Poetry
There
Is a place in all of us
Where we converse
With a different part of our mind.
Anyone
Can do it.
All it takes
Is turning off the television
Or the free cell solitaire
And bringing up a blank page on the screen
And filling it.
A poet
Is someone who chooses to go there often
And to add to the bank
Of wisdom
That comes from the part of us
Whose language is
Poetry.
One’s Company
Must you put it in my mind that I will be lonely
just because my life has boiled down to just me only?
That we are not enough for us may prove to be a fiction.
Just a recent sort of fad spread by TV’s depiction
of solitude as something harsh, stressing what we lack,
yet our ship can stay buoyant with just one to hold its tack.
There are so many selves in us. Now there’s time to converse.
The you that you’ve been up ’til now may be the very worse!
Wander into your heartland and see the you’s you’ll find.
Who knows what you’ll discover now that you’re in a bind.
The mind’s a worthy raider, seeking out new plunder.
There may be hidden parts of you full of joy and wonder.
It’s hard to get inside yourself when there’s so much to do—
so many new discoveries and worlds to wander through.
We’ve plundered all the gold mines and withdrawn all the oil.
There’s barely any place on earth left for us to spoil.
But now nature’s decided to produce the biggest clue
that it’s time to mine the resources within the rest of you.
Prompt words today are lonely, fiction, buoyant, raider and heartland.
Bali Afternoon
Their shadows float behind them in the afternoon.
Sari-clad, they hurry, ahead of the monsoon
where water sheets in currents, a brutal driving hand
sweeping away the humid heat of this exotic land.
Morning-listless palm trees dance to gamelan of rain.
The dust of temples washed away, they glisten once again.
Monkeys cower in branches. Dogs slink away to hide.
Only water in the streets. All else has gone inside.
In the shadows of their studios, the batik-makers hold
their wax-pots, streaming rivers of waxy molten gold.
They’ll stem the flood of colors as each gently pours
precise tiny rivers that echo those outdoors.
Shadows in the corners. Great baths of brown and blue,
that when the liquid wax is hard, they’ll dip their cloth into.
Then boil off the wax so they can make rivers anew
A different course determined for each successive hue.
Outside the monsoon blows away and sun comes out again.
As all the voices of the world—the music and the din
start up again and heat comes back to bake the village street.
Mud turns to dust, sweat beads the brows of everyone you meet.
Tomorrow in the afternoon, another hour of rain,
for nature follows her own steps over and again,
like the batik artist, who dips his cloth once more,
dries the cloth, gets out his pot, and once more stars to pour.
Sheltering from the Monsoon, Ubud, Bali, 1996
The NaPoWriMo Prompt, Day 2 is to write a poem about a specific place.
Midnight Safari
Tonight when I came into my house after a swim, maybe around 11:30 p.m., I went into the kitchen and there was a snake about a foot long and a half inch thick coiled in my sink! It slithered under a plate and for some reason I ran water in the sink and he slipped down the drain onto the blades of the garbage disposal which were about five inches below the level of the sink!! It took some time for the water to drain, and then the flaps on the drain kept me from being able to look down and see if I could see him–and if he was moving. I put my ear close, trying to hear him, but heard no movement. Finally, I went to get a flashlight, put on long gloves and got a set of long-handled kitchen tongs. When I pushed back the rubber flaps on the drain and turned on the flashlight, I could see the snake coiled and it was moving! So it hadn’t drowned. I went and got a wastebasket with a plastic liner bag and after 6 tries, finally picked up the snake with the tongs, dropped it in the can and released it outside. What a relief!!! This is only the second snake I’ve found inside in 19 years. No, it didn’t even occur to me to turn on the garbage disposal. Ew!!!
P.S. No, this isn’t a photo of tonight’s snake. There wasn’t time to take a photo. This is the first snake I found in the house, coiled behind the umbrella stand. The one tonight was shades of brown. Always a new thrill.
So I had just sat down to my lunch and Forgottenman Skyped. I described what I was eating and he said, “Photo?” So now, 35 minutes later my soup is cold and I’m down to three fried wontons, having consumed approximately two per photo shoot. In every one, the soup looked gray, the wontons greasy…so I had to keep trying. Here they are with all their warts:
The wontons are chicken and cilantro, the homemade soup chicken, broth, onions, green beans, potatoes, corn, onions, rice, sour cream, salsa and—that’s all I can remember. I notice an increasing amount of food being discussed since our sequestering. Do you?
“Couple-ets”
The path I thought was straight and easy has developed swerves.
This trick-or-treat relationship is getting on my nerves.
One day you bring me sweets and roses—all my fond heart seeks.
The next you end up ghosting me and disappear for weeks.
Our bond I once thought perfect is showing signs of wear.
Too often I’m a single whereas once we were a pair.
That love once thought infrangible now sports a widening crack.
Don’t show up as who you’ve become. I want the old you back!
Where once I published love poems, now I tell how my heart aches.
Where once I wrote of how love grows, now I tell how it breaks.
Prompt words today are infrangible, publish, ghosting, trick and sweet. The jar pictured is a wedding jar I purchased in Chiapas. The idea is for the bride and groom to each drink out of their own spout of the communal cup. Lovely imagery. I put black beans in it to hold the plants upright as they developed roots and filled it full of water. A few weeks later I came out to find that the beans had soaked up the water, expanded, and burst the cup. What a metaphor!!! Perfect for this poem…
Reading Nigella’s recipe for lockdown cookies (cookies made with the ingredients you happen to have on hand since the lockdown) I was prompted to give you this recipe for last-minute Microwave Chocolate Cup (literally) Cakes.
I spent a week cooking every day and storing it all away in the freezer at the beginning of my sequestering and now I’m too lazy to do much except write, organize drawers and cupboards and swing in the hammock with Morrie, but when I have a yen for chocolate, I do have this easy recipe for chocolate cake cooked in the microwave in a cup!
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup white sugar
2 Tablespoons cocoa
1/8 teaspoon soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons milk
1 Tablespoon water
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Mix well in a coffee cup and microwave on high for 1 minute, 45 seconds. (I always cook it longer–2 minutes or more depending on your microwave. I also always wish I had chocolate chips and walnuts to add but never do.) Better with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
