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.

Reflection on Transparency

When my body dissolved
I was 21,
new in a strange city
and my younger sister
had just died
opening the door and walking through it;
taking most of me with her.
I continued being a housekeeper
and going to grad school
but no one seemed to notice
that at an accidental touch
their hand passed right through
my skin and bone.
Often I felt like a balloon on a string.
People thought they were talking to me
but I was really hovering outside myself above.
Unable to get back in.
The longer I went without hugs or touch
the further I drifted
from my corporeal mooring.

I accosted a young man
who had been kind to me in passing
one day after work I begged him for a hug,
which he awkwardly obliged.
I was beyond caring about perception
it was all about not slipping away entirely.
Not waking up involuntarily invisible.

It took 9 months - a gestation,
to earn a friend worth hugging,
someone to tug me down
and back into
these outer trappings
everyone puts
so much stock in.

Fall Equinox

This farm is like a favorite uncle's coat
full of pockets
filled with the oddest assortment of unexpected treasures:
a fig tree, a raspberry bush, a guerrilla grape vine,
bonus pumpkins, self-seeding tomatoes, blackberries, blackberries, blackberries.
And did I mention blackberries?
Garlic so strong that tears will be shed,
and colds will vanish.
Ladybugs that rise up from the earth
to consume vast quantities of aphids,
garter snakes who sneakily devour
the slipperiest slug
and many other slugs who are not the slipperiest.
Swallows! Hummingbirds! Frogs! Kingfisher! Heron!
Bats who silently blanket the air above the pond, barn owl, barred owl -
even the darkest pockets have their treasures.

And I, daily small enough
to wiggle, happily adored,
into the safety of these arms
this farm
and rifle with delight
through all the pockets.

Dreamtruth

Last night I dreamt about the water mountains
in Chiapas.
The misty air is filled with rainbows
and the noise of pounding flowing water;
rivers which sculpt rock and paint it
with calcified limestone
so creating a perfect mirrored surface
in the idle spots.

I knelt, scrying into the clear pool
seeing jungle details; clouds billowing above
boulders framing
and my own
overlarge ears
delicate long trunk reaching out
to touch the glass
making it ripple and momentarily dissolve.

Suddenly aware
my knees are aching
I struggle to stand
like a calf again,
instead of a matriarch.