ManicDDaily

Same Sun 

I am told that when my grandfather went back to Sweden,
after fifty years gone,
he pointed up to the sky.

“Same sun,” he said,
and his brothers, looking up, nodded, knowing they’d have
that sun—even as they did not see each again.

There’s a morning moon today, brilliant, though just
past full, and I think of my grandfather, only now I think
“same moon”,
imagining it shining
over the world, in swathes of abandoned sky
above the Sudan or Rajasthan—the way
the moon glows
over a desert—
through grey black screws of smoke in the Ukraine, 
a hard chill in Red Square,
by the dome of the Capitol, my hometown DC,
and reflected in so many tides
of so many
wine-dark seas. 

I can see it too
in the cores of trees that have fallen
across this road, the  trunks sawed through, pushed
to the side, the rounds at the wood’s heart bared—

and in the oh’s that a baby’s mouth forms, rooting—this picture
in my head—

I knew my grandfather, but can’t really remember him (or only as I’ve seen him
in photographs), he having a heart attack
when I was making my own oh’s, those
of a toddler—

There’s so much suffering in just having a body—
yet, people add to it, heap it on, as if to cause suffering in others
somehow allows them to control it
in themselves—

same sun.  

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Another draft poem—yes, it could use more time!  But writing and posting quickly is lifting me up right now and I hope of interest to you.  Thanks.  (All rights reserved in poem and pic, as always. And sorry that I am using drawings from my own archive–they are not always exactly right for the poem!)

Mid-March in North Country

We are in the brown season here.
Winter wilting; my husband no longer even trying
to enforce inventory control—(that, the rule
of using up the old
before starting the new.) 

So, I reach into the fridge
for one of my two open almond butters, also
a peanut butter, started (nonetheless) yesterday—
sometimes you just prefer peanuts—

A cancer patient is sleeping
down the hall. I have learned of late
that you cannot fix someone, make them happy,
you can only try not to make them unhappy,
or more unhappy—
and to comfort, keep
them company—

I could expound, but this brown season
doesn’t brook more redundancy—
all those taupe barks on ochre fields, 
brown bared earth—

It’s a landscape that doesn’t bother
to assert its right-now beauty—
though it’s there all right, a backdrop
of birds back, great tan puddles pearling
lengthened light.

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Another draft poem of sorts. Bear with me! I think of myself as more of a prose/fiction writer, but am in a hard place for extended narrative, so am returning to poetry–and have decided just to post rather freely, even if some things could probably use a bit more editing! Thanks much for your visits and kind comments. Have a good day–

ps – pic doesn’t fit so well, but is one of mine. All rights to poem and illustration reserved.

pps – this is a poem, i.e. somewhat a work of fiction–people in my life are remarkably happy even under difficult circumstances–