On January 2, I started in
with 30 days of yoga where I dwell.
Day Zero – New Year’s – led me to begin,
and I choose 30 lines to show & tell
routine I know will lead to feeling well.
Intending to compose dizains for thirds,
I hope to find the rhythm and the words
in 10-line stanzas, on curated moves.
Each iamb builds a headband that begirds
intention, as my posturing improves.
The afternoon was gray. Without was rain.
Within I kept 2 children company.
Observing we could make a paper chain,
first 6 endorsed, approved by almost-3.
We found some colored paper in 5 shades,
a roll of tape and scissors I could use
(to cut effectively took grownup blades),
and then we sat to labor and amuse.
Scotch tape dispenser was my job to do.
He governed paper strips and dealt them round.
She giggle-garlanded as linkage grew.
Then all together we festooned, and wound
the longest chain we’d ever formed before.
So now the tree will stand a few days more.
You never thought your cousin would reply,
and yet you sent resentment, overwrought
and angry, heels dug in, about to cry.
You never thought…
You knew you should suppress the impulse, fraught
with indignation, shrapnel in your eye,
flailing blind, forgetting that you taught
us all to true our aim before we ply
our words. You let yourself by rage be caught,
and now your ire has to multiply.
You never thought.
It wasn’t you who helped me overhaul
perspective in the pits of 22
years old. You gave advice, but overall,
it wasn’t you.
Some bar room rules you mentioned – that is true –
and how to flirt or even fake a drawl.
But thinking on it now, your mots were few.
I didn’t beg for expertise in mall
affairs. I’d have you think before you do.
Reviewing memories, I can recall
it wasn’t you.
Is this compulsive, or a discipline,
to daily post a poem for near four years?
It had a therapeutic origin
in quarantine – locked in I thought for weeks,
I figured I would give new forms a spin
(I’d worked in sonnets for some decades then).
I’m now near fourteen hundred mornings in,
and no impulse to stop this craft appears.
It’s under, like a fine tattoo, my skin.
Last night I didn’t hear a ceiling sound.
No thump or whimper moved me while I slept.
There’s nothing musky in the air around
me now, and nothing black & white has crept
peripherally into sight. I found
no sign of skunks today to intercept
my peace and atmosphere, but I don’t guess
they’ve yet removed their noise and noisomeness.
(Ottava Rima)
Twice recently I woke amidst a dream
in which I had a worry or concern
about my little girl or boy. The scene
was not a nightmare, but it took a turn
of search or plan required, and between
the instant fade and blink, I’d time to learn
my circumstance was dream. Then real was known –
my kids are well away and fully grown.
(Ottava Rima)
Persimmons hang like orange Christmas spheres
and tantalize this squirrel in the yard.
She climbs and stretches so her chest appears,
and bites the fruit that is no longer hard
the way it was two weeks ago. On guard
and geared for predators, I take a shot
behind my window glass, and she is not
aware of me, absorbed in sucking juice
and chewing flesh like sour apricot,
that’s ripening to hint of maple mousse.
(Dizain)
The theme a week ago was gratitude –
eight minutes meditating on the rug.
I crossed my legs in peaceful attitude,
and ocean-breathed as if it were a drug.
The guide said now be glad to be imbued
with grace you haven’t voiced. I gave a shrug
to realize I love irritation’s touch,
that makes me wake and innovate so much.
(Ottava Rima)
I’ve co-existed with the critters here –
the garden is their home as much as mine –
and wasn’t overbothered till this year,
when building on my eastern boundary line,
and now the north, has changed the biosphere.
Too many skunks no longer seem benign.
I’ll have to find an expert to repel
this surfeit of small neighbors, and their smell.
(Ottava Rima)
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