It's becoming a bit of a tradition to post a poem on my birthday.. in recent years, one that I've written myself. Last night I was at Writer's Block (a weekly writing session among friends) and couldn't find the motivation to keep writing a chapter. So I wrote this, instead.

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At times the mind kicks and bucks and heaves
like a wild thing, throwing off restraints,
breaking fences, tearing up agendas,
to earn the freedom of a daydream or two:
maybe that of the lottery, and what one would do
with the winnings of ten million, or a billion?
Such a dividend demands a plan; here’s mine:
work less, play more, donate to this charity or that,
resolve the debts of friends and family,
perpetuate generosity. See the world twice over,
travel land and sea and of course eventually
I’d write. But in saying this I realize
the book that’s in my head can’t be tricked -
no amount in my account will make the words
be better heard unless I manage to tame
the wild bucking and kicking of my brain.
And that this poem, in effect,
has been an hour-long demonstration
of my talent for procrastination.

---

(Happy Valentine's Day to you all! May it be filled with love.)

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I listened as they discussed the cost of living:
the rent in certain cities, different states,
the current rate of health care, of normal wear and tear,
of depreciation, of year to year inflation.

On the first day of being thirty-three, I see
the telltale marks of my own depreciation:
wrinkles, a grey hair or two, laugh lines.
Much deeper there are other signs
of wear and tear: the memory of heartbreak
once or twice or thrice, the ache of loss,
the hurt that a decision caused.

But if this is the cost of living,
I'll take it. Let life wear me out
with a fierce joy of the unknown,
let it carry all the hope
one person can dare to possess,
for I confess that I wouldn't have it
any other way. Life will let me be
thirty-three for only one year.
It's led me here, and here is where
I live the happiest days of my life
and here is where I love
as I've not been able to before
so I'll take this and more,
if that's the cost of living.


---

(Happy Valentine's Day to you all... it's my birthday, and we've got a fantastic day planned... so I'm off to celebrate the first day of thirty-three.)

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All the time I find myself
with empty lungs,
breath let out, chest stopped
in its rise and fall,
keeping time with the heart
when the heart stutters and stalls.

Here, in breathless places,
in spaces swelled with
hushed dread, in mental caves
where words echo unsaid,
here all the truth and lies
of the world wait, here
is where the lungs
snatch breath, once more,
and deflate.

Here the blood runs cold,
slowed to a stop-go beat.
Here we swear to not repeat
mistakes we've made before:
to look before the leap,
to let the heart build first
a firm foundation,
to coax a bit of joy into
every inhalation.

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I was going to post something else tonight, but then I fell hard for this image. The poem seemed to follow from there... it's been too long since I've written one, so it seemed like time to do so.

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Soul-searching
is what they call it.
I've looked everywhere
a person would dare to look.
In libraries filled to burst
with books, in forests dark and dense,
on midnight streets where footsteps echo
in staccato beat, in meadows warm
with summer light, among flashing flocks
of birds in flight.

I glimpsed it once on the edge
of a jagged ocean shore.
I wore a ghost of myself,
blew back the waves
with my breath, stirred storms
with the mourning of a heart,
sailed ships that sank like stones
and raised hope that died,
and died alone.

I fought to resuscitate a dream.
Coughed and choked on words,
forced the letters from my lungs,
and in the absence of an answer,
I came undone.

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Lightning bugs coat the windshield of her car,
their small, semi-hard bodies
pinging the curved surface like stones.
They bridge two worlds, past and present,
coming to rest with a dying luminescence,
a sudden, startling reminiscence
of when she caught their flashing forms
as a child, when she captured them for a night
instead of a life, as she does now
on the edge of a black highway.
She slows with the reflection,
but one last victim slams into the windshield
and dies with such lasting tenacity
that she can still see the repercussion
miles down the road.

---

For as fuzzy as this image is, you'd think it was taken with a pinhole camera. The tree to the side, however, is in focus. And I might have been, had I been able to hold completely still for two minutes of a long exposure. Ah, well. You win some, you lose some. And for some you can't even tell the difference.

Taken with a Hasselblad 500 C/M.

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