Regret
can be its own kind of prison.
Words spoken,
promises broken,
friendships untended,
paths not taken,
choices made,
lives not lived,
talents disregarded,
courage lacking…
while there may be
validity
in these reminiscences,
the weight is crushing
possibilities
for here and now.

*title borrowed from Natalie Diaz’s “Of Course She Looked Back”

Last night
my son’s dog came to stay.
Cooper is a frequent guest —
respectful, kind, friendly.
His half siblings,
our two dogs,
have varying opinions.
Max, a year older,
but smaller than Cooper,
loves having a new playmate.
Upon arrival,
Cooper and Max
circle with wagging tails,
long lost companions.
Georgia, on the other hand,
enjoys ruling the roost,
mastering the quiet,
setting the pace.
She will tolerate Cooper
next to her on the couch,
but
he had better let her lead the way on walks,
head out the door first.
This morning
the three dogs
lounge in bright sunbeams
on the colorful rug.
A truce
I hope will hold
for the week.

We debate the virtues
of London at Christmas –
streets festooned with glistening lights
or Dublin –
rife with literary haunts
and local pubs,
maybe Vancouver in summer –
endless cornflower blue skies,
whales breaching off shore
or perhaps Key West –
sun-soaked afternoons
walking Whitehead Street
past Hemingway’s home.

Mid chat,
I look up
to see a Carolina Wren
settle on the bird feeder.
You follow my gaze.

Outside the sun is setting –
sherbet pinks and oranges
streak the sky.
Maybe we should
head out for a walk instead?
Two dogs leashed,
we stroll toward the river –
no need to pack a bag,
book a flight
or board an airplane…
we are already
here.

*Inspiration poem: “Don’t Miss Oout! Book Right Now for the Journey of a Lifetime” by Imtiaz Dharker

The human body is a marvel.
Blood flowing,
oxygen pulsing
lungs expanding.

Every single moment,
the human body
is at work.

At times,
illness lays
the body low,
injury renders parts unusable.

Yet,
time is the body’s greatest foe.

The human body
is not intended
for immortality.
A brilliant mind
continues to calculate
when the body is too weary
to rise.

Memories of mountain hikes,
skipping as a child,
running to a loved one
play on a loop
when one’s two legs
can no longer bear the weight.”

Aging is not gentle for the fittest of bodies.
Toward the end,
it is essential
to nourish the mind and soul,
for regardless the state
of one’s mortal vessel,
the heart remembers.

“I used to think poetry – and religion too – was about describing the transcendent…but these days, I find myself more and more interested in language that pays attention to tangible things.” Padraig O’Tuama

Before sunrise,
I stand
barefoot on wooden floorboards
in a quiet kitchen.
Flakes of steelcut oatmeal
drift into the bowl,
bringing hints of Irish soil.

As the oatmeal cooks,
I rinse ripe, round
blueberries
in a steel colander.

In summer,
fresh picked peaches
drip nectar into the bowl.
In winter,
bright yellow banana rinds
open
to offer thin slices
of soft fruit.

The coffee grinder whirs,
milk steams,
my lucky owl mug
brims
as I settle
at the wooden kitchen table.

Cocooned in my daily ritual,
I open my journal
to write.

When a baby is born
there is no talk
of shields needed
to guard the soul.

Rather,
when a child is born
gentle words of welcome,
soft downy blankets,
and warmed milk are the order.

But,
when should we begin
to equip a child
for the harshness
of other children’s words?
the loneliness of rejection?
the sting of parental disapproval?

When is it time
to warn young girls
of male ill intentions?

Is there a good moment
to reveal
the earth’s scars
wrought by human hands?

Or
is it best
to stay swaddled and safe
for as long as possible?

*Inspired by No’u Revilla’s “When You Say Protesters Instead of Protectors”.

Visible from space,
the world’s largest dam
measures more than seven football fields.
Constructed over generations,
the dam holds back run off
from Canada’s Birch Mountains.

Shaped in an arc,
the dam is composed
of connected arches.
Through brutal cold,
blizzards of snow,
the force of gravity,
the dam remains.

In 1978,
beavers returned
to a patch of woods
in Fairfax, Virginia.
Setting to work,
the builders began
to shape a wetland.

Today’s massive ecosystem
owes it origins
to those first beavers —
red-shouldered hawks, barred owls,
coyote, fox,
tree frogs, ribbon snakes,
marbled salamanders,
belted kingfisher,
yellow crowned night herons.

This morning
I watched a lone beaver
leave his lodge,
floating on the surface
of a warming pond.

Sixty degrees
appears tempting,
even for a nocturnal creature.

Evidence of spring
dots the margins of the wetland —
robins, frogs,
and freshly felled trees.

Soon,
the beaver will be joined
by family members
who swam the pond
last spring,
ready to repair and renew.

Marsh awakening
A great horned owl nests above
As frogs trill hello

A haiku written after a walk at my local marsh. If you would like to here the sounds of the marsh this morning, click here.

My father hates L.A.
Growing up on Livonia Avenue,
Los Angeles was a place
of deficit for him —
little money,
a father lost at seventeen,
a strict Jewish upbringing,
a family circle
limited by the Holocaust.

On the other side of town,
my father tells the story,
a cousin was a hotel doorman
where Howard Hughes resided.
Hughes helped the cousin’s son
into medical school
when school after school
rejected the Jewish young man.
Success was serendipity.

For my father at seventeen,
long hours bagging at a grocery store
helped pay his family’s bills —
no Hughes or good luck story.

Instead,
he worked, studied, scrimped, saved
to pull himself
over the horizon of Los Angeles.
Discrimination, death, circumstance
marked this son of an immigrant’s path.

My father hates L.A.
But for me,
L.A. is a classroom
in which to learn
about overcoming.

The stove is off,
you can let go
your constricting grip on safety.
I forgive you
for continuing to carry the habit.
I forgive you
for holding a grudge grounded in hurt.
I forgive you
for hours spent worrying,
with no real power to change.
I forgive you
for wanting —
trying to fill a hole of murky origins.
I forgive you
for the hovering
masked as parental care.
I forgive you
for wondering if you are enough.
I forgive you,
I forgive you,
I forgive you.

*inspired by Dilruba Ahmed’s poem “Phase One”. In the poem, Ahmed repeats, in a flood, I forgive you — making a safe space for the acknowledgement of things that hide in the shadows for each of us.