the shadows of yesterday & the light of tomorrow

ix. contentment

maybe it’s as simple as
feeding the ducks at the pond,
the last rays of sunlight
glowing on the Blues;
the soft whistle of wigeons
and nowhere better to be.

I like laughing again, just a little,
and watching the wood ducks
swim with the mallards,
the weather warm enough
to go without a coat.

the season’s first goslings
warm my heart with yellow fuzz,
and as dusk falls, Chinese geese
trumpet their last calls,
chests puffed out, and head
to the river.

then, seagulls, geese, pigeons,
and ducks alike, all the birds
quiet down for the night,
and I feel content.

x. ducks, part 2

I lied a little bit in that last poem, a little lie of omission
because before the ducks, there was a person
who drove around with a 50-pound bag of corn in the trunk
to stop by and feed the birds after work, sometimes.

An invitation so simple and guileless
it captured the flighty parts of me that wanted to
wing away: come feed the ducks at a pond nearby,
the togetherness almost an afterthought.

But now that it’s after, I have so many thoughts,
fluttering through my heart like birds on the breeze.

I didn’t want to capture them on paper for fear
that I’d startle something beautiful away
if I came too close, if I wrote too much.

So I will say: shared solitude is sweet,
and unselfconscious smiles are a gift,
and like Dickinson wrote, hope truly is
a “thing with feathers.”

xi. adaptation

once, my heart belonged to the sea,
longed for the steep wet soil of ravines
threaded through with creeks,
the dark outlines of trees on the hillsides,
carpeting the craggy shoreline.

but the floodwaters have raged and receded,
my resistance gradually eroded away,
blasted open by wind on the bluffs
and buffeted by the rolling waves of
sunlight and heat, leaving my heart
as dry and cracked and empty
as this land.

the land is not as empty as it seems.
balsamroot and yellow bells slowly lift their heads
in spring, and the land shifts from greys to
greens and every subtle shade of brown.

nature speaks a different language here:
scablands and coulees, basins and draws.
rocks and sand and sweeping winds.
I learn the ways of this foreign land,
step by step and stone by stone,
so that my heart may learn to call it
home.

xii. nought

After a week of work, my creativity is shot,
and all my fancy words I have forgot.

It’s been a day of maybe, maybe not
and will I sit here, idly, ‘til I rot?

I want to learn but I will not be taught;
I cannot find the words that I have sought.

These rhymes are all I have left, and they are fraught
with things unsaid, with every passing thought.

The words escape me, they cannot be caught,
still I try to fit these rhymes into their slot.

I weep because with every word I’ve wrought
the poem isn’t working as it ought—

and all my fancy words I have forgot.
I fear all this writing is for naught.

xiii. practicing

I am not a good musician.

I can play the notes, but my fingers are at war
with the stubborn piano keys.
Every time I play might sound different, and
all the feelings of my heart won’t make the music
come alive.

It was a particular gift that you had, have,
earned through hundreds of hours of labor
and an ear more refined than mine.

It was a miracle just to hear.

But since you’ve left music behind for now,
and I’ve left you somehow, it is I who will play
at our friend’s wedding.
You’ve left me big shoes to fill, you know that?

I’ve decided I cannot show her my love
through the music: two months in and
the tempo isn’t right, let alone the tone;
it’s all I can do to play the right notes
in the right order
and to not get stuck for too long.

Besides, she has bigger things on her mind.

But this is the one thing I can give her,
the woman with a thousand friends,
who lights up the room with her smile,
who deserves every happy thing coming to her.

I hope the fact that I practice every night—
putting the pieces together and trying to
make them sound right—
I hope it shows her she’s my best friend.
I hope it makes her smile.

So I sit and sigh and try
again, I practice what I can.
Though you couldn’t be there,
I won’t leave her, and though
I am not a good musician,
I’ll try to love enough to make up for it.

xiv. one pair of cleats, black and gold

I bought them for only eight dollars, or six,
six years ago now.

I remember being worried about making
an investment in a sport, but I know now
that shoes were the least they would ask.

It was so pleasing, finding a used pair my size:
dark and lithe, they held my feet so perfectly.
I felt lithe, too, prepared to dart and stop
and run again, ponytail streaming out behind.
I’d never owned a pair of cleats before.

Though the older girls made me nervous,
and the training was painful, something about it
was so neat. The team effort, maybe.
The light feel of a frisbee flung through the air.
The wet dew of the grass and
the floodlights they turned on for late night practices
through the dark month of October.
The power of near-instant changes in direction
was incredible.

But then I changed direction, took a sharp swerve towards
music instead, changed my life,
and never set foot on that field again.
I’ve moved the cleats from closet to closet since then,
their gold borders dimmed, their black silhouettes dusty.
Still, I hang onto them.

Tonight, I brought them to a game of frisbee,
but I left them in my bag. I was afraid they represented
a level of skill my body hadn’t retained,
and it’s probably true.

So I keep them in my closet and think of them, sometimes.
There is a certain kind of power in a shoe.

Spoiler

@Youbeaucupid @alliyah @RangerofIthilien oh my gosh you guys, that's so sweet!! <3 I love hearing about all of your favorites so far, thanks so much for commenting.
Also Ranger I am excited to hear that and look forward to reading about hiking boots!!

xv. fear of commitment

it’s the kind of place
children come back to all grown up
like the sandhill cranes return each year.
it’s a land of family clans
and I’m just a transient here,
far from friends and family, kith and kin,
all the homes i’ve ever known.

i am roaming, i say. a tumbleweed growing
for a time, then cutting off my roots
and hitting the road.
(this is a bad metaphor because
tumbleweeds aren’t native here, but they still end up
washed up in the river at the end of spring,
trapped against barbed wire fences
until they are absorbed into the scenery)

the last seven people i asked were from out of state, too.
i told them i won’t be here forever.
they tell me they said that, too.
fifteen years ago. thirty.
do their children tell them that, too?
before they come back with a minivan,
husband in hand?

the girls have asked me to move into a house with them,
and i shy from the permanent, paintable walls
closing in around me.
the soil starts to settle over the tips of my toes.
there’s a boy texting me about family,
and i’m too frozen to flee; my boss says
she would never want me to leave,
and i love her too much to tell her
i have to.

the birds are circling overhead, again,
coming home to roost.

i won’t be bound to this place i won’t be trapped
the way i was growing up in the Midwest all over again
i won’t let my roots cling to others in the ground
because i’m due for a transplant next spring
and i don’t want to be late
i won’t

i won’t —

xvi. expectations

honey drips down your spine
take your time, take your time

interesting is a game of the brain,
fun facts to distract, getting to know you
until I start to worry there’s something I owe you,
a laugh or a date or a text or a — wait —
you’re nice but my heart is still ice and
I’m not the flower I look on the outside, outfits
perfectly matched to misdirect:
what you see isn’t what you get.

I don’t want love, I want soil
under my fingernails and sweat on my neck,
aching muscles and empty head.
join me if you like, but I don’t want to like
you more than I want to, I want to
please only myself, pants ripped ragged
at the knees, wind tangled wild through my hair:
I am not lovely. I want you to look and see me
and I want you to look and leave me.

fireflies in your eyes
but I don’t want to try, I don’t want to lie

xvii. gentle thoughts

Your text asks me to
pick you up from the airport
in May, like old times

and I wonder what
went wrong between us and why
I had to leave you.

Not really, I don’t
regret my choice now, but still:
I hope you found peace.

xviii. arise

The night before he rises is long.

the heart holds deep sorrows,
but they hardly fill the holes in his hands.
he has room for your every hardship
and then some.

Death cannot keep you,
stones cannot weigh you down.

a holy week.
I have never known until now
what that means, but as the dawn approaches,
I want to shout it to the world:
holy holy holy!
hallelujah!

I come up from the water of baptism
bright and clean,
light streaming from my face,
water streaming from my clothes,
everything in white and gold.

the angels rest their hands
featherweight on my shoulders
and my heart rises like a dove.

from the tomb he rises, and rises again
so shall we all
arise

Spoiler

eeeek I don’t often write religious poems, they are kind of hard for me, but I’ve been trying to do more studies leading up to Easter this year and have really felt connected to Christ’s resurrection, atonement, etc. and wanted to take a stab at loosely conveying some of that. Also trying to bring religion into more aspects of my life and be more whole <3

xix. fade-out

your image, superimposed on my scenery,
is disappearing.
like a fade-out from a movie still,
I see you standing in front of me,
greyed out, then gone.

the wind carries the sweet scent
of wildflowers and idle hours.
it blows straight through your absent form
as I retread the roads we walked,
and I don’t mind.

your touch recedes from my hands
as they burn up in the sun;
your words leave gaps in my brain
and I fill them with photos and poetry.

I’m rerecording my memories
with a new cast of characters,
different dialogue.
I get to choose how this will end.