There's something I need to tell you

March 1, 2014

There’s something I need to tell you

I want to tell you

about the caterpillar.

You know the beginning:

the creepy crawly caterpillar creature

inching on the ground, munching leaves, growing,

growing, shedding skin after skin, until

one day, she hooks herself to the soft underside

of a leaf, and peels off her final skin

to reveal the chrysalis hidden beneath.

You might think that metamorphosis

is like hibernation, that the caterpillar curls up

snug and asleep, and in her dreams

she sprouts one wing, and then another,

until she awakens and finds

her butterfly body

has simply bloomed.

But this isn’t so. Instead, I want to tell you how,

without hesitation, without doubt,

the chrysalized caterpillar dissolves herself,

bit by bit, all soft muscle, each tiny foot, breaking down

into a swirling white-yellow mess of cells,

and, somehow, these cells

reorganize themselves, restructure themselves

into something completely new, something

previously inconceivable, forming antenna after antenna,

wing after wing; each nerve and fiber,

each piece of the heart,

re-imagined;

rebuilt.

And the old crawling creature, whose body

has been transfigured—this being has not died!

No, miraculously,

this young winged thing remembers

the thousands of leaves she herself once traversed,

the broad blue sky she once longed for,

and everything she ever learned

in her caterpillar days.

All of this I need to tell you,

all of this you need to know, because

what I’m really trying to say is

for you,

my love turns butterfly.

Sun shower

February 25, 2014

Sun shower

Walking with the dog down the canal path

through a light spring rain, not exactly minding

the wet, only smiling at how

I didn't think to bring a raincoat

as the ducks are quacking happily.

Annadale

February 11, 2014

Annadale

In the town where I grew up,

in the gray, green-shuttered house, our yard

teemed with crocuses in the spring.

Like spearheads or neat rows

of pale pointed teeth, greedy fingers

digging up through soil and snow,

heads of scepters, regal crocuses,

sprouting in unmistakable, glossy,

royal colors—pure eggshell, deep yellow,

lavender and violet—petals growing

thick with secrets, until finally unfolding like dawn

breaking, hungry flower mouths opening

wide. I would tuck the thin,

waxy stems behind my ears as charms against evil,

or make the blossoms a crown and become

the Faerie Queen of Annadale, barefoot and wild,

breath like magic blooming in my chest

as I commanded swarms of pixies and sprites

against the shadows of snap-dragons,

fighting and dancing until falling back

breathless, glowing in the late sunlight, my arms

outstretched, my hands turned skyward,

my toes curling in the cool grass.

And even now in these winter days, these waiting days,

days that wear gray skies and thin light,

I test the air, and watch the ground,

listen for the distant drumming:

the sign that the world is once again

on the cusp of crocuses.

Caterpillar

October 15, 2012

Caterpillar

Caterpillar, you are full of thought:

as every day you crawl across the leaves,

you traverse the pages of the world

and notice everything.  I find you pacing,

tracing lines across the supple skin

of apple blossoms in the delicate spring,

with each slow step remembering their design.

You overlook no detail, miss no trait:

no beautiful thing ever escapes your gaze.

Then at the end, you shed your final skin

to reveal the inevitable chrysalis beneath.

gone, the careful movement of your eyes,

the strange off-rhythm of your tiny steps

as you dissolve into a mess of cells

and then emerge, condemned to chase the sky.

I drag this tired body through the day

with bones that ache and creak, dissatisfied.

an ancient winged thing I have become,

so blind, so distant from the lovely earth.

March

August 27, 2012

March

Spring steps barefoot through the dark woods,

and a dusting of snow clings to her skirts.

She feels the slender bow on her back, barely

bouncing with each footstep, the frozen ground

firm and steady under her feet.

A bird cries out through the early air.

The winter moon,

the westward moon,

the wayward moon,

full and gleaming in its cold light,

leads Spring between the trees,

the snow glittering like diamonds before her.

She marches on. The sun rises slowly, and the world

is beautiful: white as china, paper thin. The trees stand dark

as ink. The sky is clear and forever blue.

And soon, in a clearing:

Winter, the sleeping bear.

Swiftly, Spring nocks an arrow, draws

back the bow, but pauses. A chill breeze

drifts through, carrying scents of wood smoke

and pine: the memory of a smoldering fire, far away,

the last embers drifting up to burn with the stars.

Spring looks down, taking aim again as Winter

snores softly, shivers in his sleep, and her shoulders rise,

and fall, silent as snow. She shifts her stance, preparing

for the bitter chase. And then Spring looses her arrow

and races away.

Garland Girl

June 7, 2012

published in on the cusp's magazine "cycle" Summer 2012

Garland Girl

My sister, she sits on her summer swing, dressed in red,

the wind making her skirts billow, and all the cotton

seeds drift and scatter.  it seems like something more

should be happening, as she clutches a handful

of faded white daisies, flowers from her youth.

she stares off at the coming autumn, as I stare at this photograph

of her.  Years ago, she used to photograph

everything, especially the valerians in their dying reds,

the ancient daisies as they lost what youth

they had.  She’d sit by the foot of the poplars in a cotton

dress, watching summer disappear just like the handful

of dusty petals she held.  She would say, no more

are the days of sun and daisies.  And no more

were her days of sundresses and songs.  The photographs

she’d taken she burned until all that remained was a handful

of ashes and aged coals, the embers left burning red

only in her eyes as she watched the snow come down like cotton

quilts over the earth, like down plucked from goslings in their youth.

She longed for something golden or green, for the youth

of saplings as they stretch up to the sun, needing more and more

every day.  She wanted once again to dance through the cotton

fields as they spread their seeds.  Like a postcard photograph

the poppies would all bloom, gold and violet and red,

and their pollen would cling to her hair and her dress, a handful

of summer fairy dust.  In the long winter nights she had her hands full

of old daisy chains and pressed petals, stripped of youth

by january’s chill.  One by one, she pasted them all onto little red

valentines, her fingers shaking and tired, until she had more

hearts and dead flowers than she could count.  No photograph

could keep them alive, as no enchantment of the sun could keep the cotton

from blowing away in the wind.  While the world was draped in a cold cotton-

white she sat resigned, but in march was she ever a handful!

when the first green appeared in the snow, slowly showing through like a photograph

developing, her body remembered all the wildness and youth

it had lost when the leaves fell and the flowers wilted.  She needed more

of the life she saw growing, digging through snow and earth until her hands bled red.

Growing with the cotton, changing with the seasons of youth,

living and dying as inevitably as a handful of daisies; it’s hard to tell anymore,

but in this photograph, as we sit on her summer swing, our lips are stained red, red, red. 

garden snails

May 21, 2011

garden snails

three of the creatures slowly explore my hand

while I crouch in the dirt

to take a break from weeding.

their small bodies are translucent

and wet

across my thick palm,

over each of my fingers,

cracked dry and desperate

with evaporated mud.

one has a shell of swirled amber,

a crystalline fragment

of some heavenly design:

tiny,

and perfect. 

curious little things,

content to make maps

of the landscape of my skin,

sometimes turning back

in methodical circles

to make sure each crease is accurate,

each wrinkle precise. 

their smooth bellies cool my hand,

which still burns from the friction

of careful, violent tugs

on stems and roots.

I look up for a moment:

the green earth glistens

with sunlight and the work

of a thousand garden snails. 

three of the creatures slowly explore my hand

while I crouch in the dirt

to take a break from weeding.

and oh,

how my fingers tremble.

april

February 23, 2011

april

there’s something to be said

for the first glimpse

of raw, wild green

after endless months

of sick, chalky white,

for warm crayon-box colors:

the dandelion sun, the robin’s egg sky,

for the first sharp, biting breath

of a spring rain

as the frozen rivers dissolve

into a magical confusion

and rush,

for the rainbows on soap bubbles,

for the graceful arc of a red swing,

and for the chaotic ballet

my heart performs

whenever you throw me a smile.