Hummingbirds Arrive without Reservations

In April the hummingbird people
begin to arrive and before they've unpacked
or picked out a campsite
they come to find me
in the field
on the road
they even peer in
at the bathroom window
to let me know:
they've arrived. Time to fish out the feeder
and crank out the sugar water
yesterday.

May is the sound of hummingbirds
throbbing like angry fairies
in mid-air space
facing off against each other
and anyone else
vibrant colors flashing
and a blur of wings.

You found half a tiny while eggshell,
carried it home on your open palm,
laid it in the cup of a purple sparkly geode
on our altar to the spring.

Grace

First dog person I have ever loved,
when you ripped open my
trusting friend the goat
I surprised myself
by not killing you
instead I found a small lump
of something smaller than retaliation
or Old West justice
deep inside,
something of cold logic
coated in grace
that opened up
furious as a desert bloom
with a scent that permeated my brain
while gently whispering,
"This dog gave up everything he knew to be your friend.
We do not kill our friends for their weaknesses,
we help them. Help him."

So daily now
my remedial friend testing continues
as I navigate the complexities of
holding you close enough to keep you safe
from your missing impulse control switch
and being delighted as you do all the things
I ask enthusiastically,
as though your world, shrunk of necessity
to the length of your leash
is your oyster and I
- your jailer and the judge who nearly ordered
your execution-
remain your pearl.

View from the Night Garden, where the moonshadows grow

From here
you can see so far into the Milky Way
it feels as though we are standing inside it,
that snaking and eddying river of stars.
Which we are.
How easy it is
in the dizziness
to recall being told that we are built of stardust:
particles of the river
stuck together in 6.5 billion different ways
and somehow
lit from within this time.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Hurtling toward old age with blinding speed
and an auspicious lack of grace
I grasp at moments as they dance by,
determined to break the inevitability of my fall.
There goes the moment in which you were a toddler,
and without you I would have been
the loneliest person on earth.
There goes the moment we caught chickens together
and another one where I read aloud to you in the hammock
in the dappled summer sun.
Here is us picking apples in the autumn rain.
Here is us lifting boxes of produce from the truck to the dock
and from the dock into the boat.
Here are a thousand crossings of the Salish Sea
with the salt spray sticky on my face.
I knock them all which-way
in my frenzied haste -
there must be something with more cushion to it,
something with some anti-lock brakes
to control the spin -
Ah! Here it is!
You take my hand
and the free-fall grinds into a retard
so slow I cannot determine the movement,
as I focus on your smile. Your eyes.
This now.

Dear Holiday Revelers

Dear Holiday Revelers

Dear uninvited guests from Norway,
I find it difficult to sleep through the sound
as you power-up your mini chainsaws
and go to work at 3 am on the rafter
above my head.
I regret to inform you that your inharmonious habits
-the tap dancing contests you hold close to midnight, for instance-
have led me to pursue other avenues
beyond pounding with a stick on my ceiling.
It isn't that I am Speciest;
fond of dogs and cats, goats and chickens,
not so fond of your plague-carrying people,
it's only that none of the other 4-legged allies
have come to live in my attic with plans for a breeding program,
strategic and tactical 3-D models laid out in code,
and plans for an eventual corporate takeover
of all my assets: kitchen, baths, bedrooms,
and of course the family room, with its wood stove,
and finally, plans for the slavery of my family and myself.
It is because I have been apprised of your long-term goals
that I must become proactive on behalf of all I consider precious.
Which is why, dear Sirs and Madame,
you will find my offers of chunky peanut butter
and small piles of organic cheddar cheese bunny crackers
loaded, so to speak....
Please enjoy these parting gifts and consider them
the tokens of neighborliness they are designed to be.
Wishing you a speedy transition to your new destination,
wherever that may be,
Madeline

December 2009

Thanksgiving in Recession

Somewhere
there is an anesthesiologist
who has gone without
a turkey on his table
because a farmer
hasn't yet
paid the bill.

The Opposite of 8

My daughter and I hold hands
walking
on the way to school
along the muddy gravel road
strewn with layer upon layer
today's dead
piled on yesterday's
piled on the day-before-yesterday's
dead leaves.
A pastiche.
A heavily shellacked collage.
She chats merrily,
unaware of the morbid turn
my thoughts have taken.
This road is built on the bodies of the dead, I think.
Just like the famous road through Siberia
where the dead bodies of the laboring prisoners
- thousands upon thousands of people -
were just packed in amongst the layers
of rocks necessary to build a road
so that fools with fancy motorcycles
and video cameras can prove their ability
to travel to the edge of the continent.

She is swinging my arm so enthusiastically
I have no choice but to listen.
Ogres and gremlins, um-hmm. Hiding in these woods. Yes.
(Maybe we are not thinking so differently after all....)
I would not miss this fragile moment:
eau de decomposing leaf,
crisp air, wool sweater and this person,
the embodiment of life.