Francy 的个人资料Francy Land照片日志列表更多 工具 帮助
9月24日

The Reason

It’s males who keep me up at night

this was once an exciting thought -

when a man would wake me in the middle of a deep sleep

for a hard ‘conversation’

 

Later, though, I was kept up by

Anger at the man who made more work for me

rather than being the betrothed helpmate

 

A son who would not sleep through the night

Until he was well into being five years old

I thought I would never sleep through the night

myself

 

A cat who insists on going outside at 2:30 am

and returns with the spoils of his hunt

yowling to be let in just as

I was finally falling back asleep.

 

Now here I am again, being kept awake by thoughts

of you in the middle of the night. 

Nobody told me I would

come full circle.

7月17日

Lunacy

I was born under a full moon

Which may explain my

Occasional lunacy

And tendency to take

Midnight moonlit walks during

That monthly insomnia

I get like clockwork

 

Sometimes I wonder if

It’s the extra night light of the

Full moon, but that doesn’t explain

The same effect on cloudy nights

Perhaps it is the extra gravitational

Pull at perigree, on our

Mostly water bodies –

Our own personal high tide

Making us restless.

 

Or is it just the irresistible

Magic world that seems to appear

On moonlit nights

That makes the night time

A rarely seen event

A place we usually don’t often venture

Where I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow

Where I see the moon and the moon sees me

Where someone says, “Keep your pants on! Not THAT moon!”

Why don’t we call it a “moonth”

There are twelve moonths in a year.

 

I was born under a full moon

Which may explain MY

Occasional lunacy

What’s YOUR excuse?

7月13日

You GO Girl!

 

She takes awhile to jog past me on the trail

But jog she does

I don’t see her face

Only her elderly body

And a set of incredibly muscular

Calves and I think

You GO girl!

 

The one leaving the coffee shop

In her colorful t-shirt

Cropped pants and

Athletic Shoes

Goes out and gets into a

Cherry Red Mustang

Pulls on her sunglasses

And is on her way

You GO Girl

 

When I am an old woman

I have no intention of wearing

Purple because it doesn’t look good on me

Nor a silly red floppy hat

But I might be out there jogging

Or cruising town in a hot car

It will be a ’64 t-bird

Jet black with a red and white interior

 

I’ll be pretty cool for a

Septegenarian

Still listening to classic rock

At full tilt. Younger women will

Look at me and think

You GO Girl!

6月2日

Morning Caravan

“We’re a caravan.” 

The man said to

me on my walk this morning

I tuned in from my morning walk reverie

to look and

sure enough they were

A caravan of old people with squat dogs

Waddling down the street together

The man in the lead, the women following behind

As is standard in caravans

The only thing missing was the camels

You never know what you will encounter

On an early morning power walk.

5月30日

This Day

This day rich

With wee wild white roses

Covering the overgrown bush

Air saturated with golden blue

Sunshine and heavy beckoning floral pollen

And grass that is growing faster

Than it can be mown

 

This is not a day for missing you

For crying over what I can’t have

This is not a day for emptying my tear ducts

Ending up an emotionally shredded

Mass of blonde hair and ruddy cheeks

That was for yesterday

 

Today is for wandering free

Camera in hand

Laughing at the funny things

People do

Watching a sunset

This is a day for being

4月26日

Gifts

He gave me

Laughter and love

Furniture he thought I needed

Jewelry he said I deserved

He gave me ten minutes of himself

On the phone every day

And an email to start my day

 

He gave me his belief in me

Memories of canning peaches

After we’d picked them on a hot August day

He gave me sand candles we made together

A walk doused in a downpour of Oregon rain

And said he felt love he had forgotten how to feel

 

He couldn’t give me the one thing

I really needed, really wanted

He gave that to her.

Now all I have is

Furniture, jewelry, the last jar of peaches

I can’t bring myself to eat

All that stuff

He gave me.

4月11日

Tree People

She sees tree people

Standing out in the river

Talking softly amongst themselves

She says they stop talking when we

Approach them and they

Turn away, these shy tree folk

 

The only others who can see them

Are the grandchildren who speculate about

Whether they are greek tree spirits or

Japanese tree spirits, 'kodamas'

She likes the theories

 

She tells of how horrified and surprised

The tree people were when Dad cut down

The butterfly bushes

Their eyes wide, their mouths

Open in large O’s

She says, ‘you should have seen them!’

 

Silent on the trip home

My daughter asks if I’m ok

I don’t know how to be ok

When my mother sees such things

When the doctors tell us it’s dementia

And it will be getting worse. 

 

I hide for days, tearfully

mourning my mother who is not gone yet

Sherrie,  my friend, assures me

My mother has just advanced to

A spiritual plane the rest of us

 Haven’t reached yet

And I thank the universe for her

 

Ability to see the world this way

For my children whose open minds

Allow them to see tree spirits for

My mother who sees tree people

I may never have noticed their

Spirits without her

Now I will never look at them

without seeing her

9月6日

Because I Can

Explosions
Attack me
I wonder
How long my facade will
Hold up
I can feel it
Beginning to crack

I wonder when
The skin will shatter
All that I am
No longer contained
Will come seeping out and I
Will be lost down a
Sidewalk crack

I walk away
Leave you to your
Temper Tantrum Tirade
Free myself and
Breathe
Because you don't control
That
Because I can



8月24日

Censored

In that first year I knew
Knew I was in that marriage
We vowed ourselves into at the little church on the hill,
the joining we celebrated in a reception on a shoestring
at the nearby State Park
Knew I was in it
Alone

Alone with my censored
Feelings
The ones I couldn't admit
To myself or
Anyone else
Who thought we loved each other
Thought we were happy

You would go on
The Road
Alone in the dark  When it was
Finally quiet
I would furtively wish you
Wouldn't return
Would meet someone else
Would have a fatal accident
So I could move on
Painlessly leaving the censored part

My censored shadow grew to the size of
An elephant following me, an anchor
Weighing me down, I could
No longer rise
And live

Until I finally looked at it
Examined it thoroughly
I saw the church on the hill had
Sprouted headstones
I saw the park where we celebrated
Overgrown, neglected until it was yellow
Finally showed it to you so
We could both finally be uncensored

6月1日

Another Dead Mouse

Another dead mouse on the porch
Left limp and lifeless on the bottom step
Death is so final a step, yet
A dead mouse has possibilities.
 
I.  Solve the Mystery of the Dead Mouse
Draw a chalk outline around it
Gather evidence
Make a list of suspects
Interview potential witnesses
(I saw a cat that wasn't ours skulking away from the porch earlier!)
Conduct suveillance
Finger the murderer
 
II. The Dead Mouse Learning Experience
Observe as the body
decays, decomposes, degrades
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust"
Lessons in biology, ecology, philosophy
The vessel that once housed a mouse life
Eventually flattens
A dead mouse pancake
A mouse fur rug.
 
III. The Dead Mouse as a Study in Feline Psychology
Decipher the implied
message in the
leaving of a dead mouse
on a porch that is not one's own
A sign of honor and respect,
or some kind of feline insult,
A slap in the face with a mouseskin glove?
Call in the Pet Psychic
Because who really know with cats?
 
IV.  The Dead Mouse Used to Practice Important Cultural Rituals
Wrap the cold furry body carefully
In a handful of tissues and
put it in a small box
Take it out back to bury with the other mice
To practice saying goodbye
Because it's certain you will have
to do that some day
say some kind words over the mini headstone made with
leftover concrete from the shed
Here lies Mouse.  He lived a mousy life in every way,
and hopefully he is happy in mouse heaven.
Place some flowers
And hope that there will be no
dead mouse on the porch
tomorrow.

A Paper Bag by Margaret Atwood

I make my head, as I used to,
out of a paper bag,
pull it down to the collarbone,
 
draw eyes around my eyes,
with purple and green
spikes to show surprise,
a thumb-shaped nose,
 
a mouth around my mouth
penciled by touch, then colored in'
flat red.
 
With this new head, the body now
stretched like a stocking and exhausted  could
dance again; if I made a
tongue I could sing.
 
An old sheet and it's Halloween;
but why is it worse or more
frightening, this pinface
head of square hair and no chin?
 
Like an idiot, it has no past
and is always entering the future
through it's slots of eyes, purblind
and groping with it's thck smile,
a tentacle of perpetual joy.
 
Paper head, I prefer you
because of your emptiness;
from within you any word could still be said.
 
With you I could have
more than one skin,
a blank interior, a repertoire
of untold stories,
a fresh beginning.
5月10日

Unbidden

You
Play acoustic guitar
On a cold spring night
For an audience of only
Me
 
Songs
sung in a voice of silk sheets I want
To wrap myself in
Your voice reaches in
touching the strings of my soul by
Surprise
 
You
Don't want me to get all gushy
I close my eyes and listen
Saving my tears
The ones that come unbidden when
Confronted with such
Beauty
 
I
Let the music
The silky voice
Fill me until I am
Luminescent with it
Like stars in the chill spring night
That suddenly seens
Warmer
 
4月27日

The Card Was Supposed To Make Me Laugh

The card was supposed to make me laugh
the card from my mother
My mother who is fading and shrinking
She  sent me the card
With a Sandra Boynton Cat
Sitting in a bathtub
Telling me
When the going gets tough
She finds it helpful to take
A bath
Open the card
"I've been here since last Thursday.   Love, Mom"
 
The card was supposed to make me laugh
The card from my mother
My mother who is fading and shrinking
and it did make me laugh
The card from my mother who for an instance
Stopped disappearing from this life
Came alive the way she always was
To make me laugh
And that made me cry
Soul wrenching tears
I did not know I had in me
Tears torn and forcing their way out against my will
Knowing I won't be seeing so much
of the old mom any more
When I do it will be a gift to be protected
Taken out and looked at again later
 
One of those gifts will be
This card that was supposed to make me laugh
This card from my mother
My mother who is fading and shrinking
3月5日

A Man and His Hummer

He takes his burgundy Hummer out

Every few days

Rain or shine

And lovingly washes it using

Strokes that look like

Slow caresses along

Every deep colored surface

With the extra-soft chamois washing cloth

 

Along every chrome artifice

From the bottom of the bumpers

To the hub caps that could be eaten off of

The roll bars clear up on top

He misses nothing

His world reflects in that perfect shine

 

His wife isn't home much so

I can only assume that he does not

Share those love baths

With her as well

In the privacy of their

Master suite.

 

Perhaps, I consider, if he did

she might be home more often

OR

Conversely

because she is not home more

He had to get the Hummer

So he could slowly,

Lovingly wash the finish right off of it

Like a child wears the fur off

A favorite teddy bear

Denying Death

Today's topic on the talk radio show
Is "Death"
Death and Dying Today
In Oregon
 
I turn it off with a grimace
Instead choosing
some rock-n-roll
something with life in it
 
It's not that I'm in denial
About dying
It's ordained from the day we are born that we
Will someday die
I am all too aware of that fact with each
passing birthday
 
Today, though
one of those beautiful spring days
with a plum tree sprouting leaves
in my front yard
and a cocky cat that is not mine
waltzing through bright green grass
that will need to be mown soon
the blades impatiently reaching for
the sun
 
It's a day brimming with
life  and so I will
postpone confronting death to
another time.
11月8日

Some Days Golden

Some days, volatile earthquakes
The world seeming to move from under your feet
Leaving you feeling like a
Coca Cola can forgotten half full on that pickup bumper
The truck drives off and you
Wonder as you tip this way and that
How long it will be before
You become one
With the ground

Some days, a quiet blanket
Of softest down
Just lying there
Those are the times to stop and
Breathe
To slow down at last
To be thankful for the pause before you have

Some days, whirlwinds
You arise with
The sun
And blow through the day
Taking up everything in your path
Until night slows you down
So you can stop breezing along
You sleep just long enough to get up and
Do it again tomorrow

Some days, like today, luscious golden mist
Blooming unexpectedly in the window
A coral hibiscus flower
With a deep colored center
For one day only
A day to be savored, wallowed in
And tucked away for the times when
You have those other kinds of days.

9月6日

The Armpit

I drove through the armpit of Oregon
Twice today
Once with a car alive with chilren
Attention enrapt with the audio book
On the CD player 
 
Once by myself
Trying not to feel forlorn
Trying not to feel the emptiness
Of the car on my way home
Of my home for the coming week
 
The lack of noise
Of dirty dishes
Of missing dishes
Of waterguns left carelessly
On the floor
 
We've made this trip before
We would roll up the windows
As we approached the dreaded spot
And try not to taste the B.O.
Of the town
That noxious, foul smelling skunky air
Belched out of the paper mill by the freeway
In a town that looks like
yesterday's deflated leftovers
Without so much as a garnish
 
Now, our car has
Air conditioning
And we must only bear the eyesore
Without the benefit of smell-o-vision
As we speed toward the lush green farmlands
To meet Grandma and Grandpa
As I speed home alone in an empty car

Wasabi

Wasabi
Singes my sinuses
Reminds me I am alive
4月28日

Starlings

Starlings Fly
In amazingly crafted formations
After ingesting fermented
Juniper berries
It's best to stay out of
Their way
 
Starling sits
In the tree outside my Window
Imitating a bird of prey
An eagle I think
He freaked me out
The first time
Now I know him
 
Starlings aren't
Popular with most people. 
I think they get tired of seeing
Those brown bodies
And scraping bird droppings
Off of their clean cars
But if you learn to park
Away from their favorite tree
And learn to laugh,
Starlings can be a lot of fun.
 
Just like any of us.
 
 
 
11月2日

No Cell Phone

Mother Nature is letting

Cool drops splash on my windshield

To the music of a piano on

the all classical radio station

While I wait in the parking lot

 

I am thankful to have

Left my cell phone at home

Accidentally, of course,

Thankful for the moments of peace

 

It feels good to breathe

And watch the drops land

On my windshield

Feels good not to hurry

For just a few moments