"There is very little between you and nature and God"

"You know, everyone is going ooh-la-la and being indignant about our climate change. But what did they expect?" Stancer says of those who are just waking up to global warming. "Why are people surprised that this is a living, breathing planet?"

Far North Feels Worst Effects of Warming by BETH DUFF-BROWN

Very good read from the AP. As always, I'm left wondering when I'm going to get my ass in gear and start biking again.

Crunchy, But Good

I lay
on the table, her hands
working my back
and the lumps that form
from every day stress.

Sometimes I name them.
"Ah…that one's Georgia, the daughter.
Oh… that one's Jack, the son,
and goodness, that's got to be
the current project,
the one with the looming deadline."

"No matter," she said.
"The body needs tension.
Otherwise, it falls down to the ground,
a pile of bones and yuck."

In The Dark

We were friends and fourteen
in Taiwan—
a long way from home
and busy, missionary parents.
So we broke curfew,
climbed out windows
through bushes and iron gates
to smoke
behind a poor farmer's shack
hidden by corrugated tin,
and plywood,
and night.
We left our ashes
and our fiery adolescent confusion
in a sand pile by the door.
That night
a fire burned
the place down.
With morning light
we were caught
and punished.

My father
only wrote once
in all those years
I was away
at boarding school.
The letter
was on a blank note card
penned in his familiar
and mysterious scrawl.
It was only a few
sentences long.

“Dear Erin,” it began.
“I am disappointed in you.”
He explained:
Not for breaking rules
or ruining my body
with bad habits, no.
But for being with two boys
in the dark.

I kept it for years
as the only keepsake
I had from him,
and memorized it
word for word.

There We Were

There we were
standing by the water,
the stream rolling by
over and around obstacles;
a limb.

You said, “What now?”
I said I loved you.
You said, “Is it time?”
A child answered
yes.

You bent to kiss me then,
and kiss me again.
your lips were soft.
I fell into you
and the frothing, watery
turbulence.

Love, Mistaken For a Knick Knack

Made in China

A basket of hearts
sitting in a stall
in cheap rattan,
piled haphazardly,
wondering what happened
to the houses
they once inhabited.

Bare Foot and Rice Paddy

The mud sucks out
of the ground and up
between toes, down
over the foot in
the middle of the rice paddy.

A farmer looks up,
angry threats rain down.
The foot runs out,
as the blood flukes seep in
and drink to their good fortune.

Untitled

Footsteps on the veranda,
Hushed whispers,
Acacias lightly rustle
in the sticky night wind.

The door opens,
shuts,
opens,
shuts.
The mystery deepens
in the emptiness
of my bedroom.

A knot in my neck,
A lead ball in my stomach,
A sudden snapping
beneath my sternum
indicates the presence
of one,
simple word,
large enough
to be swallowing me whole:

Want.

Latency or Thousand Year Old Egg

Look around! Look around!
Every thing's still,
frozen in the Earth,
hard, immovable.

Like a buried egg
Laid in the ground
for weeks,
you emerge
black, gelatinous—
a delicacy!—
in your 1,000-year-old
incarnation.

Rite of Passage

I looked at the small
wrinkled turd-like ball.
“Wah Mui. Dried Plum,” she said
holding out her gift, palm up.
Warily I took
and searched the crevices
for some portion that might appeal
to my nine-year-old eyes.

“Nibble it first,” baited offer,
and I knew
she had a secret buried
in her small rough fruit.
I couldn't refuse
or I'd be
a wimp imp child in this new
concrete jungle heat.

Showing only
a small bit of trepidation,
not enough for another
nine-year-old to see,
I nibbled an oh-so-small edge...

Shivers up my spine
from this salty ball of turpentine!
Tongue held, I swallowed
her dark surprise

and passed.

He Comes to Me in Pieces

Teapots or a Chime

Sometimes,
instead of a blank page,
it’s easier to look around,
pick a point,
alight on an object,
and just write something
rather than think
of all that white space.

Want of Apron, It Goes Like This

Butterfly appliqués,
embroidered lilies,
scalloped edges.
Chinese peaches,
and polka dots,
atop cherry blossom swirls.

They line the walls on perfect pins
like grandma had:
Wooden men with no arms
or faces
but a barrel of potential
with a bottle of glue, a pen,
and a few pipe cleaners.

I’m not an aproned girl.
Life’s too messy to clean up
as I go.

But the possibility’s there
hung out,
strung out
for me to want.