Bird Girl

The cardinals outside my kitchen window
are busy.
They don’t have time to argue
over flying versus driving
or what the realtor said or didn’t say.
From the first light,
they are up and out
hunting worms for their bald babies.
I watch them day after day,
one bringing food,
feeding open mouths
while the other is off gathering more.
They do this hour after hour
from sunrise to sunset.
I wonder how they keep from collapsing.
We complain about the smallest inconvenience
and we have everything right at our fingertips.
We want something to eat
we go to the grocery store,
or to a restaurant,
or to a fast food place.
We don’t have to scour the ground
in search of movement
and wait till the coast is clear to feed our young
or ourselves.
Our lives are ones of instant gratification,
and yet,
I would rather be a cardinal.
I would rather not be burdened with telephones
and televisions and email and infomercials.
I would rather not worry about my IRA or my retirement
or whether or not some critic liked my last album.
I would rather spend my days in flight,
in the present,
with nothing to keep me tied down.

Yes

Yes
it would be nice
to curl up on the sofa
and sleep.
To let the soft yellow hues
of sunflower petal across my eyes
and into my dreams.
The rain
falling
down on my chocolate futon.
Here
I can button the dishwasher
like a lamp
and wait for morning
to come.

So Long

This time the neighbors know we’re serious.
This time they know it’s for real.
We’ve got the sign out,
the realtor sign.
No more “For Sale By Owner.”
No more black and white flyer
or rooms half-ready.
This time we’ve got all our ducks in a row.
We’ve got new pillows
and towels.
We’ve got white cotton shower curtains and park benches
and flowers by the door.
And we’ve got eco-friendly welcome mats.
We’ve got our floors scrubbed and our tables dusted
and our windows clean.
We’ve got every blade of grass cut
and yellow tulips planted by the mailbox.
This time we’re ready to leave.
The funny thing is,
now that it looks so good
part of me wants to stay.
But I tell myself there are better things ahead.
New adventures.
New places to explore.
Maybe New York
or Seattle.
Maybe I’ll live somewhere where the ticks won’t bite me in the summer
and the mosquitoes won’t know me on a first name basis.
Anyway,
I’ve been here long enough.
Trouble’s gone
and there’s no point staying in this house without him.
This was his hill,
and his yard,
and now that he’s gone
it’s time for me to go too.
He wouldn’t have wanted me to stay.
And so
I turn the page.

Talking To Liars

For three days we haven’t spoken.
It’s that way now,
now that she’s getting better.
The meanness is coming back
into her brain.
What made her soft is healing.
I can see the three of them
sitting on her couch,
sharing brie and Ritz crackers
and watching Dancing with The Stars
and talking about me,
and how horrible I am.
It’s perfect.
Let her keep her ring.
I don’t like talking to liars.

The Wasp Killer

He is no wasp killer,
this man I love.
Three different times now he has swung a newspaper
at the red-winged devil trying to build a nest at my back door,
and three times he has struck out.
Perhaps it is our vegetarian diet
that has left him unable to kill.
That instinct, that drive,
that leopard-like quickness, has been tempered by too much tofu and kale.
Now he is content to watch the ant crawl across the kitchen counter,
share space with the lone spider as he spins his web in the stereo cabinet,
and make friends with the honey bee buzzing near him on a park bench.
It is as if he has lost some “animalness” needed to survive in this world,
or rather what he is told he needs to survive.
I like him much better this way.

Petal Heads

How beautiful you are
with your big yellow head
and your brown eye watching me.
You look like a petaled periscope
on a mission from below,
a strange alien,
sent here to listen for life
and report back to your superiors all that you have witnessed.
What have you seen
sitting there in your glass vase?
Just the coming and going of legs,
voices rising and falling,
the strum of guitar notes
and frustrated fingers aching for more knowledge
than they have.
You have not seen much.
You’ve heard the ringing of the phone
and listened to the screaming of daughter against mother,
sister against sister.
You’ve seen crying and the pale face of betrayal
on the pillow beside you.
You’ve watched strangers come and go
with buckets and brooms and spray
and wondered what it was all for.
You’ve heard the t.v. in the background
and the evening news rattling on and on about politics
war and famine.
You’ve heard about the rising gas prices
and how women and men in countries
poor as Haiti are eating fried butter mixed with dirt to survive.
You’ve smelled garlic
cooking down the hall in the kitchen
and wondered how some can eat so well
while others have nothing.
You’ve swooned to the sound of the Bossa Nova
on Sunday morning
and thought for a moment you were in Brazil.
You have watched your relatives,
the other petal heads,
come and go,
tossed out with the garbage,
while you have survived.
You have wondered why they were so fragile
when you are so strong.
Your stems a hundred times wider than theirs.
You have listened for silence
and wondered why there is so little
to be found here.
You have not understood much of what you have seen.
Do not worry,
you are not alone.

Dead Trees

Dead trees are good
for birds to perch upon,
to land on and just rest.
Their bare limbs never hide the animals
that crawl upon their branches.
Dead trees are stoic as Army Generals,
never leaving their post
or changing their dress with the seasons.
They are always the same,
constant and immovable.
I like dead trees.