The tree in the church yard

The tree in the corner

of the church yard

looks like the stomach of a woman

who has given birth.

Round and slack

(but mostly)

strong.

Arms able to bear growth

as well as

to say goodbye.

My children’s names

are etched in ink in my skin

tracing, swirling lines,

as though I could forget them.

Merit badge for rebellion,

another soccer mom longing

for a nap.

The tree will outlast me.

Her round belly presiding

magisterially over weddings,

burials, easter vigils  and egg hunts

Years after our dust

returns to dust.

Years after the blue-black earth

claims me back, tattoos long faded

children long grown.

A Poem For Marathon Day 2013

I wrote this poem last year the day of the Boston Marathon bombing. Having lived in New York City on September 11, 2001, so much of the experience of public tragedy felt familiar, but on a smaller scale. In New York we were a mile and a half from the site; this time, eight miles away in Medford. I still struggle with how the lives of those lost in that tragedy--because it seemed so random--are perceived to be more publicly grievable than others (I blogged about this for my parish--see that post here). "Urban violence" is seen as somehow expected, and therefore less worthy of the attention. This is, obviously total bullshit.  But that fact also doesn't make it less traumatic for a bomb to go off on a clear April day.

Marathon Day, or April 15, 2013

This is the day as it becomes

the date

4/15, 9/11, 7/7 the list

goes on

Our faces know this pinched expression

tightly turned in lips

lines deepening between tired yes

Our faces will stay this way

for some time.

Then we forget.

Not from apathy, but survival

or compassion for ourselves

(though some can never forget, the loss so great)

And what is forgetting, after all

we overestimate the moral weight of our own feelings

longing for substance, weight

but still, it is a luxury.

Our faces will stay this way for some time

we forget

it happens again

(it happens to so many, every day)

We reckon with this world

confronted by its suffering

always someone

somewhere

whose face is lined with grief

broken by sorrow

healed by love

even as it happens

again

and our faces

remember.

Washington State

July 22: Washington State.

(10:30 pm)

Having now

crossed this country,

Massachusetts to Washington,
exchanged sea for desert and back again.

Today we fell apart.
Two hours became six,
all of us wanting 
to fall asleep in the backseat,

to be awoken

when it was all over,

prying sticky fingers from our seatbelts

washing our hands before falling

into bed.

When—

really, when?
When does memory become nostalgia?

When is the relief

that a child fastens her own shoes

replaced with longing

for the time everything

could be
so easily repaired 
with an absently offered breast.

When does that happen, when—

when does it become

that sweet-sour ache
bittersweet familiarity of how

it will never be again.

When

July 17, 2013: Montana, Route 90

Checotah, OK

August 4: Checotah, OK.

Camping,

again too close to the highway.

It’s loud.
Grasshoppers as big as my thumb compete with
semi trucks in the near distance.

This darkness, this humid night carrying
sound and the past across miles, years.

Route 611,
Eastern Pennsylvania.
Four years old at the stove, my
Grandmother's vague wheeze, her antique curling iron in
the flame of the stove.

"I tell you, that child looks
just like Shirley Temple!"

Enjoy the fuss for a while

run for the hills,
The flat rock where the garter snakes hid,
salamanders and toads.

Fall asleep in these sounds,
at the mercy of another
night, another
time, another
truck

passing by.

 Photo July 11: Wall Drug, Wall, SD

Santa Fe

August 2: Santa Fe

Santa Fe, Flat Tire

Drive north, the Bobcat on your left.
No, south. 

Find the blinking light and continue a mile.
Race against the sunset.

None of these.
Do nothing. 

Wait at the side of the road.
Watch for lightning in the distance,
throw sugary snacks to the back seat, grateful for
patience, forgiveness,

finally

someone on the way.

 July 22, 2013: Wallace, ID

August 1, 2013: Santa Fe

Breadth

Breadth

Breadth of this land,

Would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it.

From one coast to the center

From fog enveloping everything

to red cliffs swallowing us all to

sandstone glinting

impassive

Mesa to prairie.

One land, 

not mine, not yours.

Its own,

enduring even our ambivalence,

even our small fears,

even this, to

enfold us again,

to keep

driving.

Photo 7/31/13 Old Route 64, Arizona

Today

 7/1/13

Today

What is it about today
that banished the shadows 
beyond the sea?

Humid air
eager moss
marigolds sneaking through the weeds
the smell of jasmine under rain

or maybe any of these

in itself

the assurance of

what is visible

while walking