Window Frames

So small the window frames the whole of it,
but only briefly, driving past;
a fleeting photograph no one would take—
only barren hills in Southern Canada,
as she passes on her way to Michigan.
Just snapshot moments, less permanent
than hills framed by the window in her bedroom
where she slept in her parent’s house.

The family moved when she was seven
and she got to choose first, since she was oldest.
She was first to leave too, with new places waiting.

She’s outgrown twin beds, and the room
that has always been slightly too small
but she liked the family of doves that built a nest
outside and sang in the morning, and she liked
the view of the backyard with hills framed in her window.

Elegy

Sitting in an overstuffed leather armchair, watching a documentary
about Bob Dylan, but also about the 60’s, the ’63 march and
Martin Luther King Jr., Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow
and Medger Evers and, though not explicitly, Phil Ochs, and
a generation, a movement, and protest and music and my heroes,
and the Newport Folk Festival where Johnny Cash and Joan Baez played.
Thinking about Ginsberg, the Beats and the cafes where everything began
and how sincerely all of them believed that they
could change the world (and did in their way).
Watching Pete Seeger speaking I’m reminded
of another documentary, screened at a protest in Georgia—
high school students interviewing him and not knowing he is an “influential singer.”
But mostly I’m thinking about Mel, who lent me the movie
and gave me a candy apple red guitar and taught me
about the blues and jazz and is dying of lung cancer.

Driving Flashes

it was the deepest black one might imagine
punctuated with brief bright flashes
strobe light semi-colons spaced sentence length apart

driving alone the distance keeps us apart
ghost-like you appear and I imagine
your hand laced in mine then the image flashes

unseen hands scrawl words that stream from flashes
to blackboard-air piling up but apart
answering questions not yet imagined

i can’t imagine—
us truly apart
life without flashes

Acer Saccharum

It was too early, but the farmer
strung the Christmas lights
on his favorite young maple
bright in the chilly sun.

Soon the lights would be
the only covering it had.

Naked in its least favorite season
passing hikers would comment on
the beauty of snow glistening
on the maple’s slender boughs
smooth like young boys’ legs.

And oh, how jealous the maple was
of the apple trees, producing
such lovely fruit that
the farmer picked it
to make cider and pies.

When the maple matured,
in its fifteenth year,
only small winged seeds
would attempt to laden its branches
spinning like helicopters in the fall breezes
of years yet to come,

When the farmer’s children would carefully
dissect them, and stick them on their noses
pretending to be elephants, giggling in the shade.

It was jealous too of the chattering squirrels
racing up and down the worldly oak,
collecting acorns and building nests,
and ignoring the maple, finding little use
for small branches and seeds.

And though the maple wanted to shed its own bark,
to produce something more useful, or delicious,
what it wanted most was just to reach
its fifteenth year.

Snow

Mud cakes my sneakers as we
explore the 70 acres of country land
with vast fields of pines, spruces and firs,
but the bulldozer across the street testifies
to its inevitable descent into suburbia.
As I cut down our Christmas tree
I remember a picture in my house:

I am five of six, winter hat too big,
Puffy coat and mock fur lined boots.

We trampled through the snow to find
the perfect tree, tied it on the car
as my uncles threw snowballs.

Piling into the car, my uncle pushes my
grandmother into a snow bank
and everyone laughs, but I am concerned.

In the picture I yank my grandmothers hand
determined to help her up, but I’m too small;
even the snow bank is taller than me.

Of Soldiering and Fasion*

Her closet is filled with kooky, pretty things:
slinky Missoni sweater dresses
polka dots and
girly illustrated tops from Tsumori Chisato
Chacharel floral frocks
She was selected in the special talent recruitments at 12
To see what everyone was wearing at the Oscars along side
High ranking women in uniform.

She wanted to serve because she loved her country
I look too stiff in Prada she says, sighing, as
congress and the military question whether women are ready for ground fighting

A blight has fallen on the red carpet.



*This piece was created by taking random sentences from a random book pulled off the shelf in the library and a fashion magazine and synthesizing them.

Silence

They approach one by one
to light a candle in memory
and even those passing by can’t
bring themselves to speak
and as the light grows only
an occasional sob is heard,
as the crowd steadily builds but

The wind of the night
Swallows their sound

The Path

The path

The Path winds, eternally
grateful for a place to be,
trees to twist around, and
slowly decaying leaves mixed
with browning pine needles that soften
the foot steps of deer

It romps through pine stands and
Climbs a hill dancing through maples,
Swishing with the tall grass in a small field before
Hopping over a bog, stopping to croak with a bull frog

Then all at once, carefully planted
pachysandra edges its sides like emergency lanes
and a sign made of a stick and plain white paper
reads “Trail Ends Here” but nobody told

the path.

Bengal India, Age 11

You squat barefoot
waiting for your little
brother to load slabs of clay
on top of the
rag on his head,
stumbling under the weight
as he brings them over.
You roll the clay in the dust,
fit it in your brick mold,
pound it and, skillfully
cutting the excess off,
knock the brick
out to sun bake before
it’s fired in the kiln,
whose smokestack rises.
And you no longer
notice the foul smell
of the smoke you breathe
fifteen hours of every day.
You knock another brick
among the countless others,
that spread out from you
like a patio but with no
comforts of the home you left
two years ago when your parents
took a five dollar loan
they couldn’t repay.

Tree Spiking

Light filters through the green canopy
illuminating a carpet of browning leaves
which the grey and gold tinged
fungi will transform
into next season’s canopy
that will house chickadees,
goldfinches,
honeybees,
stick bugs,
and countless beetles.
Ferns growing in the shade
protect young rabbits, and field mice,
food for lynxes and fox that burro
under fallen rotting trunks.


Here green clad eco-soldiers,
environmentalist, primitivist, activist,
and as alive as the forest,
drive ten inch nails
into the trees that they
love so much,
to save them
from the chainsaw,
and the mill
where men labors,
unable to work elsewhere.

Earth First! can’t understand the destruction
of the world we share, but

the mill workers can’t fathom the
industrial saw blade lunging towards them
barbed teeth hungry for life.

To Jeff

I

The grime on your hands
sticks to the handle of the
Unishears as you cut
the sheet metal that will
cover the side of the Air-Handler
and connect the Flex to the
air vents, cooling the suburban
two story
four bedroom
two and a half bath
comfortable and stylish
home.

When the job is finished
we ride in your white industrial van,
“Campbell Cooling, LLC” painted on the side
with the HVAC license plate.

Smoke from your cigarette
splashes against the windshield
just like it did yesterday,
and the days before that
this summer driving between jobs
when you’d share stories of your life:


II

You were twenty, a machinist
working in your father’s shop.
High school was a burden,
since you’d take over the shop someday;
besides, you liked working better.

You started drinking heavily
when the machine shop closed down
but no one in your family
wanted to confront you.


You got married, your wife drank too
and you spent most of your money
on booze and USA Golds.

You crashed the car
with the transmission you just installed,
got pulled over drunk three of four more times
when your wife left.

You lived in a group home for
recovering alcoholics and addicts,
and worked full time but they still made you
mop the floor every night
because everyone had a chore.

Your parents came to your graduation
from the local voc-tech school, proud
that you didn’t drink any more
that you had a steady job.


III

Your new girlfriend is a recovering addict
she tells you to reduce your stress,
and yells at you when you forget
the four-year anniversary of
the day she quite drugs.

Your basement apartment
floods when it rains a lot
and mold grows everywhere;
You smoke two packs a day
to keep from drinking,
which makes the place
even mustier, and danker.

You show up to work at seven
and work until six every day,
and usually you work Saturdays too
but you only jokingly complain
that you haven’t had a vacation
in over two years.

You blow up aliens on your new
Play Station that your girlfriend
insisted you buy to help you relax,
but you tell me that having to escort the nuclear bomb
through the military base just
stresses you out more.

You talk about selling your parent’s house,
buying a little place for you all to live.
You joke about your brother,
how you used to tease him for going to college,
but now he makes a ton of money.

You work for fifteen dollars an hour
with no benefits,
trying to repay student loans.

Counterfit Daybreak

The Milky Way
used to shine
but now the
faint cloud
fights to exist

the light from the city
assaults the darkness

The Tree Fort

When I was six,
In the infinite woods
That lay behind my house
Stood a tree fort
My uncle built just for me.

I would set out
For the long journey,
An adventurer searching
For ancient ruins,
My dog close by
To protect me.

I crossed the raging river,
Carefully balancing on a fallen log,
And hike a treacherous trail
Through the overgrown jungle.

I often traveled miles
Before chancing upon
My tree fort ruins,
Where I could spend hours
Hidden deep in the jungle,
Alone as only a child can be
With their imagination.


It has been fifteen years since I have explored those woods,
But it was only this year my mother told me that
She could see my tree fort from the kitchen window.

Sleeping

I never realized how lonely
Sleeping could be until
I shared a bed with you
My arm draped over your side
Holding you close to me
Face to face
We shared soft kisses
Until we drifted to sleep
Only to wake up smiling
Throughout the night
Because you are there
Keeping me warm

Driving

I am driving alone late
at night and my hand dangles
from the armrest. Soon I gently
feel your fingers laced in mine.

I smile and
move my hand
to your leg,
you smile back,
and I take my eyes
off the road,
for just a moment,
to look at you.

I squeeze your leg
right above the knee
and you squeak,
but I hear the giggle in it.
You glare at me
in mock anger;
I grin back.
You throw my hand
off your leg
and cross your arms
over your chest.
I make a sad face,
and apologize;
you smile widely
taking my hand again.

You disappear,
and I’m left alone
again but I can somehow
still feel you
with me.

First Snow Fall

The whitness creates
A comforting night-time glow
A gorgeous silence

Untitled

The only thing I want is to sleep
Just another few hours
Because four isn't enough.
The alarm clock reads 4:02
When I get in the shower
Which wakes my body.
The lack of sleep
Stays with me
Through my cup of coffee
And onto the plane.
The pain of leaving
Mingles with tiredness,
But I can't fall back asleep
The shower and coffee take their toll

But ten minutes into the flight, the plane skims eye level with blushing clouds
And the horizon beams gold at the beauty it has created.
Then, completely without warning, a brilliant pinprick of light crests over the earth.

St. Thomas

Sun glistening off the pearly blue-turquoise waves,
A bright red fish jumps from the surf near the reef.

Fake white leather seats on a too clean boat,
That took us from St. Thomas to a tiny island.
Scuba gear loaded,
Lotion amply applied and
Towels and sandals close at hand.
Soon velvet sand squishes
Between sunburned toes and heats
Bare soles that are used to shoes
Hammocks, brightly colored and strung
Like spider webs wait to catch
Unsuspecting visitors between palm trees
When they’ve had too much rum
At the nearby bar
Which is the only building in the island
And isn’t really a building
But a roof, (no walls) and a bar

But the hammocks seem so inviting that I go to lay in one.
It feels like my grandmother’s hammock
Strung between two crab apple trees
In the back of her Northern Michigan Bed and Breakfast.
We would sit and she would rock us with a broomstick.
But here the sun is hot, and the trees are palm, and
I lay by myself in a hammock and rock in the Caribbean breeze.

Recolections

I was six when we moved and
Although I don’t remember all of it,
I know the walls were red,
Since it was called the red room.

The dark navy couch with
Little white flowers must have been there,
And probably the red Lay-Z boys too.

And I’m quite sure the Christmas tree
Was always back in the red room
Because Buddy would lay under it,
Shedding on the tree skirt, or batting at ornaments.

I remember this is where I played,
My toys behind the couch that hid
The TV—I’d have to pop my head over
To see what was going on in the world,
But I never really watched, only glanced.

Because it didn’t affect me.

I was protected by the
Redness of my playroom.Laughing

The Photograph

Two dark silhouetted figures stand
Sharply in contrast to
Their bright blue sky background, and

Act as a mirror
As I stare through the glossy plastic cover and
See my face in the picture, but

Not my whole face
For the sky and clouds consort,
Rebelling, they omit part of me