Reasons to Take a Walk During a Pandemic
there is a sea of blue by the deserted 14th hole
there are yellow flowers in the dry creekbeds
there are purple redbuds abloom outside quarantined houses
there are clumps of bluebonnets in unmown yards
purple verbena carpets the lawn of the locked church
and at evening pink primroses unfurl on the field by the school
beneath a sliver of orange moon
Spring is come. Spread the infection.
—Megan Willome
Finished
You have been diagnosed with Yesterday’s Disease
not Today’s, for which we have promising new therapies
not Tomorrow’s, which we are currently studying in a petri dish in an underground, sealed laboratory
but Yesterday’s, the one with quality pharmaceuticals (inexpensive, since the patents expired decades ago)
Yesterday’s Disease exists outside of time. Centuries old, it both narrows and widens the patient’s perception of hours.
It affects families, but everything does. Even weather.
No, there are no articles you can read. Yesterday’s Disease is passé. No title would generate enough clicks.
Quality of life is generally good, until it isn’t. There is no practical way to prepare. I suggest
you go outside, fire up the grill, put on some kabobs—You do have skewers, don’t you?
Open a bottle of wine and pour two glasses—one for you, one for someone else. Someone
who won’t ask you anything about Yesterday or Disease.
In June, Joy Harjo was chosen as the new U.S. poet laureate. I’ve spent the month getting acquainted with her poems, which are unlike any others I’ve read.
This poem was written after reading and journaling through her poem “She Had Some Horses.”
The Horse
He got some disease but before we could figure out what
it was he ran off, at the solstice. If he could’ve talked, he
might’ve said he’d had enough of us, was joining the wild
mustangs. But he was no mustang, and the mustangs knew
it.
He didn’t know how to find shelter, didn’t realize horses
don’t kill to eat, like raptors, or scavenge, like coyotes.
Found no pillows in the wild, no blankets either. Never
patient, always a runner, he ran on, through the sepia
landscape, learning absolutely nothing as his tail swished
behind him.
Back at home we debate: What could we have done?
What should we not have done? Each bit of news of him
pierces us. Not in the heart (it is long grown cold) but in the
retina, retelling ever thing we see and have seen of him.
We never talk
We talk all the time.
No, I mean talk, talk
Well what do you want to talk about?
I don’t know, just talk to me
I been talking to you for forty years.
You don’t concentrate when you talk to me
How much do you have to concentrate to talk?
That’s generic talk. It don’t count.
You want name-brand talk?
No, just talk, health talk, horse talk, I don’t care.
You want to talk about the horse?
If the horse is important to you, then yes, I want you to talk about it.
Not really. S’just a horse. I could talk about my guns.
God no. No gun talk.
Well I give up then. I never talked so much at breakfast in all my life.
You been talking so much you’ve hardly eaten a thing. Want more coffee?
Sure, ‘m all talked out.
Fine..
It’s competitive shower season
Now is the time for serious shower-ers only
Those who enjoy languorous strokes beneath the Whirlpool
waterfall need not apply
Contestants toil all year, alternating cool
with heat, daylight with moonlight
There are categories for outdoor bucket showers
shaving in the shower (men’s and women’s levels)
Extra points awarded for the dexterity needed to operate
a hotel shower
The forecast favors the adventurous. Leave behind
your lucky body wash, your ducky towel
Apply your industry to becoming the cleanest, speediest you
you can be
Tickets on sale now
Film at 11
For the second time since we’ve lived in this house, cardinals made a nest in the mountain laurel.
Inspired by Kristine O’Connell George’s book of poems titled Hummingbird Nest, I’ve written a few of my own haiku about our cardinals. I didn’t notice every detail, so it’s an incomplete narrative.
April 22
cardinal in the nest
safe in the mountain laurel—
plans for motherhood
April 24
Mama cardinal sits
on her nest in pouring rain
all day—never blinks
April 28
“Some birds are people
watchers,” says Tony Hoagland.
Mama Cardinal is.
May 1
Male cardinal busy
back and forth—female sits tight
unmoving, umoved
May 4
three baby bird mouths
open, parents flit for food —
We watch from inside
May 5
Papa Cardinal feeds
gaping baby mouths and Mama,
who feeds chicks also
May 7
baby cardinal pokes
out his fuzzy head—does not
see the nesting snail
May 8
quietly, oh so
quietly, pull up the blinds—
Mama Cardinal’s there
Almost Mother’s Day
through thunderstorms, winds
(damaging), hail, tornado—
Mama Cardinal sits
May 10
baby cardinal stands
gray and fluffy in the nest—
“I’m self-sufficient!”
May 12
Cardinal family pecks
the grass and then flies away—
the nets is empty
June 23
When the cardinals left
I threw out their nest. They’re back.
Rebuilt in one day.
June 28
Mama Cardinal eyes
me from her new-built nest: You
can never stop me
you walk upright
walk right through water
turn upside down
inside out
savor and digest living things, even carrots
tackle hills
ignore wind
stand when assaulted
curl into a ball and chase dreams, like a sleeping puppy chasing birds
oh the weights you’ve shouldered
the fine motor skills mastered
the coordination to drive a stick shift
shift thoughts into words
convert diaphragm’s breath into song
you are older today, still older next week
take your rest
sip your soup
breathe normally as long as normality is possible
remember every place you’ve been
every mile you would take back
Don’t
trace the scars on your skin, not lovely
but oh
every exposed nerve loved
at the center of the galaxy consumed
my husband’s sock, stole
the name of the book—you know, the one
that changed my life, took the maple
in the backyard, the house on the corner
It appears to be eating our grass. I blame
the black hole for absconding with his memory,
with her brilliant idea when she sneezed.
The pages of my journal creak as I search
for the poem about the daisy
(or was it amaryllis), words drawn
from ordinary dust
star dust left
over from the supernova
that started it all
To-Do List for Season 8
Now that destiny
has taken a hand—a throne—
a kingdom for three
dragons, let us not
smirk and swill wine—Stop
annoying theories—
The Troubles have
come to stay—For all there will
be consequences—
Leave nothing dangling—
Use dragonglass as needed—
Journal the game—Break
the wheel and make peace
with every slaying—Let the
evidence decay
the ice and fire
turn lukewarm—Let the map be
redrawn with a song
I Spy Yellow
all colors and descriptions from A Is for Azure by L.L. Barkat, illustrated by Donna Z. Falcone
you are a Brass-petaled field
a Jasmine coil
a Xanthic mix
sometimes I hear your Yellow hello
you are tucked in a Red bed for gold
you hide in plain sight in Kiwi
and Vermillion
and Umber
and Silver
even White
in the corners of Purple
along a Navy trail
on the far edge of an Iceberg stream
you are nowhere to be found in Fuchsia
I spy you
in a Cranberry twirl
and a Denim blue sea
perhaps that is you on the margins of an Orange flame
in the back of a Midnight terrain — a bulb blooming bright
until morning’s Tangerine sun
