gotas de luar

My understanding of you goes something like this:
I am looking at the sky tonight.
The sun has just set.
The sky is a mauve colour; the trees are just black silhouettes.
The moon just above the horizon is crescent.
I am looking at the sky through a window that is well over 50 years old. Can you understand this?
There is no way to look through to the moon and see a sharp image. I look up through the glass, down, tilt my head to the right…
each time the crescent is elongated, disproportionate

My understanding of your love feels like this.
I know it is there.
I tilt my heart to try to see it clearly but
I’m looking through an old story that needs a washing.

*******

I stand in the driveway and look up at the moon. I wonder, if 40 years ago, my mother did the same,
marveling at the newness of men walking on the moon.

Did she feel like the universe was becoming more clear
or did it just make things feel more infinite
for the girl about to begin her senior year of high school?
Did she understand political ramifications of the mission?
Did she take time to wonder or was she
sewing a dress for school
on a date with my dad
reading Jane Eyre?

******

At four years old, he has learned shapes by looking at the moon.
He knows crescent, semi-circle, and circle from
evenings in the driveway
looking up.
To make sure he sees, I ask “What shape is the moon tonight?”
Does he marvel that what we see changes?
Is he so innocent that it doesn’t matter?

to the musicians

Never mind the venue
    playing for a few gawky kids
    in front of an old furniture store
   Posters advertising “10% off!” and
 ”No Money Down!” served as your backdrop.

Never mind that.
What happened for those of us lucky to see
 who had turned off the tv
                                        the phone
                                        the World
The Moment was there and so were We.

Not because of a chord
     or a drum solo
     or what you were wearing
It was in how you caught the groove:
 the bassist leaning forward and back
  the drummer nodding his head
 the lead guitarist looking at his bandmates instead of his shoes.
  the conversation was between the instruments
          and was in the subtext

The Moment was not in a tongue of fire from above
not a lightbulb in a dark rorom
but a Breath, a deep, lung-filling and exhale slowly Breath.

When I see art being made –
a spark of what the Father must know –
it is a glimpse of Eternity and I am blessed.

c. hcs 6 May 2009

untitled for now

for G-

Toxic city
you Unreal place
I’m breaking camp
from your limits

too long I have stayed.

My skin is a dull yellow from your fumes
the low sound of your deceitful hum
   bothers my rest

I’m pulling up stakes
taking only what I can hold in my hand.

Do You need an image?
Picture me getting up from the ground
brushing off your footprints –
   the footprints of these many years
                   the mud
                   the old gum
                   the squished bugs
     from the soles of your shoes
See my face fresh
You don’t know my name anymore.

And I’m setting myself free
Okay, yes, for the fifth time
but this time will stick…
it just has to.

c. hcs 4 May 2009

a kind of mosaic

This all began with
Johnny Cash
and his ring of fire,
those Tex-Mex horns
and the journey down the gravelly
road of Johnny’s voice.

There’s no connection here
except maybe the way a mind goes
in circles.

For these many days now,
I’ve been thinking about the art of words…
today, juxtaposed with the meta-informative world
like a quilt
“See, these are my shared stories
of all the feeds I subscribe to. So
you could get a feed of my subscribed feeds
 and so on and so on.”

How much is too much?
Who has time for it all?

I choose Frost’s apple picking.
I choose Whitman leaving the lecture hall of the astronomer.

“This much madness is too much sorrow”
and the madness floats down like locust seeds
and stays
waiting for a shower of verse
something that is free
and the circle continues…

(c. hcs 28 April 2009)

a scene that lingers still…

for CHS

On the driveway
you danced.

One foot on the ground
the other kicked high
both arms above your head
much like the dogwoods in the wind

“It’s spring! It’s beautiful spring,” you sang
spinning, arms stretched out and then back above
your head.

You jumped
    twirled
    jumped
“It’s so beautiful. I love spring!”

And I stood by and watched
not feeling worthy to interrupt your Moment
but rather allowing myself to see a glimpse of Eternity
before my eyes

You are beautiful, little soul.
Thank you for teaching me.

 

(c. hcs 22 April 2009)

a page from the wayfarer’s notebook

for her

take this acquaintance
hold it to the light
realize it is dead
and bury it

like some old thing
you never really loved
oh bury it

the image of two “friends”
who never walked together
but always ran
to outshine the other

bury that

the way you thought you understood me
bury that too

Let’s introduce ourselves anew
“Hello. I”m a gypsy. Please don’t expect me to be
the same person from one day to the next.”

And I’ll listen to you, for a change,
and hear your heart instead of plotting
to beat you at our own game.

 

(c. hcs 21 April 2009)

dogwood winter revisited

And now he is the last one left
Out of a family of eight.
One by one they were taken
suicide,
car accident,
cancers.

Dogwood winter,
a phrase the old-timers used
when I was a girl in the mountains.
Now so true:
the beauty of the bloom in the midst of sharp wind
creamy petals in the midst of bare limbs
It looks like it should feel so good in that sunshine
but the wind cuts through
to the bone.

And now again, sisters will close out a household.
A mother is gone.

Bittersweet circle
we tear at your edges trying to find some new image
only to find no knife is sharp enough.

(c. hcs 7 April 2009)

a kind of snow

that melts the ice
of a thousand winters.
Crab apple blossoms tickertape
the wet pavement.

 1.
Under the limbs of this kind of
Bodhi
one can have the beauty of opposites
death and rebirth
renewed mercies

 2.
Friend, we are spirits…
choosing to let go of physical trappings.

 3.

(c. HCS 3 April 2009)

cousins (a draft)

How far removed
am I from you,
Girl?
With your short shorts
and men’s undershirt
You’re sitting in the front seat
of your boyfriend’s car
Little left to the imagination
so I try not to look
but do.

How far removed
am I from you,
Girl?
With my advanced degree
and trendy haircut
I’m in the driver’s seat
This nowhere smalltown
but a pit stop on my way
to big places that I can only imagine.

How far removed
am I from you,
Girl?
You talk through your nose
Chain smoke while pregnant
Wait tables for a living
Room with your boyfriend
I sweat grammatical correctness
Avoid showing cleavage
Don’t watch sitcoms

How close we come in our everyday passings
What if we were to sit down and be real with each other?
What would we learn?
What things are different?
What things are the same?

 

(c. HCS April 1, 2009)

Kind of like Picasso

Hints of “Guernica”, maybe? See the green bull falling face down?