Sunday, January 30, 2011

Clouds



Over the cold lake the cloud banks
Are like mountains I have known
Or lived next to in a past life.

From a distance they belie
Their stuffing of ether
So that I hurry towards them
Eager for the heights.


In photo: matcha and baked oatmeal.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

A Pause


In between patients are the moments
That are outside of time,
When morning clouds have gone
And clear skies await my gaze.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Lady Macbeth



If it were only a quirk that she could ignore
As she goes through the evenness of her day.

Daylong, her eyes twitch in rapid succession
In a way that they need to in spite of herself.
And when she is wearied in the loneliness of her shame,
She comes to me, eyes averted from my gaze.

And if it were only a matter of creases in her sheets,
She would laugh it away with a wink of an eye.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Cardinal at Sunrise



On the coldest of days I saw you again:
Splash of red in this land of crumpled leaves.

I had to look twice to see,
If in the calm suffusion of the new day,
You were not the autumn that stayed behind.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Diagnosis



I ask a question of me more than you:
Now that the symptoms are half-codified,
Do you look at the sun in much the same way,
Or at just fallen snow on the tattered elms?

Day after day, they will be here.
I see you leaping over the science
To pronounce that nothing really has changed.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Dance



With a quick lick of my nose
You decide that a lap
Would be fitting for now.

Your preamble to rest
Goes something like this:
Circle once, circle twice,
Settle down on my book.

In mid-sentence your tail
Flicks over the words
And all I can see
Is a cat in repose.



in photo: sencha and aebelskivers - with cat nearby.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Her Mother




Perhaps written in haste,
In the heat of feelings she barely fathomed,
Her words pouring out,
Unchecked in bold print,
In the midst of my day.


Her mother is lost
In the thicket of her mind,
With only smiles in answer
To yesterday's words.

We sit together
Each month counting the ways
That are lost to her now,
Of dropped numbers
And forgotten words,
And little for me to do
But to place my hand on hers.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Sunrise



Up until now
Catching the orb
At the right moment
Has been
Out of my reach.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Waiting Room



On straight-backed chairs we sit,
Each waiting for a name we could answer to,
And in the minutes that stretch,
Eased along by an ancient issue
Of a tabloid I would not buy,
I am offered a glimpse
Of shoulders too versed
In the nature of chairs
Of a doctor's waiting room.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

A Rooster from the South




In wet sand his toes curled
While he listened to waves
Louder than those back home.

Fleeing from ice
That heaps on the shore,
He found an unending blue
To hide the cares of home.

And when the time came to return,
He thought to bring back
A bobbing rooster for my desk.


Saturday, January 8, 2011

My Uncle



From a photo I could see
The gauntness of his shoulders,
And hair without the sheen
I remember from years past.

From a high chair I had sat
Tallying equations that he hurled
Onto a six-year old's head.

His liver falters and kidneys have failed,
And he holds in abeyance
Those equations I still remember.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Tuesday Morning



I cannot say enough
About the quiet joy
Of opening a book.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Prajna, the Cat




I remember your eyes
In those first days that became years,
Darting and wide at my touch,
And how you walked into the patch of sunlight
To be alone in your new home.

When was it that I first noticed
That slow blink from across the room
As you fell asleep to my voice?

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Meditating on New Year's Day


When the room fills with light
And the scent of cinnamon
And my hands finally warm on my lap,
Then I gaze on the light
And its eventual shift into dullness,
Returning again with my breath.