Blink

Tags

poetry, Relationships, sex, universe, void

The ancient yogis said the universe
blinks on and off, and many of today’s
quantum physicists believe the same.

A neon sign blinked
outside the hotel window, rundown,
downtown LA, Rolling Stones
our background music,
while my boyfriend and I,
abysses of inexperience,
managed to have sex;
blinking neon, on and off,
much as the universe,
from being into void and back,
each blink a chance to
change and change again, so

how did Mick already know
that we would get no satisfaction:
paying for the hotel room
meant I would pay and pay,
talk of other women
manifested as affairs,
I would stay,
darkness would descend
and cloud his mind,
and all felt like the pull of gravity,
of fate, inevitable, forcing
us down the only path we saw

while outside the window
blinked the universe,
birthing other universes
with each blink?

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Silk Flowers

Tags

ocean, poetry, psychic awareness, scarf, silk flowers

Today a day when everything turns wrong:
carved bead lost, perhaps forever,
apricots stolen from the tree,
heart I didn’t mean to hurt.

Yet other things come right:
minds meet across miles,
your question carried on a breeze,
my answer unfolds
like a scarf you’ve never seen before
in the bottom of a drawer;
wondering if it came from me,
you catch silk flowers as they fall.

Four Birds Fly West

Tags

birds, death, messages from the Universe, poetry, setting sun

My husband, Eugene “Charlie” Chase, passed away,
age 93, four months after the event described below.

I step outside at dusk,
the long day done,
the long night just begun.

My husband sleeps upon his bed,
too weak to turn and tired
from the wandering of his mind,
the long day done,
the long night just begun.

All day I’ve wondered
will the latest drug turn him around
or is his final passage near?
I ask the dusk, “Is he headed
for death?” I look up as I say
the words and see four birds
fly west above the sugar pine,
a message from the Universe
(birds are its favorite messengers).
The Four of Wands, a rite of passage
marked, the Four of Swords,
the warrior takes his rest,
the west, direction of the setting sun,
to minds of old, the home of death.
So now I know, his soul will soon
take flight,
the long day done,
the long night just begun.

Picnic at the Beach

Tags

blessing, ocean, omen, picnic, poetry, Pt. Reyes, Relationships

Pt. Reyes, 1983

After the wine and the picnic,
after Dale and George leave,
waves break on the beach
and slip back out to sea;
fullness, emptiness.

Charlie and I fall asleep on a rise of sand,
awake to find water all around,
but we are dry,
omen of protection, of blessing,
unsustained but perfect moment;
fullness, emptiness.

His Luck

A photo from 1929 shows Aunt Chris
and Uncle Frank in jeans and cowboy boots
in front of the adobe house
on La Cinta ranch,
sun shining down from the turquoise sky
of New Mexico,
my uncle’s face alive with joy.

Twenty-seven years later, when I was eleven,
my family took a Sunday drive to see them,
their little house next to a two-lane highway,
shade trees in front and a field in back.
He looked at her, even then,
as though he still
couldn’t believe his luck.

The alignment of the stars and the secret
ways of fate have brought me many gifts:
The Little Squeegy Bug, my cousin Lynelle,
the apple orchard, Oz books, a snowy owl,
Professor Hand, the Roybal Café in Peñasco,
astrology, a pilot’s license, conversations
with trees, my dog Barney, cosmic kisses,
and poetry, but so far,
never a man
who couldn’t believe his luck.

Seasons

Tags

cancer, commune, healing dreams, Love, poetry, pregnancy

A friend in her early twenties
lives in a commune in Oregon,
helps plant wisteria in the garden,
and visits the midwife;
soon she will have her baby;

I write my poems, which come
from just behind my head,
play with my dogs in grass
so tall they have to jump over it,
and talk with friends, though not
about how I wait for the man I love
to come back;

a healer in her forties, a woman
who keeps her heart open, embraces joy
by remembering a lake
from her childhood, and calls forth
healing dreams by wearing a pendant
of a stone from a meteorite fallen to earth,
has cancer everywhere.

All the seasons happen at once.

Smile From a Stranger

Tags

attempted suicide, Berkeley, Golden Gate Bridge, jumping off bridge, Love, poetry, Waving Man

Every morning for thirty years,
a man stood on a corner in Berkeley
and waved and smiled at everyone
who drove by.
 
During a time of sad revelations,
I passed him once a week and cried
each time he blessed me with his wave;
what else was his wave,
but love?
 
Imagine the jump off the Golden Gate Bridge:
pain pushing you, falling with terror
into the open mouth
of the sea. But remarkably,
you live.
 
Asked what would have
stopped them from jumping,
survivors said, A smile from a stranger.
Consider this poem
my wave,
my smile,
my love.