Our Insomnia

Something new. Still in a state of flux. Nothing great, but, you know, something.... A little vague, but briefly: A poem about 2 people who are not together but who share an interest in words.

 
Our Insomnia  

We are, the both of us, awake--Shakespeare's "soft nurse"
of sleep tempted away by the waning moon you have yet to see.
I dim the light on the table beside me. Upright, I settle
into a wingback chair and trace my fingers across our shared
words of kings, of strangers, of husbands and wives--
words that are secrets in the gravity of the moon.
 

Since We're Sharing...

...here's another one. A bit mushy and mundane, but what the hell.

Bank-Fishing

For my grandfather

We are fishing before dawn.

My grandfather’s remaining lung

works for breath even as we sit

and watch the bright tips of plastic bobbers.

“What are your plans,” he asks

as the bobbers drift,

the spaces between his words

patient ellipses of inhalations.

But I am ten—basic and elemental,

and I cannot answer him any more

than I can understand what happens

beneath the water’s soft surface.

I know that I have not planned anything,

that I understand little more

than expectation and guilt.

Our bobbers are together in the shallow

pool between large rocks.

Waiting, my grandfather looks at me.

I want the sun to rise.

I want to step between the rocks,

then kneel there, then reach into the water

to find him an answer.

So...

Yes, it has been a long time. So what? Things have changed. But that's not why I'm here--to tell you that. Everything changes for everyone. What I want to say is this: I found some poems! Or, they found me, maybe. There are only 2 new ones, but here they are. Each is dedicated to a specific person. One of them is dead, so he'll never know. The other person is still alive, and he already knows.

Hummingbirds

            for Mark

I dream that the wife who divorced you

sits beside me on the patio. It is mid-January, but

the sun is warm. She has brought with her the harp

she plays at weddings, and she draws thin fingers

across the strings.

She asks me to tell her one thing that I know.

I regard the sun. Hummingbirds crowd

the feeder above the redwood planter box.

I turn to her and say that you told me

of dressing for dinner one night before she left,

that you had bought a new ring and said to her how

you would always love her, that she should stay.

She nods. She dampens the harp’s strings with the palm

of her hand, and the commotion of hummingbirds

ceases. She turns to me, then, and stands to leave.

She points to the two sequoias, noticing that they are

browning from the top down.

She rests her hand on my shoulder and presses her fingers

into my skin in a way that makes me see how any man

could love her. Lifting the harp, she frowns and turns

to leave. The hummingbirds are gone. She

raises the corner of her mouth, smiles, and whispers

that you are still dead, and that each waking day

I must know this.

Evolving

for Shawn

What fish feel,
birds feel, I don't know--
the year ending.

-       Basho

In the winter of my sixtieth year I remain

ignorant of how the heron knows to fly south,

how the salmon knows to find better water.

I have risen hours before sunrise to sit beside

a small lamp to alternate between

Birds of North America and The Total Fishing Manual,

hoping to find this morning’s answers.

This habit of leaving the bed so early is new.

I want to ask someone—my sister’s therapist,

perhaps—if the change is typical, if I should

be sleeping more. And my eyes do grow tired

so quickly now, another change, and I have started

writing down questions to ask my young physician

who nods so well.

“Are these still my eyes?” I have written twice.

Soon I switch the lamp off and press deep into the chair.

How does this make you feel? my sister’s therapist might ask

while ignoring my eyes, and I would answer with arms

that were once wings, lungs that were once gills.