(new Lady poem this morning)
Memorial Day
We were recovering, too weak
to mow the lawn, and it rained
and it sunned, and half the lawn
was grass, and half the lawn was
clover. I trampled a path through
the clover to plant the sunflower
rootings that came in the mail,
the lavender before it was
too late, holding my tummy tuck
lest I bust my stitches
I found a garter snake
under the decaying fall leaves.
It moved like water to the
faucet coming from our
foundation stones and
slipped into a gap
Snakes do not have hands
but we do – here is the church
here is the steeple, here’s some cave
carved from an ancient river,
hand prints paint souls
like leaves on trees. Lay back
and watch the innate kindling
of the TV in the mind
passenger’s trip
We hold hands on the holiday,
the morning walk
Our dog stops at the telephone
pole at the end of the street,
looking for sweet new blades
of spring green grass
A neighborhood dog barks.
Somewhere out there
there’s agreement
On Audible we learned
birds recognize each others’ calls.
The robin hears the sparrow
the jay mimics the crow
They feel like we feel
It’s going to be OK
The mirror in the garden
says namaste
Memorial Day –
the Grand River –
sedimentary layers
clay limestone shale
dog shit on the bank
It’s fecund
it smells like rusted blood
it smells like coffee
We’ve canoed the river and
on its banks I’ve picked up rocks
to find salamanders
I carry the memory of days there
like a lotus of a transcendental sobriety
I found a morel
in our yard by the compost gate.
It came up ready, nary any pull
ripping noiselessly from the ground
It wilted as I carried it
I brought it just to show it
I turned around to put it back
I could not find out where it
came from
What can I say
but clay tests the hand
and it makes a pot
Last year I found one too,
a morel, and I expect next one
next year
This year’s bees are cleaning
out last year’s hive beyond
the grand pine you can see from
the bridge on Pearl
The tree’s how we know
where our house is. Smith wants
to paint the other side of the
picket fence white so we can see
it from Pearl
In July as you step off the deck
you can smell honey from the oven
of the hive’s hot hatchery.
They beat their wings,
keep it just right
The bees give warning bops
but rarely sting. We are in
the flight path to the field
they dance and waggle about
Last year they went up and up into
the trees, half the hive, I watched
them, a dark cloud up and over the
pine until they looked like
gnats in the robin’s egg sky
I watched until the view
evaporated
This year
regardless of their tolerance
we will check every frame
until we get to the bottom of it
and wipe out the extra queen cups
We keep them –
we are keeping them regardless
of their consensus
Golden and angry
they’ll stay in their nest
and in the winter you can put your ear
to the hive, hear the beating
whir of the lion’s heart, an engine
powered by honey
You know, birds’ eyes have four cones
where we have three. They can see
kingdoms in an ultraviolet canopy
Thoughts are in the trees –
living books, and mycorrhizal fungi
tap out signals from their feet
Every day I thank the Lord
the shape that’s buoyed me
in its volume of ancient
recorded oxygen
Pick up a leaf with the labyrinth
of your fingerprints –
it drains into a palimpsest
the map on your palm,
the rivers on the leaf
~ Lady
