044: askings.

do people have campfires in the summer in England?

should the smell of smoke linger in my flannel or my hair?

which chain just broke off from my wrist?

how plain must people assume me to be?

what percentage of stars can I see with naked eyes?

where do lost memories vanish to?

can I go there and find them?

did I imagine that sandy shore by the lake?

is my poetry worth a second glance?

why do we never walk the world barefoot?

when will you enter my life again?

does God laugh at us more than he weeps?

043: a month from tonight

one month. from tonight.

I will be on a plane to London.

noon the next day, I’ll be on the streets

of Oxford.

my new home.

----

driving home late under a moon blind and cored

sometimes it takes this

to make you know how much

your life is going to change.

on my mind: the things that will be the same

the things that won’t

blades of months that chime

then linger

then blow like ash

so you see nothing till dawn

I find that I let myself go

because holding up my bones from the inside

takes all of me

042: how to summer.

1. shake mud out of rubber boots. make room for new mud.
2. follow little brother into unknown woods.
3. decide you don’t want to get dirty.
4. get dirty anyway.
5. scrape thighs on thorns.
6. get whacked in face by rain-wet shrub.
7. creep low through thickets.
8. remember being small and not having to duck.
9. find reservoir hill. gaze awhile.
10. tramp your way home.
11. pull off sweaty boots. leave in garage.
12. rinse mud off legs and feet in bathtub.
13. count two new scrapes, three new bruises.
14. comb sticks and sprigs from tangled hair.
15. soothe knees and shins with aloe vera.
16. watch the rain start again.

041: backyard after dark.

Nights so cool I pull on fleece,

yank up hiking socks, cuddle my tea

mug close to my neck.

*

Before dark I run out to the clothesline

to take the blankets down.

It’s late enough for dew—I track grass

into the kitchen, barefoot,

holding two baskets stacked.

*

Being all over the world, home

is a refuge. To think of change

is to think of endings,

and I can’t bear that.

*

Tomorrow I drag a suitcase

up from the basement,

fold clothes into the corners that smell faintly

of soap and car exhaust,

look out the window and breathe

again.

040: fire.

There are nights when, before I leave the room,

I halt in front of the mirror                  and stare

into my face.

I’ve been thinking, that day, about stories—

about faces, persons, souls.

I ask—

If I had that chance, one in a million years—

if I had greatness thrust upon me—

would I act with the courage

that I feel in the pages of stories?

           

I seek that glimmer—that fire—

in my own quiet face.

Some nights it’s there.

Some nights I see nothing but emptiness.

Odds are, I’ll never be anything.

Still,

             

                 I beg

                                     that fire

                                                                  to stay.

- - - - - -

“At some point, you have to stop running

and turn around and face whoever wants you dead.

The hard thing is finding the courage to do it.”

            -Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

039: upside-down

And the house is right-side-up again, after two weeks of silence and spotlessness.

I woke to quiet this morning—everyone zonked from long drives home. Now it’s afternoon and the house is cluttered, noisy, full of talk and commotion. Jon’s playing drums downstairs; Dad’s washing dishes; Mum heaves loads of laundry from suitcase to washer to clothesline. The rambunctious half of the family’s been away at camp; now, tanned, mosquito-bitten, weary, and chattering, they’re home.

I reveled in the days of quiet. But it’s good to have everyone back. After all, our house is built for six-plus-dog, and then some.