen. “Did you know your cooperating teacher left us?” “Does he know I quit?” Steaming lumps of meat, beans, cheese rest comfortably on my fresh cornbread. “Kids, you can eat in the car. We’ve got to make it to trampoline class.”

  Writer’s Life This room buries, consumes my messy desk! It haunts me as does a dish in the sink. Clothes lay unbothered on my bed. I ask God, stunned, what is all this? Silence. I think the writer’s life. Flash, boom! I am reborn. Drink it, before it turns. This is fresh milk. Past pain, future delusion apart are torn. Slaughter when, would, if; questions of that ilk. Lady Truth gives two facts! We are, are not. What holds between both is only our breath. Take stock of right now. Now is the whole plot. Imagination’s Achilles heal? Theft. I embrace and allow the waking dream! A mix of hope, heat, against despair teem

  Sounds  Every bird sounds sovereign, while the dogs bark loud and low. Each is engaged in doing, but only one in tune with being. Animals all vocalize, vibrate communication, play air. Free, not free sound different in pitch and time. To which tune do I hum? Do I hum? 

 Sand, Turtle, Moon Instead of writing about the moon, I choose instead these icy, cold shores. Wet sand draws the white water to her and for a moment, its all one indistinguishable “wet.” Sand doesn’t cling to this alignment, though. She is more porous than that, sand. Sand allows salt water to sink down, to move her. Sand marinates in the weight of each dark, new set. Why not, instead of morning’s damp beaches, choose the white-belly-shell of the sea turtle? White-belly-shell waxes crescent, quarter, gibbous until, full shine, you witness it above you. White-belly-shell is raucous and fast, then, She trails upward toward the big wide white, that shell! Like the moon, white-belly-shell emerges; she doesn’t rise. How dissimilar she is from us. Up here, we require ceremony, a bit of pomp, at least a loud thrash, as we struggle to whirl beyond the spot where rays reach nothing; not you, not me, not us. I n response to the prompt "To the Moon, 14th Annual Getaway 2007 "  by ...

  Me of Ago I sit across the stream from Me of Ago, journal open, pen in hand, senses too. Me of Ago instead runs to and fro. It’s here I seem to have nothing to do. Here, gurgles water—croaks frog, sing, bird, sing. Noon sun shines hot on my white paper now. Rock watch in ancient, smooth rows, or in rings. The oaks sprawl below their dry, dusty brow. I’m not she. The Me of Ago long left. It’s true! I am someone else, do not balk. Airplane sound holds both, overhead, adept Across the stream strollers stroll.  Women walk. I miss my children, my old life so neat. I miss this too on that side of the street.