Table Of Contents
Life Had Other Plans
A Homecoming
It’s A Choice, Really
You Are The Fire That Forged My Bones
Once More Into The Breach
I Am Grounded, And That Is Fine
An Apology Of Sorts
The Agony Of Not Writing
Come To Bed, Love
An Ode To The Humble Raspberry
Christmas Day
Some Things Are Still Worth Doing
We The Pigs
Oxidation
When Life Is Hard And Uninspiring
Surely
Then Life Had Other Other Plans
Transformation
Cancer Is Only A Lens
Machines Are Not So Brittle
An Ode To The Poems Lost While Reaching For My Phone
A Cycle Ending
My Soul Is Starving, Even As My Body Is Fed
A Slightly Cheesy Haiku
There Are Fireflies In My Bones And White Gold In My Soul
On Waiting Patiently For The Miracle I Know Is Coming
Prophesy Is A Moonstone
Survivor’s Guilt
In The Middle Of The Air
Tomorrow Vs Today
Rebirth Is Inevitable
Poems And Oceans Both Encircle The World
The Value We Attribute
Weltschmerz II
Because Stories Matter
Sorrow Is Not Inherently Greater
Decompression
A Translation From Gif To Poetry, From Gifs Arranged In Response To Poetry
A Conclusion Of Sorts
LIFE HAD OTHER PLANS
Spring 2023
Today feels like
a good day to write
a poem, and
that is strange, because
I had other plans.
I did not expect this year
the slow decline
down a gently sloping mountain
of verdant green grass,
into a flat-bottomed valley filled
with the deep river of oblivion,
obscured by fog.
That was never in the outline.
That was never the itinerary.
But life had other plans.
(It always does.)
Out my window is a citrus tree:
it might qualify as topiary if
it were just a little less
free
form.
Shoulder-high, in a beige-glazed
pot, it was supposed to be a
gift of cumquats, fresh
fruit in season hanging
like topaz
earrings
amid
glossy-leaved hair;
Alack. The tree is a calamondin,
identical
in appearance but
bitter
in fruit.
Life, it seems, had other plans.
Below the pot, eight yellowed
leaves curl on the patio tiles,
the last scars of the tree’s battle
with hail, some four-and-change
months ago, finally discarded—
like growth.
Like healing.
Like life had other plans
for this tree than death by assault
from the sky.
I love everything, today, my current
view included:
Roses! I love roses!
Tea! I love tea!
My journal! I love my journal!
Dog walkers! I love dog walkers!
Poetry! Don’t mind if I do!
What I really love is this:
Having shed the yellowed scars of
assault-by-elemental-force,
I can once again see the sky,
and it is blue.
Cerulean.
I didn’t dare assume today
would see such steep contrast
to yesterday’s overcast skies.
But life
had other plans.