Poetry

Last week I was asked to be the poet for an episode of” Rattlecast,” a weekly podcast sponsored by Rattle magazine, a poetry magazine I very much admire.  I read a few of my poems and was interviewed by the editor of the magazine, Tim Green.

This is the link to the podcast.

 

 When I told Coach Long I was quitting

Cross Country, he understood, it was cool,

though he said he’d just figured out

what my name would be.  He named us all.

Caveman.  Scooter.  Breeze.

He had to watch us first and see.

I’ve been wondering again

what my name would have been.

I’ve been praying,

and in the early morning darkness

a light from my neighbor’s house

has made a pattern on the wall

above the couch, like leaves.

My roses are blooming, my yellow roses,

and a child is dying of hunger 

or disease or a gunshot or grief 

and someone is laughing and someone is crying

and someone is lifting a cup, a star 

is exploding, a heart

is breaking, the wind is blowing

over a desert, over a forest, over the sea,

and it is morning and it is evening

and it is the first day and the last

and every moment somewhere

the Host is being raised 

in the air, 

in the air, in the air.

—-

My heart is like a shallow ford,

and on either side of the road that leads to it

there is a chain link fence with razor wire

on top and signs, in several languages,

warning of unexploded bombs.

My heart is like a shallow ford,

and when you finally reach it the water

flows creamy brown and reeds wave

on the bank and on the other shore

there is another country,

with fig trees and palms.

My heart is like a shallow ford

where Jesus may have come, and may

have knelt, and may have risen up,

streaming, though there are other bends

in the Jordan where he could have

entered, too, and seen the dove

and heard the voice.  No one knows.

My heart is like a shallow ford.

The man in the hospital has bright eyes

and there are tears in them he is so afraid

and so glad to talk and he knows God

is with him or hopes he is.  He is nearly bald,

and his old body is wrinkly and pale,

and I can see it from the waist up, the slack,

ropy skin, and his wife has a gentle voice

and is kind and I can feel the Spirit

there among the monitors like the light

on the green fields outside the window,

and I feel a love for this man, my father,

my brother, my friend, and I lift up my hand

and bless him, and I, too, am filled with tears.

What I feel is gratitude, what I feel

is thanksgiving, and I know, then, O Lord,

that You are there, that this is grace,

for we are not grateful for what we have done.

We are grateful for what we are given.

Three boys come up to me at communion,

little boys, in descending order,

their mother behind them, and when I raise

my hand to bless him, the oldest boy

solemnly raises his hand and gives me

a high-five—and then his brothers, first one

and then the other, they high-five me, too,

slapping my palm and walking

back to their pew, and I laugh, I pray,

I say it again:  rejoice.

Mount Union Cemetery, August 13, 2021

 

It’s odd and sad that we are here today, over two years later,

long after Robert’s funeral mass.

I’ve never had this experience before.

It’s as if we have to bury this man we all loved

not just once but twice.

We have to face the grief again and the loss.

But I’ve been thinking about this,

and more and more I think it’s also a great gift.

Because it reminds us of what a good, good man he was.

It reminds us that our sadness is always with us

and so he is always us.  He is never gone.

Our sadness is sacred.  It’s a sign.

And if in committing his ashes to the ground

we renew our grief,

we also renew our hope.  Our faith.

Today we have been given a chance to feel more

deeply, in a new, quieter, steadier way,

what he most deeply believed,

that God is always with us

and all, all, shall be well.

When I drove to Spokane to see my dad

the smoke from the wildfires

was as acrid and thick as the clouds

the Angry make on the third

 

cornice of Purgatory.  I couldn’t see

a thing until I drove away,

back down the gorge and along the river,

where the air was fresh

 

and the leaves barely turning.

I will never forgive you, he said as I left,

in his dementia.  He was

hugging me in the carport.  I could hear

 

his hearing aid trilling.

But I knew what he meant:  forget you.

 

Reading my journal from ten years ago.

How I was struggling then with all the same things.

The darkness.  The heaviness.

Sometimes grace breaking through.  Sometimes not.

 

At the pond my puppy barks at the water,

bouncing back and forth on shore.

Nervous.  Excited.  As if the pond has a body, too.

Is some heavy, indefinite animal.

 

All the leaves have settled on the bottom

and the water is dark.  All you can see are the circles

the rain makes and a few bare branches

breaking the surface, reaching up from below.

 

I know the water is calling him.

I know soon he’ll jump in.

 

The first sneaker wave only caught me.

I was looking away, and the next

thing I knew I was soaked to the shins.

With the second you shouted,

 

and I ran as fast I could, arms pumping,

and when I looked back you had

fallen to your knees, and the water was

streaming around you, the way it

 

streams around the rocks when

the tide recedes, and you were smiling,

you were smiling a sweet, shocked

smile, and I realized again how much

 

I love you, and I thought, this is how

it is, and this is how it will be.