Frustration

Frustration
Fiery red
Blocking my path
like a giant boulder
Slamming the door
on my thumb
Filling the huge hole of doubt
that occupies my mind
Filling it with
hundreds of tiny pebbles
Plunking in
one by one
Frustration

Custer County, 1886

Wading through the grass
thick and high
on our way to pick the sweet summer fruit
fingers raw from packing our soft sod house.
Squinting into the summer sun,
I stare at the land, wide and spacious
full of future.
My sisters, tall and wise, speak of their own homestead;
a piece of land for each alone.
I listen with envy,
knowing my time is a long way off.
The rain begins to fall
like silence.
I kick the mud from my high brown boots,
push hair away from my face,
and look ahead at the canyons fulls of purple plums as big as fists.

It is hard to imagine this place
this beautiful place
trapped in a winter fury,
but I feel the stiff wind on my forehead
and I know the day will come
when blinding snow will work its way into our bones
like death
and we will father together in our tiny home.
The wind, white and relentless,
singing like a lost child
Eugene's violin urging us onto the mud packed floor
urging us to kick up the dusty hay
and forget the cold forever folding around us.
And in that tiny home
we will celebrate the openness
the freedom of the
West.

Baby Sling

Green baby sling
carrying my long expected load
lifting away loneliness
wrapped around me like a second skin
Bring me calm breath,
sweet songs,
and a steady heartbeat.

Another definition poem

Paul [pawl] n. Four year old Korean-Italian-Dutch-American boy. v. To run around with endless amounts of energy. (After a good night's sleep, the soccer player was ready to Paul.) adj. 1. Knowledgable in all things Star Wars. 2. Small in stature, yet powerful and wise. YODA.

Waiting

***based on an assignment where the students were asked to use words and phrases from favorite books and compose a short piece about a character in motion.

A woman stood waiting at the end of the pier. She was eager to escape the endless boredom, eager to escape a life filled with secondhand dreams and lost opportunity. Her hair blew violently in the wind. She tried to push it away and noticed that her forehead had begun to perspire. The cold sweat made her shiver. Her eyes darted from the riverbank to the walls of the wounded city, a place she was never able to call home. A crowd had begun to collect around her, clustered on the pier like seagulls anticipating a free meal. They simply stood and stared, waiting for the wind to shift, waiting for something to happen in a place where nothing ever happens. The woman knew she needed to get on that boat before the last shred of her thin spirit was smoldered by the dormant minds of her small town. She stood there waiting all afternoon; nothing arrived but the wind.

Coming Home

Thousands of bodies
were crammed onto the small pier,
eyes trained on the sea.
Red, white and blue balloons flew overhead
in the swift, cool September breeze.
The air buzzed with quiet chatter
as families waited nervously.
Each moment swelled into the next.
Even the babies seemed to sense
what was coming;
a tearful reunion with someone they had
yet to meet,
someone who helped to create them
but had not been there to witness their arrival.
Suddenly,
as if the hours had slipped by
in a moment,
a new sound began to grow
on the horizon.
The sound of water splashing out in celebration,
of bodies standing stiffly,
the faint murmur of a single trumpet.
All were focused on the growing sound,
knowing that it meant the return of their loved ones,
so long left
at sea.

fear

It is silent
slithering up your pant leg
while you stand shivering
unaware

It is deadly
able to stick its fangs into your flesh
and fill your blood with poison
slowly

It is ruthless
refusing to relent
until you are completely
consumed