I'm going to give this a try! Watch for daily postings! Remember that this month, the idea is just to get something on the page. Let’s leave the editing, criticizing, and stressing out for May and beyond!
April 1st, Day 1
Baby Steps Baby
Even though it is hard
do it every day.
One day you realize
it is a little easier.
Eventually you
feel strong again.
April 2nd, Day 2
Morning
It is only because of most mornings
Up with the alarm
Hit the yoga mat
Hit the shower
Ten minutes to sip my smoothie
Pedal off to work
That I am able to appreciate these.
Quiet stillness.
Neighborhood not yet
awake with the sounds of
climbers getting their gear out of the trunk,
hipsters getting their coffee,
tourists dragging wagon-loads of beach chairs,
umbrellas, pails & shovels, children.
The sound of the sea lapping against the shore in the distance.
Early morning fog muffles everything
except the screech of a seagull.
Diffused light lets me feel lazy.
Almost-rain drizzles through the air
like the edge of the ocean doesn’t quite know where to end.
I sip my coffee slowly.
Scroll through social media.
Set aside my phone and pick up a book
Or feel inspired to write a poem.
April 3rd, Day 3
Ode to an Avocado
Rough and bumpy is best.
Watch it darken from green to almost black.
Slice through the armadillo skin.
Grab each half and give a turn.
Indentation on one side.
Brown round ball on the other.
Hack that knife straight down into its flesh.
Twist to extract the pit.
Two perfect little bowls.
Ambrosia pudding waiting to be spooned.
Smooth green and yellow goodness.
A little salt perhaps? Maybe a squeeze of lime?
It doesn’t need much.
The sweetest fruit around.
April 4th, Day 4
Pedaling
There is that sweet spot
when you slip into just the right gear
so you’re stroke exerts the exact amount of power
to glide seemingly effortlessly.
The wind lifts you then
and you’re flying.
April 5th, Day 5
A Day with Girlfriends and Wine
My friend says I should write about the massage.
I’d call it a laying on of hands.
What is it about another putting their hands
on your body?
Moving, rubbing, kneading.
Consensual, healing.
The young Asian man seems skilled at what he does
but I have to wonder, even as I relax under his touch
Why does he do this? Where does he live?
How much is he making? Is this better than what he left behind?
I hand him his tip
realizing I will never know.
I’d rather think about lunch.
The beautiful restaurant, where you’d never been.
Silk road flavors of pomegranate eggplant and saffron rice
and glasses of rosé
with which we toast this rare, week-day, spring-break splurge.
Two teachers in a town we can’t afford.
Making ends meet. Paying exorbitant rent
for places we fear will be closed for safety violations
or from which we’ll be evicted.
We pay the price to live here
so we might as well enjoy.
Another glass across the way
under the afternoon’s gray, foreboding sky.
We would have taken a hike.
You had a picnic planned.
But rain threatens,
so this is our Plan B.
Another day in paradise.
April 6th, Day 6
Driving to Pacheco Pass during Spring Break to See the Super Bloom
Already a late start
chores taking longer than expected.
I place the insulated cooler in the car
beverages, road snacks.
Head out on the highway
singing along to the music on the radio.
Spring rains have made everything
so green.
Several more hours of daylight,
but clouds obscure the sun.
Pacheco State Park.
Pay our fee at the entrance.
Drive in to find
the gate is closed.
We get out into the wind
to walk along Dinosaur Point Road.
A rain fringe ahead threatens
and we head back to the car.
Down to San Luis Reservoir
we marvel at the water.
So many years of drought
have left us thirsting.
Coots skim above
the choppy water.
A group of young people fish.
An older couple barbecues at the picnic spot.
We drive on to Santa Nella
toward the windmill at Andersen’s Pea Soup.
The decor has never changed
and now the cushioned benches at
the booths sag low beneath the table
the faded red vinyl cracked and ripped.
My partner orders Hap-Peas special
a half-grilled cheese and the soup for which
the establishment is named.
I order a hot turkey sandwich
slabs of white meat slathered in flavorless gravy
cold mashed potatoes a little side of
cranberry sauce -- the only thing I can taste.
We don’t bother with a picture
faces showing through the holes
on the bodies of the cartoon chefs.
We drive back along the highway
windshield wipers intermittently
leave streaks across the view
of grey rain in the darkening sky.
April 7th, Day 7 (a villanelle)
We Live with the Knowledge
One day we will no longer be here
Neither we nor anyone we love.
Is that courage enough?
We humans with our housewives of New York
And our fake news and our nuclear bombs
will one day no longer be here.
Some wonky scientist or environmentalist
wants you to care about climate change.
Is that courage enough
to change the way you live
to save biodiversity for the future of a planet that
will one day no longer be here?
Until then there are oceans and plankton, whales
wolves, lions, guarrillas, monarchs, bees and seven generations
Is that courage enough?
We live with the knowledge that we
and everyone we love
will one day no longer be here
and that is courage enough.
April 8, Day 8
If I could be a poet
If I could be a poet
and know that my job everyday
was to write poems,
and If I could think about those poems I’d be writing
everyday no matter what I was doing
because the next thing I would always be doing
is writing a poem,
then I would think poems all day
when walking
when riding my bike
while in the shower
or making lunch,
and I would write so many poems
that I would be a poet.
April 9, Day 9
Leaf Blowers Are Evil
Leaf blowers are evil.
They just blow dirt around
with the most obnoxious sound.
Keurig cups are evil.
Coffee made in haste
increases plastic waste.
Plastic straws are evil.
Place them in your lips
marine life gets more sips.
April 10, Day 10
My Song
Heart beat thrumming
Waves rolling
Sunshine sparkling
Seagulls screeching
Sea Lions barking
Whales moaning like a bow being drawn across the low note of a bass
Great Blue Heron waits, silently, patiently.
Moves staccato-like-jazz.
I float under a moonless sky.
My song has hummingbirds and
butterflies. Babies crying who cannot
tell us what is wrong and babies laughing
My song imagines frightening accidents that
do not kill us and so we laugh too.
You can dance to my song
an interpretive dance
with no choreography
My song is cosmic and specific
It is not for everyone
It reaches into the heart
into the gut, deep into memory
and time
There are choruses
and verses
and bridges in between
I navigate this life
listening
April 11, Day 11
Waiting
Like the night before Christmas
Like nine months of pregnancy
Like the beloved’s promised phone call
I wait.
April 12, Day 12
(written during winter but posted in honor of the return of Game of Thrones!)
Winter is Coming
Thin sliver of silver
still in the sky.
Winter waves crashing.
A rosy glow over
everything.
Seagulls swirl and swoop
above the water
reflected in the
river’s surface.
Coots bob in their clusters.
Snowy White and
Great White Egrets
congregate along
the river’s edge.
Cormorants splay their
legs and widen webbed feet
coming in for a landing
to roost in their eucalyptus rookery.
A lone Common Loon
glides across the water
dips then
like Houdini
disappears.
We gather too,
in the waning light.
Earlier home in the darkness
to pots of soup,
baked winter squashes
anything warm.
To make celebrations of
light in the darkness
and offer warmth to
lengthen the short days.
April 13, Day 13
(Happy Birthday Mom!)
Rosemarie's Closet
Rosemarie’s Closet
is what I call
the wardrobe left behind
by my mother.
The name intended to
recollect a fancy boutique.
Such was my mom’s eye
for fashion.
“My mother still dresses me,”
I’d joke
throughout my life,
choosing
t-shirts and jeans,
when left to my own devices,
until work required
that I put on
professional attire.
That’s when I stopped
grimacing when mom would
cull the clearance rack
And find just-the-right
cute-little-outfit
in just-my-size.
I’d look forward to the
birthday and Christmas packages.
Unwrap clothing store boxes.
Peel back tissue paper
to reveal
this season’s latest.
Compliments would always be
forthcoming.
“It’s from my mom,”
I’d smile
thinking of how much
she was going to enjoy hearing
about them.
When sorting through
her closet,
Chantilly,
her favorite,
blended with the warm scent of
her, exhaled
as I slid each hanger to the side.
By now, I’d grown to her size,
even more so, unwilling, as she was,
to use smoking as a diet aid,
ending meals with a cigarette
instead of dessert,
the ones that first took her voice,
then caused the cancer that overtook
the rest of her body.
It made it difficult,
my gained girth,
when trying to dress her
after trips to the doctors,
the hospitals.
It’s harder than you think to put socks
on another person’s feet!
She’d fall back on the bed,
and I’d land on the floor
laughing so hard as we struggled.
Her clothes
returned home with me
mixing in my closet with
those clothes she’d given me before.
As each item fades,
becomes a donation to Goodwill,
and my closet empties,
I still hope to grow into
the woman she was
the generosity she shared
the care and concern she showed
even as I learn to dress myself.
April 14, Day 14
Spring
I could not tell what kind of bug it was
catching it between tongue and teeth
before I thhhpit it out
but that was just before the blue bird landed on the path just ahead of me
and the cow in the pasture began to leap and frolic, I kid you not.
The mockingbird is back on the wires above Darwin Street singing his heart out again.
April 15, Day 15
Trying to heel
Although I am a simple made I like to put on heirs
as if I’d made a prophet
and staked out what can be learned
from the principle
when stealing yourself against
the night
April 16, Day 16
Fire in France
Those most needing your concern
Have never been there
All those prayers
Reverberating into a dome
Upturned faces cast with color
From stained windows
Art
Beauty
History
Religion
Parisian tourist photos
Notre-Dame in the background
Speculations about terrorism,
Before the truth is even known.
Undergoing renovations
An unfortunate accident.
All this anguish
Millions in donations pouring in
Three churches have burned in Louisiana
White supremacists.
Flint Michigan still does not have water
Power is not up throughout Puerto Rico.
Immigrant children snatched from their parents
We lose 150-200 plant, bird, and animal species a day.
What tugs at the human heart?
What motivates us to action?
A single tangible symbol
The rest too big -- too much.
April 17, Day 17
Expanding
No more
quibbling over every
nibble. Yes, please,
I’ll have another.
Ignore the tag
and find what fits.
Relax and let the belly bulge
Thighs spread wide
Neck create its
Multiple chins.
This body
Taking up its rightful space.
April 18, Day 18
Restless Librarian
If I were to
ask all the books
to join me in a dance
studying students beat rhythms
with pencils on
tables.
Austin to Tupac
The Bluesman
Scar Tissue
waltzing, hip hopping,
blues, jazz and rock.
Trumpets would blare
above any shushing
We’d rip up these aisles
book carts be damned,
shelves disarrayed
spines bent
pages doing the Dog Ear.
We’d whirl and twirl
past circulation
set off alarms
run out the doors
and leave them all
to jam the printer,
speak too loudly,
eat food in the library.
April 19, Day 19
Ode to the Flu
Enemy invasion.
Microscopic virus.
How did you breach my defenses?
inoculation
vitamins
early bedtimes
healthy eating
Stealthily you infiltrated
traveling across enemy lines
through a current of air
just as I inhaled
or you catapulted to land
on the doorknob
the faucet
my lip?
Unaware of the guerilla warfare
I innocently carried on my business,
for two or three days
oblivious that you would detonate during the night.
Up and out of bed in the morning
I felt the shrapnel in my head and back
stinging eyes staring into the mirror from under heavy lids
searching for the enemy within.
You hit me like a landmine.
Back in bed
three days.
Nights wrestling with the enemy combatants
until sweat soaked
I could finally deploy sleep.
My brain fired like a machine gun
every time I turned my head
Takka takka tat tat tat
Your foot soldiers
invaded my senses
scuttling through my sinus cavities
I could hear the broken transmissions
on their little walkie-talkies
the signals crackling in my ears.
Not even my sense of smell
was spared.
The taste of anything I might eat
gassed with napalm during
chemical warfare.
My depth perception
hacked
no longer trustworthy
I take tentative steps
and then
drop endlessly
into a chair
under a glaring
interrogating
light .
Did my fever finally defeat you?
My final weapon -- a cough
to rid my lungs’
trenches
of the grunts you left behind.
April 20, Day 20
San Lorenzo
Cormorants perch silhouetted
on branches of eucalyptus trees
that frame the Giant Dipper
across the railroad trestle.
A red-tail hawk stands sentry on a telephone pole.
Kingfisher balances above the water on a wire
snowy egrets hunch along the river's edge
like old men bracing themselves against the cold.
Buffleheads bob along the surface
with groups of grebes.
coots dive
leaving trails of Vs.
Mismatched pairs of mated mallards
waddle along the grassy path.
Ground squirrels play chicken
with my bike’s front tire.
The San Lorenzo runs
like a deep vein through the city
entering the Pacific between
the boardwalk and the harbor.
Seagulls swoop and soar
before the bridge that crosses
from Eastside to Westside
as the sun rises on this coastal town.
I cross the divide
riding along the levee
from Seabright to Santa Cruz High
early each morning
I watch for Great Blue Heron
patiently stalking through the reeds
creating the rippled reflection
I carry through the day.
April 21, Day 21
A mother can be only as happy as her unhappiest child
A true central California coast winter
replete with rain
dropping temperatures.
I force myself out
walk down to the ocean
I know it is good for me.
Surf roiling.
Muddy water
turns the ocean brown
like a boiling pot of hot chocolate
nothing warm about those waves.
Sun shines through a break in the clouds
wind brushes everything with strokes
reminding us the storm has not truly passed.
These waves to which I’ve brought my heart
since moving to this seaside town roll in
filling my heart
crashing against the shoreline pull away
cleansing my soul
leaving the wet sand smooth,
Mother Ocean, relentless in her healing
while my mother was sick -- then died.
My world had come unmoored.
Her watery edge became my home.
She could not sense my sorrow.
I have a child who lives on the other side of the world.
Before my mom died
she asked
did it make me sad to have him so far away?
As long as I know he’s happy and healthy, I’m okay.
A mother can be only as happy as her unhappiest child.
Mine is no longer happy.
Anxiety tugs at my belly
where his umbilical cord would have been.
Microchimeric stem cells his infant body left behind protect me still.
How do I protect him?
Panic fills me in a rush.
Worry keeps him in my orbit.
My child is my universe.
Come home
to Mother Ocean.
She can heal you too.
April 22, Day 22
Modern Dancer
Sculpted body
revealed beneath
tight black lycra.
Years of practice
and discipline
in that muscle memory.
Flowing
flirtatious
sensual
staccato.
Feats of strength
balance
and poise.
Something wild
contained.
Passion defined.
Your dance
reminds me
of my past,
my ancestors
the first human story.
Baby Steps Baby
Even though it is hard
do it every day.
One day you realize
it is a little easier.
Eventually you
feel strong again.
April 2nd, Day 2
Morning
It is only because of most mornings
Up with the alarm
Hit the yoga mat
Hit the shower
Ten minutes to sip my smoothie
Pedal off to work
That I am able to appreciate these.
Quiet stillness.
Neighborhood not yet
awake with the sounds of
climbers getting their gear out of the trunk,
hipsters getting their coffee,
tourists dragging wagon-loads of beach chairs,
umbrellas, pails & shovels, children.
The sound of the sea lapping against the shore in the distance.
Early morning fog muffles everything
except the screech of a seagull.
Diffused light lets me feel lazy.
Almost-rain drizzles through the air
like the edge of the ocean doesn’t quite know where to end.
I sip my coffee slowly.
Scroll through social media.
Set aside my phone and pick up a book
Or feel inspired to write a poem.
April 3rd, Day 3
Ode to an Avocado
Rough and bumpy is best.
Watch it darken from green to almost black.
Slice through the armadillo skin.
Grab each half and give a turn.
Indentation on one side.
Brown round ball on the other.
Hack that knife straight down into its flesh.
Twist to extract the pit.
Two perfect little bowls.
Ambrosia pudding waiting to be spooned.
Smooth green and yellow goodness.
A little salt perhaps? Maybe a squeeze of lime?
It doesn’t need much.
The sweetest fruit around.
April 4th, Day 4
Pedaling
There is that sweet spot
when you slip into just the right gear
so you’re stroke exerts the exact amount of power
to glide seemingly effortlessly.
The wind lifts you then
and you’re flying.
April 5th, Day 5
A Day with Girlfriends and Wine
My friend says I should write about the massage.
I’d call it a laying on of hands.
What is it about another putting their hands
on your body?
Moving, rubbing, kneading.
Consensual, healing.
The young Asian man seems skilled at what he does
but I have to wonder, even as I relax under his touch
Why does he do this? Where does he live?
How much is he making? Is this better than what he left behind?
I hand him his tip
realizing I will never know.
I’d rather think about lunch.
The beautiful restaurant, where you’d never been.
Silk road flavors of pomegranate eggplant and saffron rice
and glasses of rosé
with which we toast this rare, week-day, spring-break splurge.
Two teachers in a town we can’t afford.
Making ends meet. Paying exorbitant rent
for places we fear will be closed for safety violations
or from which we’ll be evicted.
We pay the price to live here
so we might as well enjoy.
Another glass across the way
under the afternoon’s gray, foreboding sky.
We would have taken a hike.
You had a picnic planned.
But rain threatens,
so this is our Plan B.
Another day in paradise.
April 6th, Day 6
Driving to Pacheco Pass during Spring Break to See the Super Bloom
Already a late start
chores taking longer than expected.
I place the insulated cooler in the car
beverages, road snacks.
Head out on the highway
singing along to the music on the radio.
Spring rains have made everything
so green.
Several more hours of daylight,
but clouds obscure the sun.
Pacheco State Park.
Pay our fee at the entrance.
Drive in to find
the gate is closed.
We get out into the wind
to walk along Dinosaur Point Road.
A rain fringe ahead threatens
and we head back to the car.
Down to San Luis Reservoir
we marvel at the water.
So many years of drought
have left us thirsting.
Coots skim above
the choppy water.
A group of young people fish.
An older couple barbecues at the picnic spot.
We drive on to Santa Nella
toward the windmill at Andersen’s Pea Soup.
The decor has never changed
and now the cushioned benches at
the booths sag low beneath the table
the faded red vinyl cracked and ripped.
My partner orders Hap-Peas special
a half-grilled cheese and the soup for which
the establishment is named.
I order a hot turkey sandwich
slabs of white meat slathered in flavorless gravy
cold mashed potatoes a little side of
cranberry sauce -- the only thing I can taste.
We don’t bother with a picture
faces showing through the holes
on the bodies of the cartoon chefs.
We drive back along the highway
windshield wipers intermittently
leave streaks across the view
of grey rain in the darkening sky.
April 7th, Day 7 (a villanelle)
We Live with the Knowledge
One day we will no longer be here
Neither we nor anyone we love.
Is that courage enough?
We humans with our housewives of New York
And our fake news and our nuclear bombs
will one day no longer be here.
Some wonky scientist or environmentalist
wants you to care about climate change.
Is that courage enough
to change the way you live
to save biodiversity for the future of a planet that
will one day no longer be here?
Until then there are oceans and plankton, whales
wolves, lions, guarrillas, monarchs, bees and seven generations
Is that courage enough?
We live with the knowledge that we
and everyone we love
will one day no longer be here
and that is courage enough.
April 8, Day 8
If I could be a poet
If I could be a poet
and know that my job everyday
was to write poems,
and If I could think about those poems I’d be writing
everyday no matter what I was doing
because the next thing I would always be doing
is writing a poem,
then I would think poems all day
when walking
when riding my bike
while in the shower
or making lunch,
and I would write so many poems
that I would be a poet.
April 9, Day 9
Leaf Blowers Are Evil
Leaf blowers are evil.
They just blow dirt around
with the most obnoxious sound.
Keurig cups are evil.
Coffee made in haste
increases plastic waste.
Plastic straws are evil.
Place them in your lips
marine life gets more sips.
April 10, Day 10
My Song
Heart beat thrumming
Waves rolling
Sunshine sparkling
Seagulls screeching
Sea Lions barking
Whales moaning like a bow being drawn across the low note of a bass
Great Blue Heron waits, silently, patiently.
Moves staccato-like-jazz.
I float under a moonless sky.
My song has hummingbirds and
butterflies. Babies crying who cannot
tell us what is wrong and babies laughing
My song imagines frightening accidents that
do not kill us and so we laugh too.
You can dance to my song
an interpretive dance
with no choreography
My song is cosmic and specific
It is not for everyone
It reaches into the heart
into the gut, deep into memory
and time
There are choruses
and verses
and bridges in between
I navigate this life
listening
April 11, Day 11
Waiting
Like the night before Christmas
Like nine months of pregnancy
Like the beloved’s promised phone call
I wait.
April 12, Day 12
(written during winter but posted in honor of the return of Game of Thrones!)
Winter is Coming
Thin sliver of silver
still in the sky.
Winter waves crashing.
A rosy glow over
everything.
Seagulls swirl and swoop
above the water
reflected in the
river’s surface.
Coots bob in their clusters.
Snowy White and
Great White Egrets
congregate along
the river’s edge.
Cormorants splay their
legs and widen webbed feet
coming in for a landing
to roost in their eucalyptus rookery.
A lone Common Loon
glides across the water
dips then
like Houdini
disappears.
We gather too,
in the waning light.
Earlier home in the darkness
to pots of soup,
baked winter squashes
anything warm.
To make celebrations of
light in the darkness
and offer warmth to
lengthen the short days.
April 13, Day 13
(Happy Birthday Mom!)
Rosemarie's Closet
Rosemarie’s Closet
is what I call
the wardrobe left behind
by my mother.
The name intended to
recollect a fancy boutique.
Such was my mom’s eye
for fashion.
“My mother still dresses me,”
I’d joke
throughout my life,
choosing
t-shirts and jeans,
when left to my own devices,
until work required
that I put on
professional attire.
That’s when I stopped
grimacing when mom would
cull the clearance rack
And find just-the-right
cute-little-outfit
in just-my-size.
I’d look forward to the
birthday and Christmas packages.
Unwrap clothing store boxes.
Peel back tissue paper
to reveal
this season’s latest.
Compliments would always be
forthcoming.
“It’s from my mom,”
I’d smile
thinking of how much
she was going to enjoy hearing
about them.
When sorting through
her closet,
Chantilly,
her favorite,
blended with the warm scent of
her, exhaled
as I slid each hanger to the side.
By now, I’d grown to her size,
even more so, unwilling, as she was,
to use smoking as a diet aid,
ending meals with a cigarette
instead of dessert,
the ones that first took her voice,
then caused the cancer that overtook
the rest of her body.
It made it difficult,
my gained girth,
when trying to dress her
after trips to the doctors,
the hospitals.
It’s harder than you think to put socks
on another person’s feet!
She’d fall back on the bed,
and I’d land on the floor
laughing so hard as we struggled.
Her clothes
returned home with me
mixing in my closet with
those clothes she’d given me before.
As each item fades,
becomes a donation to Goodwill,
and my closet empties,
I still hope to grow into
the woman she was
the generosity she shared
the care and concern she showed
even as I learn to dress myself.
April 14, Day 14
Spring
I could not tell what kind of bug it was
catching it between tongue and teeth
before I thhhpit it out
but that was just before the blue bird landed on the path just ahead of me
and the cow in the pasture began to leap and frolic, I kid you not.
The mockingbird is back on the wires above Darwin Street singing his heart out again.
April 15, Day 15
Trying to heel
Although I am a simple made I like to put on heirs
as if I’d made a prophet
and staked out what can be learned
from the principle
when stealing yourself against
the night
April 16, Day 16
Fire in France
Those most needing your concern
Have never been there
All those prayers
Reverberating into a dome
Upturned faces cast with color
From stained windows
Art
Beauty
History
Religion
Parisian tourist photos
Notre-Dame in the background
Speculations about terrorism,
Before the truth is even known.
Undergoing renovations
An unfortunate accident.
All this anguish
Millions in donations pouring in
Three churches have burned in Louisiana
White supremacists.
Flint Michigan still does not have water
Power is not up throughout Puerto Rico.
Immigrant children snatched from their parents
We lose 150-200 plant, bird, and animal species a day.
What tugs at the human heart?
What motivates us to action?
A single tangible symbol
The rest too big -- too much.
April 17, Day 17
Expanding
No more
quibbling over every
nibble. Yes, please,
I’ll have another.
Ignore the tag
and find what fits.
Relax and let the belly bulge
Thighs spread wide
Neck create its
Multiple chins.
This body
Taking up its rightful space.
April 18, Day 18
Restless Librarian
If I were to
ask all the books
to join me in a dance
studying students beat rhythms
with pencils on
tables.
Austin to Tupac
The Bluesman
Scar Tissue
waltzing, hip hopping,
blues, jazz and rock.
Trumpets would blare
above any shushing
We’d rip up these aisles
book carts be damned,
shelves disarrayed
spines bent
pages doing the Dog Ear.
We’d whirl and twirl
past circulation
set off alarms
run out the doors
and leave them all
to jam the printer,
speak too loudly,
eat food in the library.
April 19, Day 19
Ode to the Flu
Enemy invasion.
Microscopic virus.
How did you breach my defenses?
inoculation
vitamins
early bedtimes
healthy eating
Stealthily you infiltrated
traveling across enemy lines
through a current of air
just as I inhaled
or you catapulted to land
on the doorknob
the faucet
my lip?
Unaware of the guerilla warfare
I innocently carried on my business,
for two or three days
oblivious that you would detonate during the night.
Up and out of bed in the morning
I felt the shrapnel in my head and back
stinging eyes staring into the mirror from under heavy lids
searching for the enemy within.
You hit me like a landmine.
Back in bed
three days.
Nights wrestling with the enemy combatants
until sweat soaked
I could finally deploy sleep.
My brain fired like a machine gun
every time I turned my head
Takka takka tat tat tat
Your foot soldiers
invaded my senses
scuttling through my sinus cavities
I could hear the broken transmissions
on their little walkie-talkies
the signals crackling in my ears.
Not even my sense of smell
was spared.
The taste of anything I might eat
gassed with napalm during
chemical warfare.
My depth perception
hacked
no longer trustworthy
I take tentative steps
and then
drop endlessly
into a chair
under a glaring
interrogating
light .
Did my fever finally defeat you?
My final weapon -- a cough
to rid my lungs’
trenches
of the grunts you left behind.
April 20, Day 20
San Lorenzo
Cormorants perch silhouetted
on branches of eucalyptus trees
that frame the Giant Dipper
across the railroad trestle.
A red-tail hawk stands sentry on a telephone pole.
Kingfisher balances above the water on a wire
snowy egrets hunch along the river's edge
like old men bracing themselves against the cold.
Buffleheads bob along the surface
with groups of grebes.
coots dive
leaving trails of Vs.
Mismatched pairs of mated mallards
waddle along the grassy path.
Ground squirrels play chicken
with my bike’s front tire.
The San Lorenzo runs
like a deep vein through the city
entering the Pacific between
the boardwalk and the harbor.
Seagulls swoop and soar
before the bridge that crosses
from Eastside to Westside
as the sun rises on this coastal town.
I cross the divide
riding along the levee
from Seabright to Santa Cruz High
early each morning
I watch for Great Blue Heron
patiently stalking through the reeds
creating the rippled reflection
I carry through the day.
April 21, Day 21
A mother can be only as happy as her unhappiest child
A true central California coast winter
replete with rain
dropping temperatures.
I force myself out
walk down to the ocean
I know it is good for me.
Surf roiling.
Muddy water
turns the ocean brown
like a boiling pot of hot chocolate
nothing warm about those waves.
Sun shines through a break in the clouds
wind brushes everything with strokes
reminding us the storm has not truly passed.
These waves to which I’ve brought my heart
since moving to this seaside town roll in
filling my heart
crashing against the shoreline pull away
cleansing my soul
leaving the wet sand smooth,
Mother Ocean, relentless in her healing
while my mother was sick -- then died.
My world had come unmoored.
Her watery edge became my home.
She could not sense my sorrow.
I have a child who lives on the other side of the world.
Before my mom died
she asked
did it make me sad to have him so far away?
As long as I know he’s happy and healthy, I’m okay.
A mother can be only as happy as her unhappiest child.
Mine is no longer happy.
Anxiety tugs at my belly
where his umbilical cord would have been.
Microchimeric stem cells his infant body left behind protect me still.
How do I protect him?
Panic fills me in a rush.
Worry keeps him in my orbit.
My child is my universe.
Come home
to Mother Ocean.
She can heal you too.
April 22, Day 22
Modern Dancer
Sculpted body
revealed beneath
tight black lycra.
Years of practice
and discipline
in that muscle memory.
Flowing
flirtatious
sensual
staccato.
Feats of strength
balance
and poise.
Something wild
contained.
Passion defined.
Your dance
reminds me
of my past,
my ancestors
the first human story.