Snapshots

Nothing like family meals on a sunny afternoon at the lake.

My first completed baby blanket for a friend. I guess I got the knitting gene.

Grandma Ruth at Kabekona on her birthday. I love her expression.

Rest and Recreation

The windows were open all night.

This morning the cool air curled up next to me in bed. I dozed, remembering that I am off for the next week. My mind quickly wandered to thoughts about what to pack, briefly concerning myself with the weather and the way the lake will look in the afternoon. The leaf shuffle outside finally got me out of bed and now the day is stretched out ahead of me like two lane traffic.

Stop and go, stop and go.

Wherever it is that we're going, dear, we're getting closer.

scraps & strays

*
the implied volume of limbs
shifts the air in gestures and gusts
and i lust for random acts
that love can only touch.

*
darkness as a familiar face,
someone i smile at in the hall-
way and awkwardly eat with
when no else is around.

*
the earth: a giant, a board, a circuit.

*
you held my waist
but i surged ahead of you ---
a love-sick spring in my step.

*
so love me love my words, my song.

*

Pivotal Prairie Moment

This afternoon at work I was looking up bizarre holidays to put on the schedule for next week (I also actually WORK at my job, don't let this fool you). One of the gems I stumbled upon was "Bad Poetry Day" which brought me back to Mrs. Anderson's fourth grade class and the FIRST poem I ever wrote. At some point during that year our class went on a field trip to a nature reserve - if you've ever been to Iowa you can pretty much visualize what a field trip to the prairie would entail. Our assignment was to bring a notebook and pencil and find a place in the tall grass to sit quietly, observe our surroundings, and write a poem.

Although I don't remember the whole thing, I do remember the first half of my first poem:

As I sit on the prairie

Gazing up at the sky

I see a bird pass

And I feel as if I could fly!


But it's also so nice

With all the insects and birds

Who do their work busily

Without any words.


The poem goes on to talk about sunlight and tall grass and by the end I am waving good-bye from a fluffy white cloud. Oddly enough, that was the pivotal moment when I realized how thrilling (and fairly simple) it was to achieve rhythm with words. My nine-year old self was hooked. Cliche? Sure. But I grew up in Iowa, folks. You do the math.

Prospective Route

I can point to you on the map
winding in and out of streets named for past presidents and plants and birds and states.
I always thought street names were important: Ulysses Avenue or Ladybug Loop or Grand Boulevard are by design reassuring -
there is something architecturally sound about the way they sound.
Every day on my drive home I overlook the interstate during rush hour. I skip flat stones of relief across the current
of stalled folks on their way to somewhere, strangely thankful to be
just another car in a line of cars in a city of too many cars (we're all just waiting to crash into each other).
I like to map out where you are and link boulevards and avenues to numbers and houses
and all the fixtures of love and its affairs.

Heart Swell

It floors me the way limbs depict



lines of strength and (vulnerability)



and grace. And grace,



how are you so physical?



How can you s t r e t c h tendons



and rip muscle/tissue like paper?



You are an artist of injury.



My heart swells at the sight of such thought-



ful negative space

and so much flesh.

Riddle Me This

Written in conjuction with C.B.T. and E.R.K.

*If a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to see it, did it still fall?
*If it's not the 4th of July and the corn is knee high, what year is it?
*If you can't read a sign, what does it say?
*If Sarah is crouched in the baby swing, how many adult swings are available?
*If you are in St. Peter but the clinic sign says Mankato, where are you?
*Why would anyone book a direct flight to the Mankato Regional Airport?
*If the fire hydrants are orange, should you assume the city has colors?
*If you are in the car and someone exclaims "Oh! Rigor mortis!" what position is the roadkill in?
*If you drive past Moses Sheep Farm and you don't see any sheep, what kind of farm is it?
*Are birds necessarily sober?