Bill Murray

I remember the day I became Bill
My heart was breaking and I wanted
To save it, so I pulled it out through
The intercostal space between my ribs,
Right through the cage,
Careful not to catch it on my sternum
And I put my heart into a glass jar
Which I affixed around my neck with
A piece of twine, and I clamped the
Lid on tight and proceeded to live
To take baby steps
To walk around town
To ride the bus
Because I knew that if I could preserve
My heart
In that jar
I would make it
I would survive
My love would last
And others could see and understand
What heartbreak looks like
And how one lives through it
Now I understand about Bob,
“There are two types of people
In this world, those who love
Neil Diamond, and those who don’t”

August

Something about August is begging to be paid attention. Be here as the gray storm gathers strength, the dark cumulonimbus clouds billow up to twenty-seven thousand feet, the hail batters the roof like an alien ice machine. Deluge. White pellets of rime nearly round and cuttingly hard tear through verdant gardens and iron city drains, pinking flower beds and translucent greenhouse roofs, pocking every possible piece of outdoor furniture and uncovered car hood.

Splatters of rain signal the reclamation of autumn as the scud clouds break from the shelf of the tumult over Mt. Wilson, tumbling as if they may make contact with the grocery store parking lot lines before turning into a fog that dissipates over the asphalt. The gale winds signal the return of fall in the rising apple-crisp air. Time asks if we’ll watch for a moment from the porch as another wind rollicks, racing through the pumpkin fields, wracking the sticky green vines against each other.

August asks if we can move so much more carefully, thoughtful of each precious moment through transition– lightning strike, cloud fall, thunder call. Glorious weathervanes snapping erratically this way then that, trying to keep up with the on-rushing squall. Can we pause and take in the smell of electricity like ozone and h2o, the brouhaha of late summer air. Drink it in.

(Re)claim

the girl who ran in
dark canyons and
dry riverbeds when
she was young
she’s there
crunching gravel and
sagebrush under her
feet, up this next
steep incline to
the plains, the meadow
there in the stillness
a tiny creek burbles,
and a garden shed
appears with a low wind
chime, that girl,
she’s deep as a well
wide as an ocean
visceral and powerful
even then, in her
vulnerability, her desire
to love, she’ll find
that no one can
do that for her
love her like
she must love herself,
take that last sprint of the
trail right back home
reside inside herself

You Know

You know,
sometimes
as that little girl
bucktoothed
and freckled
you wanted
the come-up
cause you
believed
you deserved it

You know,
sometimes
you’re aware
that if you
get what you
ask for
everything
will change
again.
Like Alaska

you won’t
be able
to return
to the halcyon days
You know,
sometimes
you get caught
between your
growing and
your fragility

and, god, the
pain of it
can crush,
squeeze,
burn,
You know,
sometimes
everything gets
unstitched, unpicked
by the universe

and you’re reminded
that the old woman
at the end of the
world
must have needed
to tend her
soup
before it
scalded
she still needed

food, herself, she
still knew she
would be called upon
to (re)stich the
tapestry of earth
the raven unraveled
to feed the world,
to tend the soup,
we are her
magic and stories, too