The hospital lives behind me:
sometimes I can feel it breathing
sometimes I feel the rhythm
of the heart monitors,
I watch the lights
flip on, then off,
as someone
draws the curtains 
I hear the helicopters
landing on the roof
with only seconds to spare.

Let them come and go
as they please;
it's not your job
to open and close
doors for the dead.

Today is a different kind of gray;
you slipped into my life 
through a side door, 
as though 
you possessed a key,
as though
someone had told you my secrets
long before we met.

Sixteen thousand words
cross the vermilion border
seven billion times a day,
yet not a single one
knows exactly where it's going.

The wind is rattling my windows and me-- 
my thoughts tumble across the prairie
like restless weeds, like bored, unruly children;
the newsman says the tornadoes 
are gone, and this fierce wind
is what they left behind.

I carried too much with me
coming west--now I know
that part of moving on
is casting off--
and even though I just let go
the well-worn sofa--
the old camelback still wearing
its lovely cat-fur coat--
I plan on Sunday afternoons
lounging in the Reading Room--
the heart of Meerkerk Garden--
to cozy up in my old, grey raft--
hoping to discover some new
azalea, rhododendron, camellia,
some new species of songbird,
some new genus of light.

You can't just cobble several words together 
and call it the longest word in the English language
and yet they do. .  .
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
even has a volcano in it.

The curtain rises
different time
different place
every day.

I would like fifty people to attend my funeral. . .
I'm not dead yet--it's not one of those stories,
though they do appeal to me. . .an entire life
should produce thousands, but it almost never does. . .
fifty is a respectable showing. . .
twice that would be formidable.

A day without substitution,
no subtitle, no subtext,
buttermilk pure,
not made
with vinegar.

At the bookstore I will read David Kirby's "House on Boulevard Street"
and laugh aloud. . . I will read David Shumate's prose poems
and cry about Kafka's love life. . . I will read the new issue of "Poetry"
and not buy it because I believe they are poetry snobs:  snobs, 
I tell you. . .I will stop looking up. . . I will hum with the fluorescent lights. . .
I will smell fresh-baked cookies and have willpower. . .
my heart will begin to beat with the barista's claps on the espresso machine
and poetry will save me again, I just know it.

The house we left behind came back
online, back on the market;
the young soon-to-be-weds
who bought it--full price!
(How could they afford a home
that we'd spent half our lives
slowly working up to?)--
no longer seem to want it:
Could it be because we wouldn't
sell it to them furnished, complete
with all the things we'd carefully
arranged, all the things they wanted
us to leave behind because they craved
the look of an easy, well-made life?

The computer-generated male voice droned on
about the number of Kansas tornadoes
per year, where they were,
and how many people had perished;
the computer-generated female voice
broke in now and then
to give ominous weather warnings,
over and over the cycle repeated--
the male spoke of facts,
the female:  possibilities.  

The still at the very center?
The vertigo-inducing outer ring?
Or maybe the made-up stories
of what lies between.

Sometimes in an afternoon,
there are no words
for the nagging unreachable,
so you breathe deep 
into the nothingness
and let it wash over you.

The storm rises,
threatening to take
all we didn't bother
to lash down
with words.

She realized that, unlike before, 
there was only one road ahead--
there were no choices to be made,
just a solitary road to follow, 
alone.

There is little to do but imagine
the Lyrid meteor shower
promised to peak tonight
behind a mask of clouds,
unless you consider the woods
filled with the common salmonberry,
Rubus spectabilis, in bright magenta
bloom, offering countless sprays
of its own shooting stars.

If I came upon my center now,
would we still recognize
one another?

The blazing white elderberry
dazzles the morning air
with so much gag-inducing
sweetness that even the honeysuckle
will no longer recognize it as kin.

It's the weeds that are bothering me now--
they're threatening to consume the yard,
beneath the soft carpet of grass are sod webworms
     and grubs
sometimes it seems as if nothing has a chance here.

What will it mean when
we are no longer surprised
by the inevitable spring?

What she remembered most from those old days
were the country roads. . .how lovely they were 
in their run-down, weather-beaten condition,
how the alligator weed and zoysia grass grew 
and threatened to overtake the roads. . .
how they had just enough traffic 
to keep them going.

The air is netted, ripe and green
with pollen--a hundred million
fetishes insinuating themselves
into each and every word
we utter, think, or write.

Pulling the sheet and quilt 
over her shoulders 
and rolling onto her right side,
she would easily be sleeping
within seconds--or if not,
in a kind of dreamy 
cocoon state--sleep,
delicious sleep, 
her grand escape.

If there is a world within the world
it's likely not this blue-green egg
fallen from its nest in the rafters,
cold now--yet without a single
blemish--which we will place
in the china cabinet
next to all the other
could-have-been-perfect worlds.

They say one of the symbolic messages of the robin
is to let go of all that is not working in your life; 
c'mon Mr. Robin, fly me to a new beginning.

High tide and an April squall
arrive simultaneously in Penn Cove,
creating a mesmerizing labyrinth
of sheeting rain and white caps,
but below the flotilla of rafts
rocking and rolling on the surface,
ropes of world-famous mussels
slumber and grow, suspended
in the stunning cold,
dreaming of their futures
in warm, brothy bowls.

In fiction, it is said, there are a limited number of plot variations;
in non-fiction, however, the possibilities seem endless. . .
so tell me, which are you living?

A juvenile god,
not yet clear
which way to go
to stun the local population,
the eaglet soars
higher,
higher,
higher still, until
it's nothing more
than a hangnail in the sky.

We turned somersaults and cartwheels 
and ran headlong into the future 
reaching for all we thought we needed,
believing we had all the time in the world,
until the world showed us that our days 
were numbered. . .and the things we needed 
were simple and few.

The winds
stir
the trees
stir
the clouds
stir
every conceivable sunset
into tonight's
blood moon.

Essence of hyacinth and honeysuckle, 
then a flourish of Bradford pear--
soon after forsythia and daffodils
begin their yellow waltz,
the redbud trees gush
as the tulips preen
and the fire bush greens
as the world fairly blazes 
with spring.

Dropped to his knees, his bandaged hand
cupped inside the other, he looks pained,
injured all over again,
but the object of his concern this time
is not his hand but what he's holding
in his hand--
a pearl white hummingbird,
swaddled in spider silk,
unable to fly;
we silently go to work on it,
swiftly tearing loose the sticky shroud
from wings and bill and flashing eyes,
but before we can get the last thread
free, the bird simply vanishes, leaving us
just enough color for argument,
male or female, rufous or Anna's,
real or imagined.

There is a language I can no longer speak
due to my years on the planet--one would think
that would garner me more privileges 
rather than less. . .alas, my 11-year-old
informs me these words are meant
for the young and hopelessly cool
(I won't give that one up)
of course, they're not really words 
at all, most are mere acronyms 
for those too busy to use 
all of the beautiful words
we have been given--
I accept my fate.  

So much can be accomplished
in a three-hour queue
waiting for a broken ferry--
read the day's mail,
yesterday's too,
write a few replies,
install new wiper blades,
install them again,
properly this time,
then sit back and listen
to the car behind you
remind you
that you're not waiting
fast enough.

The snowfall made no difference
to the tulips:
they lift their exquisite faces
to the sky,
they sway and flash 
their coral brilliance
and dance contentedly
in the cold, cold wind.

Oh, to be the blessed bagel,
whole unto itself,
surrounding nothing
from its absolute beginning,
skin anointed in lye,
and so unlike the tender donut
skimmed from a vat
of boiling oil,
forever missing
its soft, sweet center.

First there is broccoli and cabbage, 
then peppers and kale. . .
there is lettuce and spinach 
and Swiss chard. . .
how I hover like a mother
over her little ones each day,
how I love the sweet and gentle
magic of a garden.

This cycle of dreams
begins in any one
of many houses we have
left behind--two that survived
Quantrill's raid, several more
built later--and in every single one
steep steps rise
past broken windows,
bleak and battered attics,
before opening into a hidden
planetarium of starlings.

How much lighter my burdens 
when I feel the warmth of the sun
upon my shoulders.

How many more resignation letters
(So many require a handwritten note!)
before I stop playing Beat the Clock
and learn what it's like to just be the clock?

The news is not good
the news is speculation
the news is scandalous
the news is ridiculous
the news is horrifying
everything is the news
how to separate news
from the not-so-newsworthy
everyone wants 
to pick up the news
and bite into it
to check its authenticity
everyone wants today's 
news to go away
they push it 
into the recesses 
of the body
to make it through 
the day.

Why is the world
inside this house
so attractive to things
that don't belong?
Do they see here the mirror
of their own confusion?
Or have we created
our own subduction zone,
drawing things beyond
control slowly under.

Some days you must chip away 
the small branches so that 
the rest of the tree 
fits into your life.

Midges drift like clouds
of black pepper
from beneath the bark
of a sodden madrona,
beached, like us,
waiting for the tide
to return with the whales.

He lines up the timbers carefully
I pull weeds and turn the dirt,
mulch dried leaves and sing a song,
a smile in my heart:
it's time to sow seeds 
and seedlings--
time to believe 
in sympathetic magic 
and sunshine.

I tiptoe past the small symmetries
of the morning, trying to preserve
the balance that will allow
the Bohemian waxwing to stop this time
before diving headlong into the pane.

The homes of the people I like best
have cobwebs; I check out a corner
to see if they are living. . .
and not just pretending.

Everything else is just
the dream of order.

And when there are no more words
we can listen to the silence,
we can listen to the broken
shadow of the moon.

My grandmother from the Old Country
would never understand
the things I allow in my house--
a black cat napping on the kitchen table,
work without an apron,
rain falling under an open umbrella,
the strangeness surrounding
each family member
finally returning home.

Have you written your poem today--
have you sung your lovely song?

"I believe I hear jail.  And the electricity went off.
Spring in Kansas--for joy."
[My dear Marcia:
I found the poem
you left on your wall,
and I have stolen it.]

When I have something to do,
I do something else--this is my style--
and, as I do something else, I worry
about what I should be doing; 
I am habitually late--I bet 
you know people like me--
we carry the weight of the world
on our shoulders as we apply
mascara in the rearview mirror
and drink coffee on the way,
and some day, this 
disjointedness will kill us.

A double rainbow
crashes over the mountain
like a runaway train
rushing the station at dusk.

You finish your sentence, 
and she gives you the look,
lips pursed as she lifts her chin,
as she begins to speak, 
to show you she knows 
something, and definitely
more than you do.

Only the search will last.

My words left me;
now I walk aimlessly, 
carrying a pocketful
of letters in search
of a moment.

Our injured hands bookend
everything we hold
with pulsing constellations
of nerve and resolve.