Love songs to family members
Unruffled sheets on half the bed
Manure and compost piles unspread
No woodchips on upholstered chairs
No wads of mud on cellar stairs
A pair of running shoes unfilled,
The ergometer counter stilled
Computer monitor unscribed,
Animal carvings undefined
The silent eight-day clock unwound,
No need to ring the dinner gong
No answer to the office phone,
A truck with no commute from home
The waxplant tolls its heavy blooms
Their midnight scent invaded the rooms.
Gravel under and behind
Will dissipate the rainfall.
Dig the base below the frost.
Drain with pipes a wall.
Lime, cement and screened sand
Lightly mix to morter.
Color, texture vary not
Nor increments of water.
Green or white or dusky rose
Choose the stones with love:
Black or brown or mica-sprinkled
Orange, blue or mauve.
Place the best face to the front.
Hose off grass nd dust.
Chock each rock and check the level.
Iron streaks will rust.
Tamp the morter in the joint.
Smooth it to each face.
Wind and water will invade
A rough or hollow place.
Walls are built to stand the weather.
Walls are built to wear.
Form and texture and technique
Hands must blend with care.
What are these trees with pale and blotchy skin,
Like adolescents scarred with acne,
Whose brown Christmas tree balls hang down in early
Springtime above the hired
Van outside my son’s condo window?
Rain suddenly splatters
The sill from gray cloud ghosts rushing
Under blue sky and scattered
Cumulus ahead of tree tossing March
Winds. It is time to get moving.
The bed has left and the crib, but still I stand,
Abstracted by castor marks
In carpets and one hanger swinging in a closet.
This is a sycamore husk
The seeds carried elsewhere to go on growing.
Like a koala bear on eucalyptus, she clings to her mother’s
Leg, howling. Her father plucks her loose
And carries her to bed. He says nothing. Enough
Words have steamed the air from the pressure cooker
Of the long day’s doings from nursery school
To carnival. I recall, if he does not,
A time when he too cried unconsolably
All the way to the doctor’s office and back
Because a new and tired mother slapped
A toddler who had thrown her glasses on the floor. The
prescription
Issued by an annoyed pediatrician was aspirin for her
And more tolerance for him. I tell this tale
To my daughter-in-law, who is sponging magic marker
From the carpet with regret for the scolding she has given my
grandchild.
Borrowing my daughter’s apartment
For a family snowshoeing holiday,
We find appliances intractable.
In her absence the coffeemaker
Does not start, the dishwasher
Stalls and the gas oven
Ominously clicks before warming.
Worst of all, the satellite
Antenna transmits static.
Possessions, more permanent than persons,
Protest abandonment by their owners.
As our dog barks and assaults
The pen when we depart,
Her vacuum cleaner coils
Its cord around our ankles,
Trash barrels flip their lids, and
The security alarm rings
Unceasingly when we set it.
An audience is sought by the copper
Musical antique car
Playing “On the Road Again.”
Ruby wine glasses wink
And blush to catch our eyes.
Things, less transient than humans,
Fear people may disappear
Leaving them like seaglass on the beach
To be repossessed at. public auctions.
We stoop to look at ant hills.
Her small finger closes the holes.
Toting their eggs and leafbits,
Ant workers scurry this way and that, unperturbed.
“I break them,” she announces.
In her other hand she holds three straggly
Buttercups and one lupine.
Clovers or Bouncing Bet she tosses aside.
Tickle grass lifts her chin.
“Let me make me laugh, Grammie.”
I upend the stem
To prod a hunting spider, who toad-hops
Into poison ivy.
Her ziplock sandals pursue a narrow
Cement wall, a childsized
Promenade under a hemlock. Last year’s conelets,
Brittle and seedless, cling
To the studs and joists of this cool dark chamber.
Rapelling past its apertures
On slender nylon climbing ropes swing
Casual gypsy caterpillars.
Bon vivants, they have littered the drive with their leavings.
Relentless Jenny erases them,
Stamps them into oily exclamation marks on the tartop.
You are a camera who
Freezes my picture in poses
I never intended. “Wait!”
I cry. “That isn”t me!”
But you snap the shutter
And finally mount the prints
Forever in red leather albums
Like flies dead in amber.
Create me instead on videotape..
Showcase my best or better days.
Feature me friendly, zestful,
Dancing or singing. Today
The pond is a frozen mirror
Inviting any skaters design.
Blown down the parking lot
We have come in to a forced
Spring. Through arches of sunny
Acacia chains we see glimpses
Of enchanted nooks: Mole’s
Beloved boat moored
Below Rat’s shore –
Sheltered bungalow: a Victorian
Broad-brimmed hat
Under an arbor; Farmer
MacGregor’s rows of lucious
Lettuce eyed by Peter;
Max the wild thing
Starting a rumpus in the dark
Forest corner; a cypress-
Cooled Moorish patio
Reflected in the tiled pool and
Helicon beaks from Hawaii
Garnishing luau fruits.
But most alluring are jellybean
Walks between marshmallow cauliflowers,
A cabbage patch doll,
Decorated carrot cakes and
Cookie bushes inside a gingerbread
Fence: These entrall
The children and invalids in wheelchairs
Propelled by aged relatives
My mother and I, sharing
One hundred and fifty years,
Buy pussywillows as we leave.