The Matter
We take you for granted, oh ever-changing one.
As if we know what it’s like
To float through blue so peacefully.
Or with impunity, to force ourselves on others
with copious tears, freezing gestures and cutting assaults.
I long to rest on you on your cumulus days
when you are all down and cotton.
As if you could absorb all the pain of living.
But today you look pensive, anxious,
And I feel threatened by your terrible mood.
Oh Clouds, covering the sky
today scarcely a shape to discern.
I know that we barely know the other.
All matter is like this, not just you.
Moving floating metamorphosing through light.
Morton's Grove
Countless grains blown to the wind.
Where once grew groves of trees,
Now countless seeds spread to the wind.
Growing up tall to produce fruits, sweet and sublime. Now gone.
Countless grains now divided and divided and divided again into lots.
Springing up, sprouting
Divisions of land to be bought and sold, lived in, remodeled,redecorated and redone.
Where once grew trees and fruits, now spawn countless grains of life.
To be born, to live, to reproduce, to watch Sunday football and to die.
To be buried where once grew groves of trees, producing fruit so sweet and sublime.
Morton Grove is a place I never think about. Honestly. I don’t care about it. I only vaguely know where it lies. It is a suburb, a suburb of Chicago. I’ve never lived in a suburb, but I grew up in a small town which was once land, farmland that too was divided and divided into squares of land to house families. My friend Abby hates suburbs. She grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts where Harvard is.
I think that her hatred of suburbs is a reaction and somehow unfair. Why shouldn’t people live as they wish?
Still, I can’t help but imagine what was once where now is Morton Grove. Who was Morton anyway? Maybe Morton was the Morton of the Morton Salt people. Maybe Morton of Morton Salt grew up in a grove of trees where the seeds of fruit trees flew to the wind every fall and landed, only to grow new, strong apple trees. Maybe Morton left this lovely place to find his fortune in the city culling grains of salt from dried seawater or minerals from the earth. Maybe Morton visited his family occasionally and looked smugly around at those groves and saw money where there were only fruit trees.
So he bought the groves from his family and set up his brothers and cousins in important jobs in the salt industry. Then he divided and divided and divided again those groves into lots to be bought and sold, built upon, lived in, remodeled, redecorated and redone. Maybe Morton’s grandfather, Morton Sr., just sat and shook his head. Maybe he lost his voice along with his groves of sweet fruit trees.
So now there is a Morton Grove. A suburb of Chicago. Golf Mill is in Morton Grove too. Golf Mill is a shopping Mall. I never knew why it was called Golf Mill. I guess that I always imagined that it had something to do with the sport of golf. But maybe the Golf Mill was the mill owned by the Golf family. Maybe the Mortons milled their grains and apple cider at the Golf Mill. Maybe Morton saw another good thing at the Golf Mill and bought out the Golfs and then subdivided their land too and built the Golf Mill shopping mall.
Then people moved in. They built dream homes with all the wonderful conveniences that make life worth living. All the conveniences that give us the time to ponder what is missing from our lives. The ancient seeds spinning in the air and what once was haunts our memories and leaves us searching in convenience for what once was to be found in the earth.
So, people moved in. Schools were built, gas stations on every corner, cars in every garage. Evolution grinds on in Morton Grove.
And what of Morton? He is buried now with his family in the cemetery where once grew trees that bore fruits so sweet and sublime.
Anger
Once upon a time…
There was a little girl
with a twirl.
A twirl of hair
in the back of her head,
A twirled up strand
for moments of dread.
She TWIRLED and SNARLED,
She FROWNED and SPAT.
She SCREAMED with rage.
She sat and POUT.
She picked things up
And SLAMMED things down.
She hoped to break them
Hear the sound.
Of SHATTERING SCREECHING SCRATCHING nails…
A sound so loud it pierced her heart.
And creeped and crawled up to her eyes.
And trickled out a salty tear
that dripped and ran and slowly fell
Upon her tongue….a salty tear.
The taste of salt.
It rang so clear.
The taste of salt reminded her.
Not so alone.
There is a taste. A taste of salt.
A salty tear.
A December Day
Today a black postman
Delivering mail
Dropping it through the mouth of the house
On a cold day
Ice lining the walk
Stubbornly frozen.
He asks, “Are you getting your workout?”
“No,” I say.
“It is something I have to do.”
“Where is your husband?” “I thought you lived there with him.”
A Mutual Misunderstanding of Daily Life
“No.” I tell him. “I have been divorced for a whole year.”
“Yes.” I say as I scrape the stubborn ice from the concrete.
And wonder that I even exist in his mind.
“You are still beautiful,” he says.
“So are you,” I say.
And we smile.
In the cold gray morning of a December day.
Dying
It may be a warm river of honey
scooping a soul
stealing a body
a warm river to soothe vague memories
of a life once lived
in panic or serenity
no matter.
it may be a freezing torrent
a storm
that grabs and torments
at breath once breathed
it may be a wave
peacefully pulling
a steady rhythm beating
hypnotizing the grainy sands of mind
to dissolve in ocean’s foam.
It may be memory
or deja vu
of a dream repeated
or
a gracious dream
never known
a photograph
fleeting and fading
into the archives
of unremembered time
what do we know
of other worlds
of stars and galaxies
of a heart
weighed against a feather
A mythical journey
An upended opportunity
A free falling
A flower withering
Some dust swirling
in wind un-noticed
what do we know of the moments ahead
or the moments behind
they converge
in warm rivers of honey
or
in icy cold storms
we can only wait
or struggle to decipher
living.
The Forgiving
As we journey arm in arm,
the horizon beckons at dawn.
Milk and honey light warms the Earth,
as gentle rays of of gold slant toward green.
With this morning my heart opens like a wildflower.
Silence
You thought it strange living
in your world of electrified distraction
that I am soothed by the voice of the silence
resonating like a warm bath of milk and rose petals
when the moon pours her light into the bowl of night.
The Dove
A round gray feathered queen paid me a visit today.
She perched low on a naked winter branch
still and patient as she gazed into my window.
I gazed back wondering if she was an angel
carrying a message to me of renewal and hope?