Up

It has been a long time since I've looked at the stars. I'm looking up and there are more now than there were before.

dream

do some dreaming. even if you cannot sleep.

gifts

Florists send the best apologies. Orphans bring the best winter squash.

Ruth

This Is How It Is--Ruth Stone

I look at the gene bank,
examples by the millions,
and they won't do.
On this planet, for me,
there was only one impetuous specimen.
How angry I become
when I walk through the corridors of my dreams.
On all the beaches of the living world,
the shadows of where you were
are washed away by the tides.
Only in my skull,
night after night,
I wrestle with your obstinate ghost.
But even that is better
than this three-dimensional life
that is so boring without you.

Ruth Stone, is this ancient saint of a woman. in her nineties now I bet. blind. lost her sights decades ago. decades before that, her husband, the father of her young children killed himself. almost all her poetry is for him. or for her kids about their dad.

Fly-fishing for girls: expectations

Fly-fishing for girls: expectations

The 'flies' in fly-fishing are not reel.

I imagine, regular fishing--the expected

piercing of an animal smaller than the one you wish

to hook dangling from a line,

bait soaking in the water long enough to elicit a bite,

the bite that snags the barbed-hook,

giving a quick puncture, a tear in the lip,

and, perhaps, a slight snack swallowed

by the large animal

before being dragged

against the current

and into the air.

"It's not like that, Hun."

Imagine

securing a bait-fly to a barbed hook:

the silky wings, now crunchy in death and dehydration,

turn to falling confetti

towards the bottom of the boat

the very moment pinched by fingers

to lift him from the container;

his tiny body shreds

as the tip of the hook begins to pierce the abdomen,

and long before it ever reaches the thorax,

the shape is mangled

and becomes thick goo between the angler's fingers.

"No, Babe, we 'tie flies.'"

Imagine

tying knots in line

in ways clever enough to create loops

in which to place a fly,

and pull with such skill, ever so slightly,

to fasten that fly to the end of the line.

Instead, his fly-head is decapitated as the line cinches tight.

"Aw Darlin', there ain't no flies in fly-fishing!"

My Angler,

he hooks

pompoms, feathers and fuzzy things

in the line

with knots and bows

only to look like flies.

The fish are impressed.

journal updates: Summer 2010.

Recent updates to my hand-written journal contain only this: scraps of papers, notes, post-its, business cards, wristbands, leaves. The only written words are those enough to identify the objects, the places they were collected, cryptic explanation, and the names of the people I was with. All dates are approximate.