poesia early/spring 2019 // posted may 2021, unedited

thursday. 31jan

Lentriculostriate, cerebellum, medulla oblangata

Early light spills in the windows. 

Grey, blue, the eyelid of a periwinkle giant,

somewhere close. Murmuring the parts of the brain that I try to stuff in mine. 

Telencephalon, basal ganglia, fissure of sylvain. 

I have a mum who makes me coffee 

It sits now, pre dawn besides the notes and the screen. 

I have a friend who wrote a lullaby for our nessabel ten years past, 

its notes I keep playing. 

warm and delight, calling up a golden October of newness. 

The friend sits warm in an arctic chill. 

Our silvansol wanders in with frisson and loud hullo, the goldengirl of ten plays notes in the rooms across the lightening house. Murmurs, shouts. Coffee on my tongue. 

Temporal lobe, soma, wernicke. Vibrations, vibrations, axons, strings.  

13feb

There’s a ball of quaking earth within me

Querulous, quaking, queasy 

But there is a horizon out this window...

wide, solid, curve of earth. 

Wide solid curve. 

16feb

Walking in the rain

here

this red yellow brown below, blue above thirsty land

is a thousand thank yous. 

thanks thanks thanks. thank you. 

the kiss of water, the grey. 

the smell of daffodil water in the vase. 

past fresh beauty.

whispering spring. 

whispering wait. 

(while watching bacon, cleaning the kitchen, soli drawing dragons; jack gilbert and valentine’s breakfast) 

dear our grandparents

beloved our priscilla and bob

I miss you. 

I miss your tables. And your talk. 

I miss the stunning simplicity of your homes

The beauty 

The you. 

Tea 

     Talk

Tea

    Talk

Tea

     Talk

I miss the blankets of your love. So much love. 

How I wish I could ask you, now that I have a decade of parenting 

About how you did it. And why

The pains. The hurts. The deep dark of ache and sadnesses. The ones we know now- and then?- can not be blanketed. 

The love and the love. 

And if I was, again at your table

I would probably balk. 

Stutter. Stop. 

Bask in the utter gift of you. 

the utter gift of you two. 

(the tea) the love. 

Love 

Love. 

18feb.

jessa and dean’s kitchen 

the coffee without milk dark of 5:40am 

february. 

a circle of light at the counter 

(grain of wood, conus medullaris, an orchid, the pattern of the rugs on the light white oak floor, cauda equina )

like the hopper painting 

things are cliche for a reason

(bright orange of clementine, filum terminale, shy yellow of banana)

an oasis amidst the dark,

dark another kind of welcome

but this island, bright, feeling of safe. 

warm. 

coffee with cream. 

the morning tiptoes in. 

That eve. 

Something about our ships. 

28feb

the shallow sea of your breathing

here with me,

it is not so rare, but not so common either. 

everynight here with you, sea breath in, sea breath out,

gifts.  

I walk my fingers across the sheetsweep between us, and rest their tips on your 

bones, 

the sweet dip beneath the crest. 

iliac ridge,

Sea of Iliac. 

your breath out. your breath in. 

ease. deep. ease

wish whisper water. 

snow on the mountain,

we missed the deep, caught the deep

blue and white and brown across the crests

the melt drip drop

off our walls, the white to brown

making small seas

iliac sea. 

your breaths in the shallows. 

Our breath in the deeps. 

2march

You know what I love?

The longer days, more sunlight to drink, starting about mid February

wending our way to this March. 

Metal cups filled with coffee, warm and warm hours into studying. 

Saying Acetabulum. Acetabulum. 

Probably mis-saying Acetabulum. 

Shelves and shelves of books. 

Interrupting studying, again, to write this poem. Breath coffee-soaked. 

Shouldn’t love that. But I do. 

4march

Just at dawn, another neuro test/distractagirl

Other things I love 

learning the body, 

Hours and hours on

partial maps 

that light up paths 

of places

I never knew were there. 

spinoreticular, pascinian corpuscles, rubrospinal

early, early morning light

Your head in my arm

Its dense weight a beloved stone

The soft weights of the children

In whatever form they give us. 

You, my love, are a bearer of lightness 

and light

A bearer of irreverent glee

and glad. 

For these, amidst seas of other things, 

I am ridiculously grateful. 

The day we didn’t do powder

Or did some

But not all

Was a day filled with open breathtaking vistas

New trails and 

friends- long held, seldom seen

Overpriced food on cold benches

Like the other side

But this side instead. 

15apr // look at 2021 iteration

the beauty we’ve been granted. 

We take up so much more

than our share of planet 

And live in a high dry place 

meant for just 

a few of us,

So very few. 

Rivers that wind like thread 

Crops that fight for rain

And still 

I want to lick this dirt, swallow this sky

Eat the red brown earth

So in love.  

This beauty we’ve been granted

The beauty. This. 

Wishes. 

May we share what has been stolen. 

May what was given, be known. 

Blossoms. 

Neuro.  

Words. 

The pier. 

Hawk 

Pancakes 

Donor; being a donor.

heart outside one's body.

24april

Went out this morning, not super early

To walk the bode, and sip some coffee...

but the earth was welcome with 

yesterday’s rain
and today’s birdsong
sweet sweet air
and so,
I began to weed (not my usual morning ritual my mama can tell you)
fingers in red dirt,
taking out those small stubborn plants
deliberately
Around the stone, under the stones, 
Thinking of time. And peace. 
The land we clear, 
the sticks and stones and dirt before us and after. 
every moment long long ago, unspooling, echoed, 
and those a bouquet of hours just picked...easteregg laughter up and down our arroyo hills, easterfrocks caught in breeze. 
and right here, at my toes, 
the ones who’ve stayed-
creatures of eons 
caught in rock dresses, their ridged wonder a constant surprise. 

3may

for Rae

Why do we travel?

For the the light on our love’s face as we look from the darkened room to the sun-basked balcony

A building intricate in its angles and stories

Cold beer on a warm tile table

Coffee in a warm, round cup. Tea. 

A lit up billboard, so familiar in its utter strangeness

Crowds milling amidst chatter and exhaust 

a stranger’s lilt of laughter across a street 

A path leading up

Music around a corner, the view around another

The sweep of blue or green or city 

Two people caught by a window, delicious food unnoticed as they revel in details of a day. 

4may

the twelve apostles

So many apostles. So many feasts. So many betrayals. So many gifts. 

These twelve. or three.  whatever was done, whatever was waiting.

I. Olfactory. pink and white blooms of our twinned plum trees. Purple crabapple.  Lilacs soon. Coffee. Always coffee. 

II. Optic. 

VIII. Vestibulocochlear. There are crystals inside our ears- the utricles and saccules to be semiexact - that float on a gelatinous layer, like a cap, on hair cells inside canals. Otoliths, the word like whispers after new rain. Oto. Lith. Earstones. They sway as we sway, opposite direction actually, back and forth, up and down. Send signals to the vestibulocerebellum and vestibular nuclei. Information all the time. Calculating. Responding. Making major corrections and micro movements. Every minute.  Our bodies in space. In relation to self. To others. Balance and proprioception. Twirling, running. Just bending and standing. Crystals in gel on hairs inside canals that keep us upright and steady on the earth. It’s incredible we work at all. 

XI. Accessory. Innervates the sternocleidastoid and trapezius muscles she said lovingly. Rolling around the syllables on her tongue (see XII).  A shrug. A circus. A handstand. A hug. The social justice bigtop we are sometimes part of; our girl on the trapeze. 

XII. hypoglosseal. 

One of the apostles runs her hand across the grain of the table, grabs her glass, rose of course, and lifts it to reciprocate the toast. 

8may

pieces that didn’t make it into poems, late winter/spring 2019

today, walking on the trail, it rained so little I could count the rain drops, 

ever less darkening skies. 

Bubbles, cousins, eggs in flowers and chalk

Exquisite volcanos, rising in open palms, unencumbered to the west of albuquerque 

Pancakes every morning on our piece of pier.

Spring ballgowns dancing through fields in tesuque, 

The early green fields of cienaga. 

Soapboxes and wildflowers, the prick of cactus spine,

the curated canvases of lilacs. 

The two toy ships anchored to our ceilings, holding dreams. Dreams and dreams and real things. 

8july

petra = stone

ichor = the fluid that runs through the veins of the gods

warm dry wind in the setsun, the rain of just yesterday feels so far away. 

Golden hour. A golden fleece. 

the buzz and chant of an oft hidden insect. 

No golden scarab this; the translucent wings and fat greybody hum. 

Apricots. Rain. The smell as it hits thirst and rock. Children in puddles; a sky wide open. giddiness. 

we rush toward miracles. 

conjure the gods. 

what the what? anything more stunning than that?

last poem/midsummer july 

Petrichor

Quotidian 

Chiaroscuro 

Palimpsest 

Ciacadas 

Incantations

weave the spell. 

For robin on my birthday// sum equals the parts (late winter, spring, early summer), 2019

never given, but now posted (4may21)