Tag: Poetry

We mapped our house
   in a township
      with a lake
         and a preserve
            for native species...

Then structures came on wheels
   manufactured halves
      parked in a cul-de-sac
         while the foundation cured
            waiting the arrival
               of the cranes...

When the schedules converge
   on that day... in this plat:
      the dwelling,
         planned by convention and
            executed in compliance,
               is lifted in place...

May the process of completion
   the prospect of residence...
      engage and enrapture us...

Until when,
   if ever,
      in early light
         we are startled by waders 
            lifting from among the water lilies.

   ~ Circa 1993

The sound of their tricycle on cement,
   "Look Daddy how fast I'm going!"
    Clockwise, now counter-clockwise
       in early afternoon.

Round and round
   pedaling, pedaling
      looking at me
         then gliding to a stop.

They are almost too big for it.
   Soon they will need one less wheel...
Better to move around the expanding circles
   until they are on their own.

   ~ April 21, 1991 in the Calumet

Empty milk bottles, an empty wine bottle
   and a salad dressing bottle...
      filled with water and white tulips --
         whose time will soon be past.

There is a dead spider in a milk bottle.
   I remember those milk bottles
      being left on the back porch, filled with milk.
         How it was...

Contemporary life has changed.
We drive to the Stop N Shop to get our milk
   in plastic jugs (#2 recyclable).
And glass milk bottles are the stuff of collectors
   and flea marketers.

They hold tulips well.

~ April 21, 1991 in the Calumet

I cut the white tulips.
   They were almost gone.
      Petals dangling down,
         ready to fall to the ground.

They still smell fresh,
   as flowers do... in the clear 
      glass vase
         where I put them on my desk.

Others bloom now,
   still others are yet to bloom
      now and next year.

It's time I left them for a while
   to multiply, and grow, and flourish.
      Instead of transplanting them each October.

~ April 21, 1991 in the Calumet   

I can't shake it...
Here with me is...
a feeling of tension.

I am okay...
I am going forward in time.

Yet I am restless
going forward in time...

Passing through cultures and societies,
accomplishing things:
doing laundry,
vacuuming,
or cleaning the closet...
all satisfying.

I washed dishes
and prepared burritos for lunches next week.
I have accomplished this.

But I need more.

    ~ August 3, 1991 in the Calumet

This studio...
   is a place for creative endeavor
is only a studio...
      a place for solace
by my declaration...
      from this quiet place
that it is so.

     ~ Sept. 9, 1990

The work I do
is not for me

so much as it is for

the friends I have come to know.

The collages
The poems
The journal entries
The performances

Not for me.

The nuns taught us.

All for the honor and glory of God.

It is a lesson

that stuck.

~ Labor Day, 1989, Lake County, Indiana