Newly married
my young parents,
rented a flounder house
in Old Town Alexandria.

Set back
behind a large stately home,
the low, narrow house
held two small bedrooms
one bath
a resident kitchen mouse
and nearly two hundred years of memory.

Built in the 1830s,
the rusty red brick house
had a dirt packed floor
just covered
before my parents moved in.

Their landlord, a widower,
offered the space
if my mother would help tend
to the large garden
in her spare time.
Mr. Shea and my father,
both lawyers of different generations,
had colleagues in common.

The best part,
besides the modest rent,
was the view.
Across the street
stood a large park sloping down
to the banks of the Potomac River.

I was a baby in this small house.
My mother,
now five years gone,
had the whole world in front of her.
I like to imagine her
walking out in the early morning,
coffee cup in hand,
scanning the river,
endless possibilities ahead.

Academically
at risk,
chronically absent,
incidents
of violence.

But, I ask
where
oh where
on this vast spreadsheet
is the child’s heartbeat?

Rain offers its own
kind of reverence.
it calls on all creatures
to find shelter —
rest under a canopy
of birch leaves
or sit on a porch.

Up in the mountains,
I sit on faded flower cushions,
atop weathered rattan furniture.
Rain, gentle for now,
dances on flower petals,
coats the beech tree leaves
in glistening moisture.

A swallow darts under
the tall porch eaves,
bringing sustenance
to fledglings.

The hummingbird,
attracted to the articial red feeder,
flits between bee balm
and sugary water.

Birds and frogs take turns
filling the air
with sweet song.

Clouds shroud
the green hill
opposite my sister’s house.
The veil,
lifting occasionally,
reminds us
the world is larger
than the house,
the pond,
the trees.

Carried on a rising breeze,
the rain mixes with the rustle
of Aspen leaves,
adding punctuation
to the choir of birdsong.

On a morning such as this,
there is nothing,
but to marvel.

*Slice of Life writing gives me the steady, fluid practice I need to work on unfinished poem drafts. This poem began at my sister’s mountain house in The Catskills on a summer morning.

There are 100 essay outlines
to review,
a fire drill at 10 am,
a staff meeting,
team meeting,
CLT meeting,
3 student meetings,
a new unit to launch,
2 student reentry conversations,
a committee to chair,
dinner to make,
laundry to do,
dogs to walk,
all by Friday.

This morning I got a good laugh:
sign up for the county’s
work/life balance support group.

When in the world
would I have time?

Decked out
in red, white and blue
my family —
grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins —
headed to George and Biba Becton’s
for the annual fourth of July picnic.

Sliced spiral-cut ham,
homemade snowflake rolls,
creamy lemon butter,
dewy watermelon
covered a table festooned
in festive crepe paper.

The day’s highlight,
my Uncle Peter,
fire chief,
riding atop
a gleaming red truck,
sun-tanned and handsome
from summer days spent fishing
off Long Beach Island.

As if yesterday,
the echo of this parade
from childhood
rises in technicolor,
more real than the
sun outside my window.

Swooping low
over the river’s surface,
a silent osprey
bears a bold branch,
twice the bird’s length and weight.

I marvel
as the bird hefts the limb
atop a nest in progress.

Ospreys
do not build convenient nests.
Ospreys
build high in trees,
on river pylons.

Watching nearby
the mother osprey
bobs her head,
as if to say
“Well done. We will be ready.”

One must admire the osprey
building such an exposed shelter
of boughs, bark and jetsam
for the next generation.

Humans,
on the other hand,
build fortresses,
cribs lined with downy comfort.

I wonder
which offspring
are better prepared?

Growing up
a tall, stately grandfather clock
stood in our front hall.
Mahogany finish,
glass-fronted case
housing cylindrical weights and a pendulum.

Atop the column stood a round golden face,
two filigreed arms recording the time.
A separate disk showed the phases of the moon.

Upon the hour,
the clock tolled —
gentle, resonant bongs
echoing throughout the house.

At my grandparents,
I gravitated to
an elegant mantle clock,
low slung with a gentle curve,
a timekeeper
steady, reliable.

Time is not as permanent
these days.
Phone alarms and digital boxes
promise us time moves on.

But,
I no longer see the movement of the hour
or hear the regular reassurances,
except occasionally in my dreams.
How I miss those stalwart keepers.

When my niece Stella was young
her pet mouse Marshmallow
spent the days looking out
from its glass house
at vaulted crown molding,
floor-to-ceiling windows
and an ocean of leafy plants
in the family’s Brooklyn brownstone.
What more could a mouse want?

But,
one day
returning from a trip
to the seashore
Stella shouted excitedly
from her room,
“Marshmallow has a friend!”

There
in the terrarium
sat snowy white Marshmallow
with a brown Brooklyn house mouse.

My sister’s heart sank…
how many mice
did they have in their future?

How she wished
she could tell a boy mouse
from a girl mouse.

Slipping into the early morning dark with
two dogs on the leash, my footsteps
echo on the sidewalk, the quiet
disturbed, but if the whip-poor-will and
lonely owl notice, they do not ask me to slow.

*This golden shovel poem (last word of each line recreates a line from another poem) comes from one of my favorite poems when I was a teen, Elinor Wylie’s Velvet Shoes.

March is a funny month —
glimpses of warm, sunny days
intersperse with cold, cloudy interludes.
The clock lunges forward,
jolting us awake too early on a Sunday.

Driving home yesterday
along the George Washington Parkway
I spied
a valiant fleet of sunfish
darting over tiny waves
in the Potomac River.

Ah,
there it is…
the season changing.

Like the first sighting of a robin,
the little boats
signal warmer days ahead.

I watched with giddy elation
as the small boats bobbed.
The dance of a regatta
as sweet as sunshine.