Already the day has sprung from bright to grey

Already the day has sprung from bright to grey
going the wrong way and too fast
I want the quiet yellow spring light to last
not surrender by mid morning to dregs of winter slate.
8 am an uncertain voice leaves a message
too early for acknowledgment or reply
that was the hour for the last dream
the snuggle against dawnbreak's  parting chill
too soon to begin the struggle with loss
and tony expectations
the hour after the bird's first song
just before the children swarm toward containment
and cars of workers push their way
toward indifferent metal desks
today I heard the geese honk
once more

Esther

The one whose name is yours seduced a king

Spent a year in harem, perfumed daily

Clever virgin asked what pleasured Xerxes

One night, her informed delights made her Queen



Her uncle Mordecai kept faith nearby,

toiled in low office, saved the Regents life

When an ancient enemy reappears

says she must reveal she is a jewish wife,



undo death decrees, avert her people’s slaughter

To see the  king unbidden would be death

“Through feast, by wiles, I’ll avert disaster.

Fast, pray 3 days, I’ll prove my people’s daughter”



As with you by wit, by will, delivered

Though unnamed, God’s saving grace is rendered

Hungry in America

-->I count bread slices

2 each day is still

a day without

!/2 an avocado will last 8 days

but they ripen into urgency

one is gone already

the frozen fish is six days

the stringbeans, too
nothing lasts for seven

there will always be
one empty belly waking

40 years ago I was hungry

as I worked on the degrees

I thought would feed me

And they did for awhile

The weather has changed

Spring is cold, the insects

swarm on the warm days

As if they know  that night

will kill them how

short their tiny lives

have become.

Things They Should Tell You

Things they never tell you

Are told nonetheless

Otherwise how would you know

That the cat shouldn’t eat

the night before his tooth pull

Do you fast before the dentist

removes that last chewing surface

Or feast to remember

the infinite pleasure of your own

dentition, your own way

of grinding down and feeling up

as immediate as waking to the world

as once was,  easy, whole, natural

all your bits and parts intact.

Cat Went to Vet Today

Slim cat is now boney.

Woe is me, what could the matter be?

Feeding him meat glop did not stop the hard

edges of spine, stone jut of hips, the worry. Pleading,

please plump up Obi, why must we buck every trend?

America's aswarm with obese felines,

canine bakeries abound with waddling dogs

and you, already lithe, my little African heat seeker,

grow thinner.  The too cheery vet says

the gaunt guy lost only ½ pound

since the last urgent review.

This time he swallowed the tooth they scraped.

He must return to have another yanked for $200

I don’t have but will somehow find,

an offering, from the broken

that fur swathed  love remain,        that he last

to stem again the rising tides of loss.

April 1, 2013

6 am spattered whispers

tap against the shuttered vent

dark dawn is smeared in

crystal drops against the window

shining deeper into the

heart of the moment

to be warm against such

chill, and dry  

in spite of what soaks

the hard ground outside   

     

Ekphrasis on Elizabeth Catlett Mora's Homage to Black Women Poets

Ekphrasis

"Elizabeth Catlett Mora (April 15, 1915 – April 2, 2012) was an American born Mexican sculptor and printmaker." Catlett is best known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s.

Homage to Black Women Poets

You know us as we are you

creating because impelled

by earth oath and bird cry

womb tie and navel mark

as sure as our parents’ pain

our inherited hurt and strength

always Forged by fire, ever constrained

and free, if we understand the certainty 

of exclusion from power palaces to which we

will never belong,  how our pegs are shaped

differently always, and so ever denied,

there Is  much to Affirm and ever excluded,

there is much to Gather and the Raised fist

asserts and the arm over head protects

and the sturdy big legs, wide columns below

globe-spanning hips, are Rooted

as eyes large with want and wonder, look

sky ward, searching for what over arches,

for all that transcends