roots

In the week before you left, the wind
blew in and threw down ten trees
right out front, lifting them by their shaking limbs
and yanking them out, roots and all.

I didn't know until the next morning,
driving in to find Armando dragging one
limply behind the four-wheeler, as if by its hair,
leaving a trail of flickering green leaves in his wake.
His buddy--I don't know the new guy's name--
hunched near a fallen Douglas fir, leaning on a pick
like he'd been at it for hours already.

If I hadn't seen the tree sliding across the parking lot,
I might not have noticed anything amiss, though
the landscaping does look a tad askew now,
and the great holes of dirt would be a dead giveaway.
There are other trees, though, which seem to be carrying on
the same as ever, giving off the unmistakable vibe of
tolerable normalcy.

You were never a tree, although you've been here
as long as some of them. Stubborn as you are,
no mere wind could have budged you. Instead
you pulled yourself out, twisting and tugging
at the roots, spread and buried far and deep.
You, too, leave behind a hole,
a gap in the otherwise unchanged landscape.

garbage sonnet

they used to knock the whole can down, these winds
that tear across the unobstructed field;
but since the willful weather never ends
the can now has the building for its shield.
Some person, sick of stooping down to raise
it from its fallen posture on the grass,
has pulled it closer the wall. Most days
I scarcely notice it at all, just pass
it on my way inside. But recently
a rustling caught my ear and made me look:
the crinkling bag seemed restless to be free;
the can stood solid, though I think it shook
from strain at holding tightly to the thing
that wind enticed to break out and take wing.

night visits

I imagine them brushing the surface
of wakefulness as I enter the room,
the hallway angling its light unobtrusively
past me, my shadow climbing floor
to wall before me. I check blankets,
adjusting them up to silent chins,
shifting bodies to center them on
the pillow, move overhanging arms
back under the covers, collect sighs
and murmured sleepwords, and then
withdraw. I worry that were they
to wake, they might mistake
me for a monster, sliding between the beds,
bending over each one, reaching down.
They might cower, feign sleep, dread
the silent approach of the looming dark shape.

No, they wouldn't cower.

They faced down a more fearful monster
hours before -- one that didn't creep
on quiet feet, one that stormed, fumed,
raged, and threatened, one that promised
harm if they made a peep, if they put
off sleep for even one more minute.
If they so readily dismissed that beast,
sleeping serenely though they know
he is still in the house, why fear his
peaceful return? Rather, in their redemptive way,
they turn up their cheeks to his kisses
and accept the quiet gestures of reconciliation.

altar

on her knees before the behemoth machine
rising before her in solid boxy majesty
her head lowered to peer into its shadowy
inner workings, she extends a certain hand
and draws out crumpled white scraps,
discards them on the floor, reaches back
for more. At length, she raises her eyes
imploringly to the the glowing panel
above her head, seeking approbation.
The flashing red light become solid green,
confirming her hopes, as if with words:
Well done. She has removed the offense.
Her mission complete, she rises to her feet
and walks away, bearing in her hands
the fruit of her persistence.

morning moon

Perfect as a picture
A small black bird flapped into the upper branches
of a pine, bold and green against a morning blue sky
just above the point of which hung the pale
translucent disk of moon, a fresh-blown bubble
lifting from this unlikely wand

or was it sinking?

from the parking lot at work
just 6 miles and 10 minutes north
the same ghostly shape floated over empty hills
across the lake, having drifted from
the proximity of tethering limbs
it looked farther away, lonelier,
surrounded by wide blue expanses
slowly swallowing it whole.

Alas, the popcorn

a piece of popcorn tumbles to the ground.
shooting back pain keeps me from bending down
to pick it up. i eye it from my chair,
debating whether I should leave it there.

Stretching my foot to nudge it with my toe,
I crush the tender kernel into snow
and smearing it, make an even bigger mess--
Some things are better left alone, I guess.

a real pain

Helping some neighbors move out of their house on Saturday, I leaned a little too far forward while cradling the top of a chest of drawers we were easing down the stairs, and I felt a sharp, familiar twinge in my lower back. Here we go, I thought.
I was dismayed, but not filled with dread. I'd been through this before. Five years ago, I was bending over to put on a pair of shoes when it happened the first time. Within half an hour I was crawling around on all fours, uncertain if I would ever be able to stand again. That time, a visit to the chiropractor the next day set me aright. The chiropractor gave me his assessment of the problem: too many hours sitting at a desk cause the cartilage discs between my vertebrae to compress. A nerve gets slightly pinched and then the muscles tense up in an effort to protect the compromised spine from further damage. During the immobilizing pain, I want to curse out my muscles for overreacting, but for all I know, they are saving me from something much worse.
One chiropractor gave me stretches and muscle-strengthening exercises to perform to help ease the pain and increase my resistance to future injury. I do the stretches when my back bothers me, when it is feeling a little tight or stiff, but invariably, once I've successfully warded off another trip to the chiropractor, I fall out of the habit.
This is my third or fourth time around this circuit. All day Saturday as my condition seemed only to worsen, I stayed grimly optimistic that the stretches I had learned combined with ice packs and rest would have it licked in no time. Sunday I endured increased stiffness and walked around the house with a hiking stick. Today I visited the chiropractor, and though the pain feels about the same as ever even after receiving professional help, I continue to believe that this is a temporary ailment. I continue to think that some combination of things I do will make this better and that in the coming days I will not stew over how I am going to get downstairs, or think twice about bending down to pick up something I've dropped. I won't give considerable thought to how I'm sitting or the position of my legs. Even in the absence of any permanent or even long term relief, my faith in a restored sense of ease and physical mobility remains secure.
At what point will it begin to wane? At what point do I discover that this will not go away? Where on that sliding scale of age and pain do I begin to define the new normal? My grandfather has learned to walk again after replacing knees. A man who was like a second father to me spends most of his life lying down because any other position is unbearably painful. A friend seven years my senior complains of persistent knee pain that flares up with the slightest exertion. A friend my same age complains after two weeks of sight-seeing in Turkey of aches and pains and not being as young as she once was.
My back will heal, if only temporarily. I'm confident that within the week I'll be moving more comfortable and thinking less and less about my back. But someday this is going to catch up to me in a way that will not be so easily treated. Whether that is when I am 40 or when I am 60 depends a lot on how quick I am to forget.