Raking

 When my grandfather visited
    (a rare occasion since he lived
     so far away across mountains
     of crumbling red sandstone and
     vast valleys of sea green sage)
He would be up at dawn
Every morning to rake the yard
Of sticks and leaves and paper
Blown in by the wind
He grasped the rake firmly with
His one good hand, using his
Frozen arm to counterbalance

Later, not long after he passed
While looking at books on
Japanese dry gardens,  I made
The connection.  Who am I to 
Know whether or not he had
Made it too while the rake
Scratched pattern and form,
Order and purpose on the clay
Back and forth. Back and forth
Taking away that which doesn't
Belong

Listening to all your iTunes Library Reverse Alphabetical Order

I have no idea how many 
                                    Songs
Are on this old iMac 
    (a fine machine that runs

Fine)

But in reverse
            Alpha
                        beti
                                cal

Order

They start with numbers

Starting with 9999 (Ways to Hate Us)
    by
        the

Clutters

Your are soon rolling through the decades

        2002  (a lost love letter to a lost) 

                                Love

And suddenly you are walking 2000 miles,

            Pretending,

Remembering the snow falling down

    And maybe missing

                But not missing and no children

Singing

And then you are in the heart of 1999 and all the regrets

                                                Riff you

                            Though when you first hear that song

            It was long before anything burst

       Anything popped

Anything slumped

    Long before                    

                        Any hint of that loss

(of all all time)

And then 1979 and you feel young and it is summer and it is

        1995 and you are in 

                                        Love

Wisdom

When you are seven
It is to be expected
But at fifty-six it is
Concerning

But these days most
Have wisdom removed
While young

I always had a big
Mouth and even the
Dentist was amazed
That they had come in
Early

So strong, at the back
Waiting to have a full
Life 

When your are young
You expect it but now
Now? Tooth loosening
And then it is in your
Hand

Fingertips edging the
Points, wondering how
The curved legs fit
In the sudden, hole
Unbleeding

And you remember
When you were seven
And your brothers
Had the brilliant idea
To yank your bicuspid
Out with a string
As a sudden surprise

You are surprised

Heart of the Continent

 So many centers
So many lights

                                        Where do you think you are?

Where do you think you should be?

We used to unfold maps
                                            Crease by crease
And there we were
At the heart
                        Of the Continent

Folding them back 
                                Was impossible

Never right

                    Always crumpled and scrunched

The Heart of the Continent

                            Never back where it should be

Where you should be

Where you think you should be

So many centers so many lights

So many dots

So so many lines

Heart of the Continent

What if I Prefer to Sell My Property

 There are a lot of different options being considered

No, that doesn't have 

I will stand my ground no matter what

I am more hopeful than worried

There are solutions that we don't even know they exist

Maxine Kumin died

She of the plane with her mother holding a package

Died

Dies

Died

Simple letter

She dies and it is still this year

It is still this shit

It is still this same

A package, you hold as the plane dives

And suddenly 

            Suddenly

Survies

Cremate this

For over forty years
We have been simply
Updating our
Files

Why aren't you dead
Yet?  Why can't we
Simply burn you
Yet

We don't use wood
Oh no no oH
That's not ergonomically
Environmental

Simply simply simply
As we go on some light
Fantastic

Toe

But burn, we do.  Burn
And you'll just be scritchy
Puff bone and a lot of
Blow

We're just updating our
Files

Year 55

I was born in the eleventh hour
Fifty minutes and some odd seconds
My mother took the gas
Why wouldn't you, she would say
Later

I was born in the eleventh hour
Umbilical cord wrapped around my
Neck, jaundiced, kept in the hospital
Birthmarked

I was supposed to be dead
Choked by that which was
Supposed to sustain me

Well I'm alive.

I was born in the eleventh hour
Of some Aquarian dream

I used to like to keep fish
Until my twin Angel fish
Barbara

Died

That's what I got
Born in the eleventh hour
One January

My birthmark is hardly
Visible

(These Days)

I got other marks more visible
More diseases that puss up
On a regular basis

I was born in the eleventh hour