Since 2020 our local independent newspaper, City Pulse, has featured a holiday tradition called Poetry and Lights. It began as a response to the dark days of Covid and local poets were invited to create pieces with the theme of light. My wife Cheryl Caesar has contributed every year.
 |
| C reading at The Poetry Room, 2018, REOTown Lansing, MI |
2020-Each Morning So Far
Each morning I get in the car and find
The center convex-prism rear-view mirror
Turned up to day position for my spouse:
That is, set to night vision for my height.
I see a flattened world in tones of grey,
But clear enough, I think. It’s good enough.
And yet each day I pull the mirror down.
Sunlight pours in, forever a surprise.
Each day, I think, the world hands me the choice
Of Plato’s cave. Give thanks! each day, so far,
I’ve turned away from shadows to the light.
2021-Ritual of the Hearth
My calves against the warm
hearthstone give thanks
for the pressure, as my back
is grateful to the fire.
My mate on the sofa, mouth moving,
body at rest. Our old cat curled
like a warm china teapot, purring
a murmured prayer. I rejoice. The ritual
emerges. A moment, transcendent,
a signpost on our lives’
journey, shared and blessed.
Life sprouted, they say,
from liquid, where molecules meld,
and so we made water and wine
our sacraments. But solids too, if we let
the wafer melt in our tongues’
juice, always patient, never biting.
If we are attentive, we can find
the sacrament in air. Now I hear
a mitochondrial hymn of praise
to oxygen, a trillion strong.
If we are attentive
and quick, we can find it in fire:
how it dances like a spirit over the log
body. How it flickers up
in a star, a hearth, a spark from calico fur.
2022-Advent
It’s the last day of school before Christmas
vacation. Scholastic books have come in. Atop
my stack, a round-limbed gingerbread cookie
made by the teacher just for me. This weekend
I will stay with a neighbor, as the raging
ruler of our house will be away.
There’s this feeling I get when I know
something’s coming to me, wrote my eight-year-old
self in the book with the tiny gold key.
Time opens before me. Soon after I will learn
the word anticipation, and later, advent.
But already I feel it, the quiet turn toward celebration,
as two calm days stretch like a desert night sky,
with books guiding me like a star, and a round
smiling cake saying, This is what you are:
no misshapen freak, but perfect as the child
in the manger. The household Herod will break
into the diary, mock my words, scold,
demand a rewrite. But I carry the still, and share
with you on this holiday: a card, a carol,
a wish, a prayer: that you may
have peace like the blue depths of the sky,
the faithful light of your own lodestar,
and a smiling face repeat to you each night:
You are perfect and beloved, just as you are.
May the gentle kine enwreath you as you sleep,
warming you with their hay-sweet breath.
2023-Stored Energy
Every time you stooped to pet the cat
and she reared up on two legs,
fitting her head into your hand
like a ball in a cup;
And every time you went to shut the fridge
and the door so graciously said, Allow me,
and finished closing itself;
And each time
that magnetic charging cable leaped
into the port, like an eager cadet;
Not to mention all the green lights
you hit, and the mornings
(rarer now) when the life force
propelled you from your bed
before the voice of duty called;
Surely these have all been adding up.
Surely there’s a cache of energy
somewhere. Didn’t Einstein say
it’s never lost? Let’s go
through pockets, and turn over
sofa cushions, like kids
who hear the ice cream bells.
Let’s scoop it up like Ali Baba’s
armfuls of gold, sprinkle it like dust
from Tinkerbell’s wand, on every head
we meet. Let’s all glitter like sequins
on a tap dancer, shimmer like tinsel
on a tree. Let’s spangle. And then:
reach down to your innermost
branches. Flip that forgotten
switch. And shine, shine, shine.
2024-Saving Stars
Winter came sudden this year,
dark and cold. It feels somehow
final, like the world’s last
night. But it might just be
my own. It might be that I
am unable to tell the difference.
At Thanksgiving dinner we looked out
at the yard, covered in oak leaves, said
to be toxic. A raccoon wandered in circles,
slow and clumsy. Old? Sick? Dying?
We put out food and warm water. The animal
seemed half blind, past noticing. There was nothing
left to offer but our wishes for an easy death.
Do you feel it too?
We are moving forward in the dark
with our tiny candles cupped in cold hands
against the wind. We are burning
twists of hay, like homesteaders,
in the endless labor of staying alive.
We are trying not to dwell
on the entropy: planetary
or only personal. Eventually,
all our stars are going out.
There is nothing we can do about that.
But on this winter afternoon,
I am setting out my own stars, bright
spots like the yellow maple leaves
on the tannic oak lawn.
Will you join me there? I’ll begin.
No comments:
Post a Comment