Christmas Soup

A bag of fifteen kinds of dried beans hid beneath
the box of lasagna noodles all year, maybe two.
Christmas came without kids. Month-old steaks
of ham, for which no one could make room
thanks to turkey, had begun bearding with frost
in the freezer. Why not use them? Dorell suggested
we also throw the ham hock in. I did.

After two and a half hours simmering, the soup
blushed a shade richer than the anemic tan
of Campbell’s Bean with Bacon—the solitary soup
of my youth, my once secret pleasure, slurping alone
over the kitchen table when Mom wasn’t home to cook.
This new color, a quiet victory. The texture, sigh worthy.
Scent of independence. No can opener dripping by the sink.
Handfuls of carrots and onions, two cloves of garlic
and thirty minutes later, the ham fell apart in our mouths.

No salt or pepper required. No special herbs in the broth.
Just water, a forgotten bag of beans and a remembered
gilt pig named Shirley who walked the ramp alone
into the trailer with no human prodding, silent, while I sat
quiet in the house across the field, listening for her,
praying, shedding salt, softening my flesh for some future
feast in which I surely will be no longer guest but course.

2015

Kaleidoscope

Behold the shifting
mandala of your wooden thoughts.
Don’t be fooled
by craftsmanship, the glinting shards.
Arrange yourself
as radiating stars upon each turn.
Press your hands
upon your own eyes. Hard!
Watch the lights
of your blooded mind explode.

2015

Annual Work Plan

The year is not a hill.
Push the annual work plan
Aside. Due Friday.

Fill in blanks of travel forms.
Attach receipts with paper clips.
Think meals in terms of per diem.
Not sushi, sake, miso, friends.
Forget the empty gestures
Of distant conferences.
Count miles. Cash in.

Circle words and numbers
On sixteen rubrics.
Learning must be proven
To students
And bottom-line feeders
For whom it is not enough
To assess light in one’s own
Or others’ eyes.

Out here in the dark,
Everything measured,
Ferried for a price.
Your ____________.

Fill in the blank.

Scribble conversations
In margins and hope
Against arms.

Time ticks. More work.
More work. More work.
The to-do list self-goading.
The state mule self-loading.
Note how time erodes.

Note how quickly, how often
It rings: the digital singing bowl
Of Thich Nhat Hahn.
The app you, overloaded,
Downloaded for fun, for free,
A precious boat,
Set to chime about every hour
(Programmed unpredictability)
To wake you out of mire.

When it sounds you pause
One moment to own
Your skin, your silence,
Vast mother holding the stream
Of your moving mind hands.

One second, maybe two,
You close your eyes.
No desk, no screen,
No mechanical pencil.
No end to desk, to screen,
To mechanical pencil.

Ease back in. Submerge.
Open-eyed. Swim.
Breathe beneath surfaces.
Newly gilled. Remember.
Work inside you
Without space is a stone.

2015

Things to do in Morgan County

Breathe
Without aversion, sugar beet lime
And dust laden steam

Dream
Facing east, lightning—the blood shot eye
Of someone else’s bruised socket

Dig
Potatoes growing silent and large,
Red and sightless promising roots

Mow
September’s velvet palms; lambsquarters
Make December’s brittle lawn

Sleep
Through crickets sawing love
In the kitchen, the closet, your head

Wake up
On the rolling prairie
Trying to mimic the firmament

2015

Everything is Perseids

Everything is Perseids
within my head—not beautiful.
I almost can’t ignore the beauty.
In death, master clear light.

Oh the lights
that crash inside!

For the dreamer, what is left
of the body’s habits
flashes through death’s middle sky.
I practice death eyes.

I will have no eyelids
from which to squeeze visions.

Tonight we are told to lie
on our backs with caffeine
and wait or wake for the stars’
train show before dawn.

I know I will not rise.
Not tonight, this wide.

One star is a blank stare.
Another is my hunger.
The final star is my man
driving home from Nebraska.

Come August dark at 2 am,
the sky will fall upon my bed.

2015

Tiny Birds

Beaks buried in nectar,
Bodies buddhas,
Wings blur.

We study throats,
Rusty bellies
In books, windows.

My grandmother’s words
Were once full
Of hummingbirds.

Last night, every time
We kissed, one
Burned inside my dark mind.

When the feeder tips,
The tiny bird
Moves with it.

2013

Practicing English with Geshe-la

Mouths round
to make crown.
Throats and lips thin
to say bliss.
We talk about
meanings,
the differences
between bliss
and blessing,
religious versus
spiritual gifts,
how kind becomes
benevolent.
We consider
the subtle
shift in
dependence
when saying
grant me
instead of show.
The feeling of O.
O sweet prefix
of recognize,
praying
to comprehend
again and again
what is true—
how this sound
is chewed!—
our own true nature
beyond words
where one is both
a pronoun
and a universe.

2012
with thanks to Geshe Yungdrung Gyaltsen

If I Should Die Today

If I should die today, shave my head
And save the tangled nest for spring.
Place it under nettle’s stinging leaves—
Watch phoebes weave a head for eggs.

If I should die today, help me sit
On any solid spot with folded hands.
Legs crossed. Spine straight. Chin tucked.
If you must, tie me to a stake.
Even dead I work on waking up.

If I should die today, whisper in my ear
I never was my body though it tried. Help me sing
The sacred tones I know without a voice.
AH OM HUNG—AH KAR SA—LE WOE AH—YANG OM DU
Call Geshe-la, he’ll know the way to walk me
Through brilliant walls of sound, light and rays.

If I should die today, don’t mourn
Each place my body doesn’t fill.
Love, lay your face on my red pillow.
Know the salted scent will live but hours.
Children, dance a night in my old clothes.
Next month, bravely feed them to a flame.
Dear friends, keep on writing poems.

Live in sounds that pray.

2014

Here in the Barn

Here in the barn
In the bardo
Of my body
Roosters learn
To rest with
Gentle hens.

2014

Communion

This morning
Space was a golden mother
Without body
Whose body was also mine,
Whose breath was sky
Playing ocean.

I didn’t know
Where I was
But home.
I was the child
A mother cannot help
But love.

I was the mother
Of the naughty,
Knotted
Golden child
Making room
On my vast lap.

Go ahead, we said,
Personify what you can’t
Understand
If that is what it takes
To break you
Open like bread.

2014