Forgetting Forgetting

I thought I had trashed your letters.

I hadn't seen them in a long time,

But they turned up again the other day--

Just when I was beginning to doubt your existence.

I thought I had forgotten your face.

I know I threw out all your pictures,

But one showed up today, in an old folder--

And I learned again your irreverent smile.

On Waking from a Dream

to Andrew

I haven't dreamed of you for months--

Perhaps this is my altitude sickness,

To see your infectious, beloved smile in the night

And to think that you're happy to see me, too.

I knew this morning, waking up,

That when I strip everything else away--

All my daydreams, all my ambition, and everyone else--

That you are the only man I've ever loved.

Can you tell me why I can't stop these dreams?

Why I think of you at every turn--

Literally--and at every stop?

It takes my breath away.

How I would love to see your smile, here, now,

Here at eleven thousand feet

Where it could only add to the beauty

And make all my pain melt away.

Moment

"Rugged individualism" was a term

I had heard as a girl--

I loved it. It spoke of self-reliance,

Of cowboys and wagon trains

Of soldiers and adventurers

Of the person I wanted so badly to be.

There are other words others use

To describe this in me:

Stubbornness. Pigheadedness.

Self righteousness. Pride.

But I didn't want to rely on others.

I would do a thing myself, or not.

I know we were not built to live alone,

But perhaps I thought it weakness

To ask for help from anyone.

I have been the smart one

And I've been the strong one

The one to call when a thing needs doing.

How could I then be the one in need?

It seems so weak--and I have always

Disdained weakness. But there is a moment

Sometime in my past or future

When I have or will realize

That it is no shame to be human.

Crazy

I think it's weird that I never wrote a single poem about Andrew... Unless you count this song.

My hair is still like corn silk and it always smells like peaches

My eyes are still the blue you always said that you adore

I'm silly and I'm stubborn and I still laugh at stupid speeches

And I love you more than anyone I've ever loved before

I still have all your letters in a shoebox in my closet

I remember how you smiled at me when I tuned that old guitar

And how we drove across the desert and we watched that perfect sunset

So I can't make my heart understand why you don't love me anymore.

You told me I was beautiful and you told me I was loved

You told me you were mine forever or until I'd had enough

I don't know why you left me, don't know why you said we're through

But can you blame me for being crazy over you?

My mama and my best friend both have told me not to worry

They keep telling me that I'll move on and find somebody new

Well, I can't say I believe 'em, and I'm not in any hurry

'Cause I can't see myself with someone if that someone isn't you.

You told me I was beautiful and you told me I was loved

You told me you were mine forever or until I'd had enough

I don't know why you left me, don't know why you said we're through

But can you blame me for being crazy over you?

Can you blame me for being crazy over you?

Dichotomy (2008)

The thought of you is not independent.

Flanking your smile are your stripes and rockers;

They set a boundary as clear and impenetrable

As the tape at a crime scene.

I could sit and listen to you for hours:

Every story, every wisdom highlights for me

Your dazzling intellect, and the career

That made you the man you are.

Do you also sense this dichotomy?

Does my laughter incite you to laugh,

While reminding you again of my youth

And my inexperience?

Novel (2008)

Lying here in steerage

Waiting for my clothes to tumble dry

My fingers rest on the cover

Of a well-loved paperback,

And I think it is my only link

To you at this moment:

The novel and its pages of pencilled notes

In your swift script;

The book and these lines I write now.

At other moments there are other connections:

The champagne delight

That bubbles from my ribcage to my lips

When for the hundredth time

I read a note you've sent

At the end of a long day;

The times I have glanced at you

To find your eyes on mine.

And I wonder--

I wonder, I wonder--

Do you feel them too,

These spans of thought or feeling

That connect us?

WESTPAC 2008 Poetry

These are more poems that were born out of ship and deployment life aboard the USS Peleliu last summer. Two others have already been posted, both here and on "Random SIlliness".

Omnipresence

I saw a pillar of cloud today,

Tall and still over the water.

I wondered if it was the God of Moses,

Come down to lead his people--

But we are floating in the steel hull of an ark

There was no cloud to guide Noah

And I have no dove to scout dry land.

I saw him in the moon that turned

The night to lasting twilight;

I saw him in the last rays of the sun

As it sank into the water.

I know he is here, in this endless bowl of blue:

I can see his promises

Stretching from the sea into the sky.

Crossing

Balmy is a word that cannot be understood until it is felt:

The heavy air before a storm as we pass an unnamed South Pacific island;

The sun, intensified in its path between sky and sea;

The sudden relief of a salty breeze on the cheek.

I was raised in the heat and sweat of subtropic summers;

In days when the water in the air denied the wind the slightest movement.

I have never known days such as these on this heat-soaked deck;

I will miss what they held in their moist, still air.

Sea Change

The ocean and the clouds are iron gray:

The color of the rain that drives across the deck at night;

And it is curious, the lack of color in the water

That has, until now, been a blue I had never imagined.

It sweeps by in increasing swells,

And makes me think for a moment

That it is the ship that is still

And only the water that moves.

Delay for Rain

There is a rhythm to this life

That makes the days pass quickly,

Like a metronome ticking off the measures

Of an oft-repeated song.

It is the waiting that mocks us

Rather than the labor:

For five days we have played cards

And written letters, waiting--

Each of us, waiting for the call to come

That we are free again

That finally, we can work, can fly,

Can escape the sultry boredom of the shop

And the disapproving glances of the staff.

Pied Piper (2001)

for Marta

Today, when all the world thinks different

Is wrong, you pipe the happy songs that call

To every person who, like you, is bent

To keeping young his heart and mind and soul.

You pipe to every corner of the earth

And when your hearers rise to follow you

You smile your smile of merry, youthful mirth

And blow your pipe and play your gleeful tune.

Your piping song has never been forlorn

Each measure rings with joy, true, loud, and long,

And though you may feel gloomy or careworn,

Your piping music rings pure still, and strong.

That charm exhaled in song the world enchants:

So piper, pipe, and let the whole world dance.

Little Sister (2004)

Because you laugh at the things I don't say

Because I smile at the things you do

Because you tell me your stories

And because you listen to mine

Because of that strange quality about you

That is innocence and understanding together

Because of the gap in our ages

That is apparent and forgotten all at the same time

Because you grab my arm when you get scared

Because you are scared of everything

Because I feel as if I should protect you

And because you accept the protection

Because you've learned and grown so much since I've known you

And because it hasn't changed you into someone I don't know

Because we laugh and cry together

Because we dance and sing together

Because you are the little sister I never had

You know I love you, don't you?

For Angela and Uncertainty (2001)

I anticipated knowing you--

Waited for giggled conversations

Over popcorn and chick flicks,

Hoped for heated arguments

Over educational philosophy.

I was told I lost the chance--

Only for a moment,

One pained and sleepless night--

It was enough.

Enough to comprehend

That I would never see you again,

That we two would never

Laugh over the follies of math;

That I had never asked,

"Do you remember?"
Enough.

But you had another chance

And so did I.

A chance to ask questions

And to give answers

To hope for giggles and arguments

To regain a twice-lost friend--

To anticipate knowing you.

Ten Percent (1997 - 2001)

The best poems to come out of my high school career.

Wonder

Did you know that ants can talk?

I didn't.

I was about to mash this poor fellow between my fingers

When I heard this weird noise.

I thought it was amazing,

So I let the little guy go.

It's wonderful that everything makes at least

A little stir in the world.

Fire Song

Fire is my name

I am the highest of my order.

My place is past the stars,

I belong beyond the moon,

I must not be bound.

Earth cannot smother me

Water cannot drown me

Air cannot stifle me

Fire is my name

I burn brightly and well.

Mine is that highest place,

That zenith of existence

None other can achieve.

Earth cannot smother me

Water cannot drown me

Air cannot stifle me

Fire is my name

Nothing surpasses me.

Nothing equals me.

I am exalted

But--I am alone.

Beginning and End

approved by Frank Smyth

I saw the sun rise in the morning

I saw its bright whiteness at noon

I saw it hang low in the evening

And I saw it set 'neath the moon.

I saw a child born in the morning

I saw lovers kiss in the noon

I saw age's wisdom at evening

And I saw a grave 'neath the moon.

Life rises, glorious, at sunrise

And reaches its zenith at noon

And mellows with beauty at sunset

But its wonder fades 'neath the moon.

For though there is glory at sunrise

And brilliance blinding at noon

The sweet sunset bridges the wonder

That pales 'neath the light of the moon.

For Death has the pale shine of moonglow

That dispels fear of dark, lonely doom

And the brilliance achieved in a lifetime

Is dim in the light of the moon.

But Heaven, with glory of sunrise

And brilliant beauty of noon

And sweet golden wonder of sunset

O'ershadows the light of the moon.

And all will be rose in the morning

And whiteness run rampant at noon

And when golden yields to pale moonlight

Then all will be one, sun and moon.

Pedestal

You read their books, you listened to their music;

You saw their plays, you knew their theories;

You learned their culture and their consciousness:

You grasped their world.

You felt the hopelessness of their everything;

You mastered the futility of their gains;

You conquered the vacuum of their losses:

You withstood their nothingness.

You absorbed their denial and their praise;

You transcended their want and their pettiness;

You surpassed their doubt and their expectation:

You braved their emptiness.

You questioned their skepticisms and their reservations;

You challenged their motives and their actions;

You disputed their comforts and their anxieties:

You defied their helplessness.

I could not understand your passions;

I would not approach the shrine;

I dared not provoke your essence;

But I have loved your fearlessness.

Gabriel

In Memoriam

In a moment, in a flash of light,

His light was gone:

Brief candle snuffed by circumstance

And regret.

How simple life seems;

How innocent the world until a storm.

How inconsequential they are--

The storms that come--

Until the wind whips too close

To ignore.

Then blackness rolls in

And the world cries for an ending.

So weeping endureth for a night--

Long, lonely night--but

Joy cometh with the morning's

Golden light--

Though the light seems to hold

Something that it never held before.

Light from light, dark from dark--

End triumphant.

Though pain is not forgotten,

Darkness ends,

And dawn brings hope to each--

And day, it is said, is eternal.

Madness

I spent one summer in shouted arguments with my mother,

All of which I regret.

Not because she was right

Not because I was right

But because neither of us listened to the other.

I spent two weeks that summer with sixty other kids

Who were in love with God

Some more than others

Many more than I

And I admired them, and wondered how they did it.

And there was this girl

And she was one of them

It seemed as if she had it all together.

She was in charge of devotions

Of course.

And she prayed this prayer

And it was beautiful

She was crying, and pleading with God to break us.

I could not figure it out

Of course.

I spent the rest of that summer trying to solve it--

Why ask to be broken?

I have heard it throughout my memory

I have heard it from many people

Be broken, and submit.

The rest of that summer became the next few years:

Try as I might, I would not break.

I could not desire to be broken;

I could not ask anyone to break me.

Submission should be the result of a choice.

Method

I used to wonder, growing up,

What people meant by "breaking a spirit"

And why they wanted mine.

You hear it all the time:

"You have to break 'em"--

Your dogs

Horses

Children--

Why?

What's so great about submitting,

Like the coyote at the bottom of the pack,

To someone you don't even believe in?

You hear it all the time:

"It's for their own good"--

To owners

Breeders

Parents--

Why?

Who died and made you God?

Serve Chilled (2008)

"I'm going to look for a soda that isn't diet," I say,
And I walk past stripped jets and folded helos,
Past a fuel tank, into the Hall of Heroes,
Where this ship's namesake battle's brave line the walls--
"Bulkheads," I remind myself, "Bulkheads."

Past the portrait and citation-lined bulkheads, then,
And into the cafeteria where we eat three squares a day.
I stop at one machine, where a young Marine greets me with
"How's it going, Sergeant?" "What's up, man," I reply,
My disappointment growing with each fruitless press of a button.

I move on to another machine, and my first attempt yields success.
I press the chilly can to my neck, marvelling at this miracle
Of refrigeration. Its effect is instant, and for a few moments
I forget the dew on my skin, the salt lines on my olive drab shirt,
And the near-constant burn at the corners of my eyes.

Little Boy Blue (2008)

aka sonnet number two

by me

Experience, more than age, made a man
Of the boy in blue. Sickness brought him down
To childhood; helpless on his own to stand,
I heard him whimper as the hands came 'round
His back, and pulled him up onto his feet.
I watched a moment as they helped him walk,
Then turned to my work, tongue held in my teeth
To forget my own pain. I almost caught
Myself forgetting his, but I can see
Him if I close my eyes: little boy blue
With shoulders shrinking down in pain, as he
Fights to stand, to breathe, to be someone who
Can do the thing himself, as if to prove
He is a man, not just a boy in blue.