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

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.     ...