After Chai's Photo

There is a photo of you eyes closed, on grass.
Neatly labeled "five minutes of sun."

The patch of grass could be anywhere
Here at the front yard, or back

Five yards or a kilometre away.
Sometimes it ceases to matter.

Sometimes does.  The photo is tagged
Oslo, Norway.  A world apart, also

Forgetfulness and consciousness away.
Your cat-lover friend who takes the photo

Hides behind the lens and bites
Into an apple.  And does not say.

that, too, does not have a name

The sky is the frosted kind of grey.  I do not get up from bed.  She planted a kiss before she left and now is gone.  Something urgent on email.  A large plane can be heard leaving for somewhere.  The calendar is full on the days to come.  But I want to slow down, to pause, to stop momentarily.  To wake again when it is bright and some part of my soul is ready.  There is a worm somewhere inside.  It manifests itself in the plants.  A part of a row in the garden died seemingly overnight.  She noticed this at the doorstep.  I hadn't even known.  The last I saw the entire row was green.  How did they wither and die?  The sturdy tropical green cuttings of which I do not even know the name?  The grass by them are dry and dead too.  What about the soil?  I am too tired to check.  I go back to bed and nurse something that, too, does not have a name.  A kind of wariness.  Is it fatigue?  A kind of passive-aggressive stress finally manifesting itself?

feet

The bedsheets are fresh.

After walking the dogs
on a clear windy night,
I prop up my feet
on the couch. Tired.

The dogs fall asleep again.

Tomorrow a long list
of things to do that
do not ever run out.
Sometimes you wonder
if they really 
are as important as 
they appear to be:
the immediate world
to crumble if undone.

Suppose one day I don't

move my exhausted feet 
return phone calls 
or make presences.
See without me
wheels still turn.

woman across sea

A sandbar connects us.  That disappears and appears according to the tide. We are two islands whose distance from each other bridgeable by whoever chooses to take the boat and paddle it across the shore.

father's eyes

tonight the dark sky murmurs thunder.
sometimes there is a brief light.
my brother-in-law asked 
me this afternoon, was i not coming 
to family dinner.  i said no
while helping load his truck
some things i was sending away.
i have been away too often too long
lately, i need quiet alone in the garden.
hours later, staying in with the dogs
and watching massacre in a game
of thrones, i remember the day.

and maybe it is good i did not come
for dinner.  some things are better
unresolved.  best unremembered, 
even though not forgotten.  these days,
in spite of trying, i am becoming
in a number of ways like the man.

floating on water

in between long tables of conversations about plights, i remember the open waters from a photo by sue, two dolphins meeting, closing distance.

the discussion of philosophy

is probably meant not for everyone.  some 
work for the next meal, and this is enough.
the barber whom i see more than the church
tells five reasons to live, in specific order:
college, work, marriage, kids, house.
a man of his world, he is.  tells about his rise
from employee to owner of the salon.
also how to conserve water,
through homebuilt-system of gallons and pipes.
the house needs everything, he says.
and i do not argue with him.  having respect 
for what he does, meticulously.  with heart.

the man does not know hugo or kant.
does not bother with art or phenomenology.
but he thinks not only of his next meal.
and values work.  and honesty.
and also his kids, two of them, whom
i haven't seen.  he probably meant them
when he talks of his house.

and we do talk about the weather, the expected
changes in it.  also the leaving and arriving
that i do, although we never get to specifics.
i do not know if he sees the blue 
of the clear blue sky in this country.
do not know if he thinks of the line
as both phenomenological palimpsest and
illusory divide of consciously built boundaries.

he may not think of these, or of feminism.
although
i think we all do.  between the hours of rain
and morning or the hours of stars and night.
with enough solitude, we all do

discuss philosophy and question
laws, existence, universe, our selves.

built for the boulders

My mother once said men are stronger than women
only "from the waist up."  She meant the shoulders.

She added women are stronger than men "waist down". 
"To bear children."  And meant the legs.

Or perhaps she meant something else entirely
I did not understand.

Maybe men bear what men can and must.
And women are able to keep a stable ground

in spite of what moves:  changes, seasons, quakes.

Atlas can shrug.
Woman keep her ground.

This is all a matter of conjecture.  Of course.
Not at all unlike Hugo's.

I think about the many women I know.  
Steadfast, how they hold the center:

mother, sister, friends.  And she
who smiles at me when I tell her:

This is the street where that restaurant is.
And even though am not sure, she holds my hand

in the humid, windless night and says, "Let's go."

a lesser man

I.
the first time i met d* i almost run out of wind, that kind
when you are caught between exhaling and inhaling
so strong the point of shock.  i thought i saw my mother.

a most curious case and i had to remind myself
i was seeing another.  even though there really
was less mistaking in that smile.  
also, those eyes.  the oval face.

of course, mother is older.  with more wear.  a difference
in contexts and years.  although i could not help thinking
seeing d* i am seeing my mother in times much happier.

a lucky man who won her.  although 
i could not say the same for her.


II.
one of my fears is becoming my father.  i look 
at the mirror and see more and more his face.  
some day i am going to write the whole of it.
but not now.  not yet.


III.
there are a moments of most clarity.  
when i see her and wonder
what she sees in this man--
raised to be stubborn, built as 
less.  who meets her halfway 
only under light of day.

what does it take to be a woman.
a man will never know.
he who is always
lesser beside her.

the short history of tractors

a funny book.  this book
of humour and history.
also secret-keeping
and family.
how the humble agricultural 
tractor meant to feed thousands

became prototype of a tank
meant to kill countless
in a world war.
and the child who 
wanted to know the family

secret, found what needs to be kept.
and the funny father at last freed
of the burden of memory
raised both hands to heaven,

freed of gripping sanity.