Alphabet City

I remember being very young, and
my Mom licks her finger with her tongue,
to slick my cowlick down

cc: Chagall 2021

this morning I am re-potting snake plants - 
black gold, Laurentii, fernwood (or maybe a rebellious robusta?) 
and Zeylanica, specifically - and I utter to myself that some of the leaves
look pretty ragged and I probably should clip those out,
to which the plants collectively sigh, and so we make a pact: 
no frond gets left behond.

cc: Chagall 2021

Once,

in the now-empty seats
of my mind, sat great thoughts,
gathered around the table of feasts
and I was lost, though thought found I...
there among them

but now there is no need to eat,
for all is manna and all is not matter
about the gates 

entwined in hibiscus

I am the opening through which 
I have come into which I recede

I ebb more than I am,
awake in ground more than figure,
until I am no more, then plain as day
I shield myself one with the night

occasionally I spy an ancient hall
where grand thoughts aspire

and I wave

cc: Chagall 2021

sunset comes differently, depending who you are,
for who you are is where you are, at any point in time

cc: Chagall 2021

the tiniest of ants 
made her way back
with me from the garden

she scurried across the white Formica...
when I spilled my meager harvest onto the kitchen table

I grabbed a tissue,
corralled her, gently swathed her 
and made the short walk back 
to the berries to return her whence 
she came, safe and sound...

that's how we roll
here in the garden

cc: Chagall 2021

Am I a woman smoking I'm a butterfly,
or a butterfly toking, thinking...nothing.

cc: Chagall 2021 
(I'll be the roundabout...)

I wanted you to know that 
all the berries I pick are for you

I keep for myself 
only those irreparably marred

cc: Chagall 2021

The worlds behind you
are never there.

cc: Chagall 2021

In my mind is a quiet space,
a place with an anvil where I 
assert only hardened thoughts

cc: Chagall 2021

now
(lately)
I think
of myself
as a bookmark

a way
to indicate
a place in space 
and time; a point
from which to resume,
to pick up where I left off

I am no longer
(so different than)
a dog-eared page 

cc: Chagall 2021