Some Poems

I haven't posted lately because, while I have been reading, I've mostly been WRITING. The ultimate "would you rather" question for me - my two loves. I could never decide between them. But reading I am capable of doing an excessive amount of, with or without accountability. Writing requires structure, and pressure. I need projects, deadlines, workshops. It's not that I wouldn't write without those things. It's that I am easily overwhelmed by options and find not starting at all greatly preferable to actually trying to pick something to work on. Hence - the master's degree. Maybe, from this, I can build some kind of life that involves regular, intentional writing in the same way that I have with reading.

All my writing lately has been deadline-oriented, so that's helped with my output. I did a complete manuscript edit of my friend Sarah's memoir, which was tough but very rewarding. Sarah is an amazing, godly woman with a remarkable story, and it was an honor to have any part in it. As soon as I finished that project, my spring semester classes started. I'm taking editing and production, which will mostly involve working on others' pieces for the school literary magazine, rather than writing myself. I'm also taking poetry, which I'm pretty excited about. It's not my strongest genre, but I feel like I learned a lot about it last semester, and I'm really looking forward to learning more. So here are a few poems I've written in the past few months, including the first one I'm turning in for my poetry class tonight.

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Once, as you took in the view across the Silver Creek Valley,

your goggles filled with snow.

This happens sometimes.

But what doesn’t happen sometimes

is that your leg starts to bend

under you and you fall, slowly, twisting.

What also doesn’t happen is that your binding sticks

and your boot doesn’t release

so that your leg bends but your foot stays straight.

Another thing that doesn’t happen is that you ride down the mountain

in an orange plastic sled that doesn’t quite hold you still,

towed by a ski patroller who was watching Baywatch in the shed

and really didn’t want to be bothered

so now he is not being very careful about bumps.

You don’t arrive at the bottom,

accompanied by your father,

and hobble back to the car.

Your father doesn’t insist you are fine

and drive you home without stopping at the doctor.

Your little brother doesn’t laugh at you

and steal your last chicken finger.

Your mom isn’t out with a friend when you need her.

The next day, you don’t hop around on one leg,

occasionally falling, and thinking, “That’s not good.”

You don’t go back to school on Monday with a neon pink cast

thigh high.

And your friends don’t sign it,

“Get well soon! Best friends forever! Don’t ever change!”

And you don’t miss an entire softball season.

No, this doesn’t happen.

Your ski works exactly like it’s supposed to.

You shove your boot back inside.

Clean out your goggles with your scarf.

Finish the run.

No Rain

The first thing I noticed was your eggplant-colored watchband

And I thought

That’s colorful

I wouldn’t have given you a second look

Except

The San Francisco Giants were winning the World Series

On the television behind you

And I couldn’t look away from that

The third drink you bought me was too sweet

But by then I hardly noticed

By then the only thing I saw

Was the smooth nakedness of your fourth finger

And how perfectly it matched my own

You walked me back to my apartment

And on the corner of 5^th and A the snow began to fall

I shivered

You wrapped your arm around me

I counted the freckles on the bridge of your nose

Before I got to the sixth you were kissing me

Under a streetlight like a glowing oasis in the darkness

I brought you up to the seventh floor

And we stood on the terrace, watching the snowflakes silently fall

I couldn’t hear the traffic on the street anymore

All I could hear was you softly humming

Beethoven’s Eighth, or was it Ninth?

It didn’t matter

Before long we headed back downstairs

You hated to go, you said, but you had an early morning

I watched you walk away into the October blackness

Wondering when I would see you

And why the tenth months is named as if it were the eighth

I went inside and sat on the floor against my front door

Still feeling your fingertips on my clavicle

In the eleventh inning

Something had begun to stir

I lay on my bed, perfectly still

The clock chimed for the twelfth time

I closed my eyes

The Baptist

You leap in the womb

At the announcement of His conception

Your direction from the beginning

Is to declare His coming

Camel skin tailored for a prophet

Your leather-covered steps knew only one course

Beside the riverbank you wait

A reed untouched by wind, unbroken

They come to you, hearing your call

They go beneath the water

Cooled from the desert sun

Purified and made new

Held by your hands

Hands which you will use for nothing else

When they question

You only point

To Him

Did you know what becoming less would mean?

Did you own the end as you did the beginning?

Can you drink this cup?

Others stumble and fall

Washed away by doubt

Only to be lifted up by a strong hand

But you don’t fall

You have no questions

You know your purpose

Your life, devoted to one who would save you,

Lost in one instant

You no longer own it

The sand shifts in the desert

The heat bears down

Your eyes, wide open, stare from your head

Which sits on a silver platter

No one bothers to close them

No one looks into them

If anyone did

They might see a question

“Should we expect someone else?”

I Am Tired

I am tired of writing poems

Of cutting open veins so that my blood spills out on the page

Decorating it with splotches that resemble the faces of everyone I know

I am tired of trying to decide how I feel

About my grandfather’s death or my cat’s

The end of summer or the first snowflakes

I am tired of half-inspired attempts to name the things in my life

So that my childhood home becomes a symbol for loss

And my father is protection

And my job is the struggle for identity

Is it too much to ask to just let these things be what they are?

Why is it necessary to snip off little pieces of myself

And use them to build lines and stanzas?

These poems now come to represent my dissatisfaction with myself

That my turns of phrase don’t quite ring like church bells on a clear night

That my metaphors don’t paint swirls of color on a blank white world

That my sound patterns don’t beat like a jungle drum announcing the coronation of a king

I am tired of plunging deep into layers of heart and brain

In search of tiny gifts of truth that my reader can cling to

Like a cord thrown into a pile of quicksand

I am tired of worrying that perhaps there is no such truth

Or that in trying to find it I will instead bump into great volcanoes of fear and fallenness

Or that I won’t be able to tell of what I do find in a new way

Or at least a freshly laundered way

I am tired of writing poems

But they come out like breath, and blood, and flame

Unbidden

A Life Without Loss

On a bare frigid morning,

I put an empty cup on the porch rail

to catch snowflakes.

That afternoon, we buried my neighbor’s husband,

seven days after his first seizure.

His wife, holding an infant, wept.

A toddler gripped her hand.

She handed the baby to me,

and I took him,

because I wasn’t holding anything else.

I would return to my home

and find it just as I left it.

The only change my cup,

now overflowing with snow.