I'm glad to know you were able to get out

 

I'm glad to know you were able to get out 

and sit close to the waters (that's my

one impression with kayaks, how flat

it seems, how the skin of it is simple

and thin and the slim distance between

the pond and one's bottom.  when i knew

i was divorcing

my first husband i went to visit a friend

in webster mass, and she taught me

a very rudimentary paddle stroke and set me

drifting onto lake (i'm sorry, I'm going 

to copy and paste this:  Chaubunagungamaug)

I watched the small islands come up

and seem to board the bow

and settle some and then

fall from my waist point

and then fall some more

and then completely away.  they reflected

in ripples in the wake.  I knew 

if I looked back I'd capsize.  That I'd

want to.  So to the bow, bow, bow

and my own temperamental coxswain.

When I got home I'd spend

another five years trying to bring

what that floating boat and my own

hours and hours pins in the sitting

position (kinda like that stapler 

with her dentures caught)

rear end was trying to pan

out for me.  It was, if nothing

else, quiet.  A dying so quiet

most no one knew

it was going on. 

i like knowing you saw those

turtles.  <turtleeltrut>  reminds me

of e.e. cummings who had

a summer home in madison

and all the hours he sat and saw

his leafs, falling...

It turns out that when i try to write 

anything it ends

up sounding like a poem.  so.

here's my summer: 

spending summer/my end

of the log:

vignette 1

maybe that stapler made 

an agreement to bend perpetual 

as a hingeless clothespin, like

hewn heads of wooden people 

laid gracefully on their sides 

after a day and a night riding 

alongside the laundry it holds 

in place facing the wind to dry

vignette 2

stacks of new and used

books: takes on shakes-

peare, famous lady-angels of color, 

(toni, alice, zora, audre...

   and the odd bawdry jo

nesbo macbeth 

notes

and so it goes :  nope

can't/won't use that

in class)

vignette 3

if since april i was able

to make my 10,000

steps a day goal and today

being labor day is no

exception to rest

how many miles have i

hiked?

vignette 4

keeping up with 

my glimpses of

christina olson, subject

and friend of the famous

painting at the MOMA

i've come to know:

andrew wyeth fell

in love with helga 

and christina but not

in the way sin, stye-

in- their- own- eye,

seekers say.  i've walked

in his foot-

steps in cushing, maine

and laid my face

on that attic pane 

where he first saw

his cripple friend pick

blueberries in the shade

of her people's graves.  i've made

a study of his thin egg-(yoke

only, the whole globe)

tempera brush

strokes and felt my throat

hold, knowing that same

thumb that broke

that yoke is too 

his tender

thumb that brushed soot 

from christina's face

while she sat in place

in part in full in waste

of the arcing sun.  i'd say

as much of his son

jamie and his 

way with nureyev, the stroke

of the dancer's toe 

folding into the mold

of his sole in his bournoville

slippers... 

vignette 5

today, my boat

is a camera lens.  slung

round my torso or

snug enough in 

a pocket.  i listen

to audiobooks while

i'm looking.  yesterday

i started reading colum

mccann's apeirogon.  it

is

fantastic.  he

is 

fantastic.

a fabulous narrator

of his own

tones...

and so: mostly 

photos of lilies

of a doe (you maybe saw,

and her lamb)

and fox

and my spirit

bird: heron

and stones

and pitchpine oozing

from a wounded 

white

pine...

and now I've, talking

of walks,

got to go

and get my start.

hope you liked your poem I wrote for you.  hope it's not too ver-

bose..........