devotee

that red bucket
you left on the grass
two days ago
stands now in a field of frost
wire handle frozen
straight up
waiting for your hand
as it has now for
two long nights

inanimate, stolid,
not sentient and yet
holding in its posture
all the longing
and attentiveness
of someone
waiting at the altar

december morning

Shadows shrink against the mountains

as the sun rises over their shoulders

spilling unclouded light into the valley bowl

where a school bus, amber-colored, rumbles

down a quiet road. A sound from its horn

raises a mass of warm brown bodies

from a golden field, black wings

beating groggily as they rise up

into morning.

Expunged

I lost my name today.
I brought with me, riding
in my shirt pocket but
when I went to write
the capital B, a blank
took its place. White
space. Whose face
is that, frozen in
the frame?      .
That blank extends
a chilly tendril out
from the white, enters
my throat, and finds
more emptiness.

tightrope

The first tightrope walker may not have been aware of just how aptly his actions would serve as a metaphor for all of humanity. How many times have I felt my path was so narrow, that the consequences of a single missed step would be so disastrous, and that I was the subject of a spectacle for hundreds of people who were watching me, half holding their breath, half hoping I would fall. The near impossible balance maintained with wavering steps, bent knees, arms outstretched as if bracing against invisible walls to either side. Or maybe that innovator first thought to stretch the line to represent his inner state of uncertainty and vulnerability.

precision

it's precision, probably
that makes me wonder
what to call those
black birds teeming
on the power lines above
the empty field. As one
they leap from their
perch and swirl over
the yellowing grass
like a cloud of bees.
Are they swallows? Sparrows?
Even if I knew their name
I would not have words
to describe the grace
of their flight, nor
the wonder of their unity.

fortunes

So, I was in a doubtful, confused, disoriented mood earlier today when I headed home for lunch. Kevin is moving up in the world, which increased my sensitivity to my directionless-ness, and Laura published some poetry, which increased my feelings of inadequacy in the creative realm. I prayed all the way home.

I felt immediately better when I saw my kids, Emily waved at me. I know they are the most important thing, and the best part of my life no matter what.

Then I saw the fortune cookies on the counter; I thought maybe there would be something pertinent to my current situation written in there: some direction, some answer to prayer. With anticipation, I opened my cookie and read this surprising fortune:

a wise lumberjack always has a sharp saw.

Traci's was more pertinent:

look to the future, but not so far that you miss the present.

Moral: God does not always answer prayers through fortune cookies.

Extinction

I'm not feeling it today. I heard about the extinction of experience. What will life be in the coming years? We move ploddingly towards more and more abstract forms of experience, more virtual worlds, more internet-based relationships. Even my own relationship with my wife began essentially over windows messenger, and continues via text message. Will I one day live my days entirely in one place and have the world as I know it under my fingers, glowing through a million pixels in front of me?
Is it less real than my great grandparents who, whoever they were, walked out in the open air daily? who only knew what they saw and what the newspaper and radio brought? Is my life more abstract only because my exposure is greater? Is cyber-bullying substantially different than schoolyard bullying?
Is experience less real because it happens through a computer?

it's ALIVE

The spook alleys,
the mazes through
withered stalks,
the chain saws,
hairy wolfmen,
gorillas, monsters,
skeletons, blood,
screams, madness
calculated, designed,
engineered to make you
cringe, flinch, fear, and
feel – for once – alive.

traffic

Northbound commuters rush by
on my left, just over the yellow
line - my only defense. My bulb
blinks with the patience
of a reset clock. On my right,
southbounders continue their trek
to homes beyond the dashed
white lines and red lights.
Flanked by yellow lines, thin
barriers against the traffic's
relentless pulse, I rock gently
in the gusts, watching for a gap
to cross the stream onto
a quiet byway that leads
home.

rain rain, come to stay

Something about rain indicates that all bets are off. Anything goes once it starts to rain. When that first faint peal of thunder rumbles down through the walls, you know that there is literally electricity in the air, and that brings with it a sense of excitement and freedom.
Maybe it starts in elementary school, when rain meant a change in the day: it meant heads up seven up instead of kickball; silent ball instead of swinging. Rain took over the schedule and made it somehow more fun to be in the classroom. When on every other day getting out for recess was a welcome release, on a rainy day, you got to sit on your desk and play games and you didn’t mind being stuck in the same room all day long.
Twenty years (nearly) years later, those tiny drops are still charged with that excitement. Though my work day is done, the falling rain has energized the afternoon. Bringing adventure into the office, submerging us into a submarine-like state. It’s unpredictable and unaccounted for. I didn’t plan for this and that’s what makes it a treasure.

garbage man

The garbage man waved at me today.
Ever since they stopped riding on the back of trucks, I stopped believing in garbage men as real people. Something about that huge claw mounted on the side of the truck that hoisted the large black bins up and emptied their plastic bags full of odds and ends and kitchen scraps into the truck's open top dehumanized the profession for me. The garbage man was now just a guy driving a truck around the block, hidden by the tint of the cab's windows, no better than a robot. He hated his job, his life - he hated everyone.
Traci asked me through my headphones, "Did we take out our garbage today?"
The urgency in her voice keyed me in to one of the sounds I had been filtering out - the whirring of the garbage truck's machinery. A clunk as it slammed down an emptied bin.
"No!" I yanked the headphones from my ears, interrupting Billy Joel in the middle of the Piano Man, and jumping up from the couch.
"It's too late," my wife was saying, "It might be just the recycling anyway. I don't know. Is our garbage can full?"
I was slipping on my flip-flops and making for the door, "yeah. We forgot to take it out last week, too." Two weeks' worth of our twins' dirty diapers were festering in there with the kitchen bags. Another week would have us overflowing and stinking up the entire complex.
Running out into the morning glare, I caught sight of the truck lifting another black bin skyward. This was the garbage truck, he had only one more to do.
I nabbed our black bin from the line-up alongside our garage door and started running for the road. The claw picked up the last garbage bin from the curb. The sidewalk hadn't been plowed so I wouldn't be able to push mine to the end of the line. I'd have to go all the way around the garbage truck to get in front.
I got to the road just as he slammed the last garbage can down. Desperate, I waved, hoping to catch his eye in the mirror. Suddenly a face appeared there - sunglasses and a ball cap. I mouthed to him - can I put my can up there? pointing towards the end of the row.
Rather than answer me - he probably hadn't even understood my flapping lips - the truck started backing up. He was going to come back to get it.
I left my garbage can right where I stood and took a step to the side. I had never been this close to the claw that leaped out from the side of the truck and grappled perfectly around my garbage can - such precision! I watched the bags of diapers fall like clumps of dirty snow into the top of the truck. The can came back down, gripped tightly by the claw. It released, pulled back into the truck.
I mouthed "thank you" to the mirror. The man there lifted his hand in a wave, and then drove away.