Skip to main content

Homemade of Words (ghazal)

By day we ran barefoot. By night we bathed in her cascade of words
Pinocchio, Little Boy Blue, and all that wild parade of words

The room with the wandering beds where we were little girls on boats
At bedtime floated away into a fairy place made of words

Oh they felt guilty they’d taken us from the land of milk and Kellogg’s
So they tied us to home with their endless golden braid of words

Daddy read Bibles, biographies, Newsweek, and sometimes Le Monde
But Mommy read mysteries, novels, poetry, in every last shade of words

Of sewing and cookery, cleaning and wifery my mother taught me nothing
We traveled a sparkling world behind our enchanted blockade of words

Our homeschool had number cards, sundials, paper-bag horseheads
But the fabric of delight was sung, recited, and prayed with words

She opened her golden throat and crooned us a universe of witchery
Her free-range children built of song and stoutly homemade of words
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I don't know what they want

I don’t know what they want so I offer cookies and lemonade I don’t know what they need so I proffer sleeping bags, toothbrushes I don’t know who they are so we start introductions I don’t know where they came from so we start drawing maps I don’t know what might be useful so I start pulling things out camera bags, wooden trains, tiny Lederhosen, broken easels I don’t know what might be dangerous so I pack things away sharp tables, Ethiopian daggers, rat poison, bleach I don’t know when they’ll be back so I wait I don’t know when they’ll be back so I wonder I don’t know when they’ll be back so I start vaguely doodling I don’t know if they’ll be back so I pack up to go I don’t know why it matters but some things make me mad so I try to remember: one foot, one day I don’t know why it matters but some things make me sad so I look for the music, I wait for the sunshine Oh I am the desert and those thoughts are like tumbleweeds I am the sky and the...
Post a Comment
Read more

House of My Life (landays)

how can you call this a quiet night when inside the skull there is a ceaseless ricochet? empty your mind, you prophets tell me but do you not know how many would then be homeless? all my bodies are in here with me all my mothers, all the mosquito-bitten evenings we are eating mangoes and guavas we are leaving home, again and again and again we hear the echoes of slamming doors and the quiet shush of pages turning, returning counting out the years, bites, loves, the beats all my children, my selves, the loud repeating futures this is an endless house of my life do not make me tear it down, where would I live and rest?
Post a Comment
Read more

even better

even better than the writing is the not writing even better than the rooms are the hallways even better than the fingers are the missing rings even better than the cookies are the empty greasy spots on the baking sheet how will I know, she wondered, and her backache said, just start but where should I start, she said, and her sore feet said, right here and when do I stop, she asked but there wasn’t a good answer even harder than the aches are the wants even harder than the fists are the open hands even harder than the waiting is the being even harder than the trees are the countless, nameless, hopeful flowers I walked over a bridge, she said I opened a letter, and I learned something new I closed a book, and I missed so much I sat on a bench, and I laughed even older than the sense is the nonsense even older than the aches are the hollow rooms even older than this poem is the waiting even older than the end is the constantly shif...
1 comment
Read more