Advent calendars

decades

of advent calendars

my mother sent,

each marked with its year . . .

so many doors left open

~A Hundred Gourds 4:2, March 2015

the changeling

a stone angel

steps down 

from her pedestal—

the burden of wings 

others want her to wear

~A Hundred Gourds 4:2, March 2015

the empty shell

of a phoenix egg

sky blue

among the cinders

of who I used to be

~A Hundred Gourds 4:3, June 2015

raven, 

fox, or smiling lion . . .

I rummage

my wardrobe

for this day’s mask

~Ribbons 11:2, summer 2015

the river

echoing

across the river

the tune

my father used to whistle

on summer mornings 

~red lights 11:2, June 2015

no bridge

to that sunlit shore—

the stone

I skip across the river

falls short

~A Hundred Gourds 4:3, June 2015

step by step

I cross the stream 

on a fallen tree—

with open arms I balance 

childhood and old age

~Skylark 3:1, summer 2015

cleverness

one wayward iris
with its stem awry . . .
I reread
the scribbled comments
in my high school yearbook

~cattails 3: Sept. 2014

trying to free
a flailing black snake
entangled
in yards of bird netting . . .
the snarls of my karma

~cattails 3: Sept. 2014

sell your cleverness
and buy bewilderment—
midnight
finds me rapping
on the pawnshop door

~Bright Stars 6, Fall 2014

(Quotation in lines 1 & 2 is from Rumi)

Migration

three nights
I dream of home
with locked doors—
a woman hands me a chart
marking the depths of the sea

my path
littered with the bones
of poems
I couldn’t write . . .
a blackbird whistling

a wren calling
in the piney wood
teacher teacher teacher. . .
I read aloud
from a scarlet leaf

my quarry—
a poem without words 
dancing 
through the green glade
barefoot as music

a wisp
of thistledown drifting 
before me 
I linger by the brook
to pan for fool’s gold

clear notes
rising from my flute—
the gift
of water flowing
in a life without rain

~Skylark 3:1, summer 2015

signs

hot pink
handmade signs urge
Open Your Bible . . .
daylilies gone wild
bloom in the summer sun

~Atlas Poetica 20, Jan. 2015

preserve
our family values
on a billboard . . .
the homeless man’s sign
reads cancer in the bone

~Atlas Poetica 20, Jan. 2015

the child in me

an amber alert 
on my cellphone
at midnight 
the child in me 
goes missing in the dark

~Atlas Poetica Urban Special Feature “The Garage, Not the Garden” Oct. 18, 2013

border crossing—
at the foot of the wall
between them and us
a handmade ladder
and a child’s torn shirt

~Atlas Poetica 20, Jan. 2015