Dear Laura
I thought of a poem
to write because
it’s a lovely rain
splashing off 95
making the trees
extra special green
like I could lick them
and they’d taste of spring
and wild animals
as I try to escape
this life of work and laundry.
Grace
Placid waves
wash warm
Over toes, knees,
belly to breasts.
Drink in sun.
Float
cotton-candy clouds
framing
rose,
lemon,
sapphire
sky.
Mongolian Desert Sunrise
sun rises
slowly.
at first
sky’s merely a
lighter blue,
stars fade
as lemon and pale tangerine
glow on the horizon.
camels
softly call,
sounding
like
intermittent
distant motorcycles.
dark outlines change
to
pale peach-ochre land
studded with
quartz and granite and
chocolate rocky outcrops.
stunted and uneven
grass glows
viridian tipped
with silver-gold
seed kernels
and sheath.
6/27/17, revised 9/25/18
Valley of Mist
Mist wafts,
gently kisses
the contoured banks
of Patapsco River.
Cloaks tree tops
after days
and weeks of rain
wrapped in beauty
that,
despite traffic,
licks the leaves
wet
with promise.
First Husband
What is there to say?
The last time
we met on the street
you showed surprise my hair
had turned gray,
although you were kind enough
to quickly hide it.
Our greeting was too brief;
you were still angry,
I had so many regrets.
I was 24 years old,
a topless dancer on Walker Street.
I wanted to perform with Martha Graham.
Instead of telling you I was a student,
I told you my dream.
You tipped generously
and asked for a private dance.
I wore my red coat to your loft
and fell in bed
after you rubbed my back.
I remember tripping in
kaleidoscope colors of
sea and fish and coral rocks
as we made love
still wet from the Caribbean sea.
Mongolia
The world is
a 360 degree mandala,
surrounded by mountains,
rivers cutting valleys,
Human pathways
and animal tracks
leading me
across this broad plain.
After the Storm, 6 A.M. East 7th Street
Pale silver sky
reflects on black iron.
Fire escape raindrops
slowly illuminate
this visceral world.
Birds’ babble,
laughter
rises with mist
from the street below.
I smile and
close my eyes
in calm satisfaction.
I lie still
between soft, worn
cotton sheets,
above spring verdant trees,
mahogany branches,
as lemon glimmers
among
sapphire clouds.
I know the secret
of tiny mosaics
and that
magical
pink metal
laundry box
in the bathroom.
The fire escape ladder,
is my tree house
framed by wet-dark branches
and cobalt curtains.
The rain-bejeweled
fire escape
will take me
directly
to heaven.
City to City
I tightly hug
my sons goodbye.
Leave them
to their young men’s lives.
Drive away
after skies decant a
thunderstorm,
then burst into
peach and pale azure.
Journey and travel
and ride
through ebony night,
singing loudly
to stay awake.
Park in dawn harbor,
crimson and tangerine
ripple on dark water.
Gentle breeze,
moon slice
punctuated with
a single star,
dark side of the moon
outlined against
indigo sky.
And wrapped
in my husband’s arms
I dream
a gentle scent
of
sweet
spring rain.
June 20, 2017
Wyeth
White and white
essential light
Fog and forest
field and plow
Isolation
and family
Though privileged
he saw in poverty
his mirror image
black edges in.
Rise from Baltimore’s land, swinging south, the harbor lies cushioned by skyscrapers. Fluffy clouds in pale azure sky turning gold and rose. The moon a companion, rising directly next to my window, nearly full, cold pale light. Sail across land, the necklace of the Bay Bridge below and then..we are floating over ocean…there is nothing below us but clouds that we might drift down and straight down into the depths of the sea, inhabited by stage monsters, florescent and spiky or amorphous with a myriad of tentacles and we will sink and because I am with the magical pale Vikings we will drown but live forever frozen on the sea’s rocky floor.
gaia mouse 