tree, shrub, bookstorm

mica and i high-five as we pass each other
(her headed in and me headed out
on the out-and-back portion of
the run portion of today’s
brick (bike + followed by run) training)
i know why they call it a brick
i call out to her
it’s because it makes your legs feel like a brick
later, when we path-cross in the kitchen
over vegan pancakes
she says
i think you’re wrong about the brick
clarifying
it doesn’t make your legs feel like a brick
it makes your whole body feel like a brick
_______

so you’re the one in charge of the cabbage patch
ami jokes/laughs in that ami joking/laughing voice in the drivers seat
and i laugh back
while we head what seems south
on highway 15
this is what we’re woven with
_______

madix on his first horse ride
wants to knowwhere is the place
on the horse
to put the sword
howdy i call out to emory
as he makes his way around
on the tall brown horse
after his break
and georgia in the chair next to me
drops her water bottle twice
and twice i pick it up
and wipe off the cap
with the sleeve of my tshirt
all the while sitting still becomes hotter
because of the nonmovement+sun

_______

fabulous red cap
with iridescent sparkles
sent from jdawg
arrives in manila
in the mail today
that and a zebra stripe card

_______

let me know if you want a mini
mica offers
which, in itself, is healing
and i am grateful

_______

we laugh in stupid spanish
que terrible! que lastima! por que no?
hoping jose doesn’t mind
(which he doesn’t seem to
a guess later confirmed)
while we unearth the final row
in lookfarther field
of potatoes

_______

celebratory finishing-potatoes drink
mixed up by amber who says
she doesn’t know what she is doing
but she is wrong:
limeaid plus mint plus
agua con gas

_______

madix on his belly on the swing
while i do the tree – shrub trick
with grass seed
and continue to do so
fulfilling various requests:
tree, shrub, tornado!
tree, shrub, book storm!
tree, shrub, hail storm!
tree, shrub, lightning!
tree, shrub, dog storm!
tree, shrub, noodles!

_______

you just had dinner jose declares
in a kitchen that filled with
joy and light
(blame it on the spaniard)
while i bite into a piece of sourdough
with a paul robeson tomato
sliced on top

_______

war:

A Palestinian girl who lost five family members in what medics said was Israeli shelling during Israel’s ground offensive, weeps outside a hospital in Beit Lahita in the northern Gaza Strip. – voice of america, day in photos

A South Korean student displays a message during a rally against the Israeli military operations in Gaza and the West Bank near the Israeli Embassy in Seoul, South Korea. – voice of america, day in photos

A Palestinian, who fled his family’s house following the Israeli offensive, sleeps as he takes refuge inside a classroom at a United Nations-run school in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip. – voice of america, day in photos

Codepink activists, dressed to symbolize those wounded and killed in Gaza, rally outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. – voice of america, day in photos

Palestinian man reacts next to the body of his relative, whom medics said was killed by Israeli shelling near a market in Shejaia, at a hospital in Gaza City. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

 

______
water:

A man poses on the stairs outside UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion sporting arena as water flows down from a broken 30 inch water main onto Sunset Boulevard in the Westwood section of Los Angeles, California.  – voice of america, day in photos

A pod of dolphins surf a wave in Jeffreys Bay, South AfricaPicture: Stan Blumberg / Barcroft Media

A man looks at a car that is partially submerged in floodwaters in Novaci, southwest Romania.
REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel

A farmer works in his paddy field despite below-average rainfall during India’s monsoon season. – bbc, day in photographs

A miner washes after finishing his shift at a coal mine in Choa Saidan Shah, Punjab province, Pakistan.
REUTERS/Sara Farid

reunioning

i was dragging my ass all over that field
for the first half of the game
i tell tyler
so was i he replies

_______

we weren’t sure about the kitten
laughed how it might take hours to decide
but it was pretty clear to me
when we walked in and he was sitting
in that little cubby hole

_______

ice
in the kitchen or elsewhere
is a kind
of violence

_______

emory’s howls
echoing out from the front porch
when we all thought the kitten had disappeared
only to discover
the kitten was in its hiding place
(in the corner on the window ledge tuckd in
next to the fire extinguisher and 5 gallon bucket)

_______

more than halfway through
2o minutes of swim
(in a pond where the algae and other floating mysteries
seem to attack today)
a great blue heron overhead
swift and casting an impressive shadow
lands at the edge of the pond
where we eye each other
(or, i’m eyeing it, at least
with wonder)
for a minute if not two
(long enough for me to decide
to lift my goggles up
so i can really see)

later
upon telling mica
i say
must be my sporty spirit animal
what’s yours

_______

a small haul
(half a 3 gallon bucket)
but big enough to say
that tomato season
has officially begun

_______

stan and i scout locations
in my room
for the best places
to put the peanut buttered
mouse traps
while we consider
how sleep might go tonight

_______

what if we called him stripey
emory asks (regarding the kitten)
well, we could think up a bunch of names
and that one would be ok
(ok as in: we could come up with better)

_______

kwik crete grout
trish says
with a k and a w
after i tell her i like her colors
in response to yesterday’s
‘what the hell is that stuff called’
question
(thanks trish!)

_______

joseph and i
sample the fizzy second-fermentation
booch varieties
(strawberry peach ginger)
that is the closest to g.t.’s
i’ve ever made

_______

madix simultaneously wanting
to hold the kitty and
not wanting the kitty
to chase him
and how he howls
with laughter
at emory
who’s being/doing his emory thing
swinging and singshouting on the hammock swing
hanging from the juniper branch
in the front yard

_______

arriving not long before
the sky becomes stars
reunioning on the front porch

 

where the water insists

what was i thinking?
i exhale to mica after taking off my long sleeve shirt
not even 5 minutes into the morning run
and hang it from a tree branch
to pick up on the way back

i didn’t see much of the morning light/sky on the
fields around us
because i was too busy navigating the gravel
with barefootish (thin-soled) running shoes

_______

pinning running clothes to line
(black tank top black shorts)
while shower-clean skin
almost tings like the silver fridge
in banana yoshimoto’s kitchen
and hair drips wet down back of tshirt

_______

at breakfast
joseph selects the window-ripened tomato
slices it
and distributes
while i run out
to grab a tiny bunch
of basil leaves
to chop up on the butcher block

_______

poems were read
and noted
in a chair
in a loft
on a day that decided
to not warm up too much
which means i can leave the loft curtain open
and swim in the sunlight

_______

hydro bar trish jokes
in bright green shorts and bright purple tshirt
while pressing dried plaster (help me out here trish,
what is that stuff?) chunks
over the plaster/grout/cement
that we pressed on
where the water
insists on
leaking through
though at least we have bailed enough of the cistern out
that we can see dry concrete underfoot

_______

emory and i in the back seat
big pan of baby new potatoes (roasted and salted) between us
we take turns taking out potato snacks
and feasting
he sees geese/ducks cirling
the neighbors’ field

_______

a kitten
tucked inside my longsleeve button-up shirt
head and front paws
poking out
black/grey/white markings
and big ears

_______

i like meeting people’s parents
i tell mica
as she puruses the c’s d’s and e’s
of my music library

_______

spray of sharp stars
across night sky
milky way visible
i walk to the road
to get as under it as i can

_______

water:

An employee pours water over a doll’s head before brushing its hair inside the toy factory owned by Norberto Garcia in Buenos Aires, Argentina. – voice of america, day in photos

Protesters react as they are hosed by a water cannon as Philippine President Benigno Aquino delivers his fifth State of the Nation Address (SONA) during the joint session of the 16th Congress at the House of Representatives of the Philippines in Quezon city, Metro Manila, Philippines. REUTERS/Al Falcon

_______

war:

A Palestinian girl reacts at the scene of an explosion that medics said killed eight children and two adults, and wounded 40 others at a public garden in Gaza City. REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

A Palestinian father reacts at the Shifa hospital morgue after his son was killed in an explosion that medics said killed eight children and two adults, and wounded 40 others at a public garden in Gaza City.
REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

Palestinian children look at the scene of an explosion at a public garden in Gaza City. REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot

googled573d309fe950fc6.html

mi frijole es su frijole

shoulda brought earplugs i say
the sound of metal shovel against
rough concrete
while we bail dirty water out of the
stalled cistern project

_______

a few of us
based on the repetition of movement and sound
(sound:
a wet sweep with a red bristled push broom
a rough edged metal scrape against a rough concrete surface)
point out the human-machine=ness of it

_______

tomato delivery we call it
when emory bites into the paul robeson
and then brings it to us
while we yank and slice the overgrown
from the sweet potato beds
parsing weed from vine

_______

what if we made popcorn for the meeting
i ponder
and then arrive at the meeting
to find a big bowl
of tyler’s ume plum popcorn
awaiting
we lean over and reach in
for handfuls

_______

renay emerges from a blue car
maneuvering her exit with gladiola spears

_______

in the pond she shows us the
dragging-fingers-across-the-surface crawl drill
and various others
(our assignment: practice taking in breath on both sides)

_______

what a better occasion
to have a ‘cards in spanish’ night
than when jose who’s visiting from spain
is here with us
using frijoles (black-eyed) as coins
mi frijole es su frijole

_______

to dance (metaphorically) around the images
of gaza’s dead
or to gaze into them
in order to ingest
to hold this grief
this injustice
and other things that words can’t really carry

An explosion during an Israeli strike in the northern Gaza Strip is pictured from the Israeli border with Gaza, early morning July 26, 2014, before a cease-fire takes effect.  REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Palestinians inspect the rubble of destroyed houses in the Shejaia neighbourhood, which witnesses said was heavily hit by Israeli shelling and air strikes during an Israeli offensive, in Gaza City July 26, 2014.
REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

_______

water:

A passenger removes his shoes to make his way through a flooded underpass at Worthing Station, West Sussex, as many across the south of the UK received a rude interuption to the recent spell of hot, sunny weather. Picture: MARK PAWLAK/PA – telegraph

while the tomatoes are spare

training day one:
what nemo (northeast missouri) looks like
from a bike at 7am
fog lifting up off the fields
around the 2-lane highway that we’ve
got so to ourselves
that mica rides the smooth center line

the novelty of  being on a bike
just for the movement and muscle itself
(since becoming a bike-commuter 16 years ago
i’ve never looked at biking this way
[oh, i’ll get up in the morning and go for a ride])
and how my situation allows for this
(as in, if i was still biking 5 miles to the shuttle
and 5 miles back home
three or four days out of the week
i think it would be difficult to wake up on a shuttle or non-shuttle day
and say oh! i’m going to go for a ride)

_______

roadkill count:
1 possum, youngish looking

_______

mica notes the turkey with her young following her
across highway M in front of us
lookes more pheasanty to me i say

_______

jelly-filled doughnut i proclaim/sing
about the sugar cookie accident batter
that became a unusally sweet pancake success
while spreading apricot jam across
the doughnut-tasting pancake

_______

after setting up the live squirrel trap
(pvc and peanut butter with metal screen
blocking off one end)
we stop at the elderberry bush
shaking the branch until tiny blossoms
shower down into our hair

_______

emory and i lay our flowers
out on a bench under
the shade of the juniper
orange cosmos
purple larkspur
zinnia pinks and peaches and white
rich red and yellow marigold
yellow/maroon sunflowers (that emory calls sad
because they look droopy)
before we arrange them into bouquets
and wrap rubber bands around their stems

_______

kombucha experiments
poured into appropriately labeled bottles:
strawberry with sugar
strawberry with maple
strawberry
strawberry peach ginger with sugar
strawberry peach ginger with maple
strawberry peach ginger
maple added
plain

_______

while the tomatoes are still sparse
the harvest fits in a small metal bowl
that we pass around at meal-time
(one amish paste
one paul robeson)

_______

tyler calls out the kitchen window
to me in north garden at dusk
while he’s putting sourdough loaves on the cooling racks
and i’m harvesting broccoli so i can continue the
BT-spraying marathon
put a ring on it
which is a continuation
of a rather hilarous impromptu frisbee cheer
semi-inside joke
from the show-me state  games

orangesweet

small jar of apricot jam
made from the fruits of our tree
contents glowing orangesweet and
quickly disappearing into morning
pancakes

_______

in grad school, the victories were never clear
i write on thin blue paper
soon to be folded and addressed to san diego

_______

red cardinal
perched on electric line
across the way

_______

stillness textured by
the trickledrip sound
after the rain has passed
of water at the gutter-rigged catchment
outside the greenhouse

_______

trish sets the water to boil
doles out the dried peppermint
for althea’s aching stomach

_______

for dinner (chopped and slow cooked and
spiced and mixed by my hands)
veggie masala (with cabbage, carrots and potatoes
plus garbanzos on the side)
cucumber raita
rice
salad and lemon tahini dressing
prepared to sounds from the
quietwarm softslow soundtrack
including but not limited to
teratoma
antony and the johnsons
fever ray
blonde redhead
otis redding
yann tiersen
rachel’s
rasputina
devotchka
with a one-song interruption
so emory can show his michael jackson moves
to the visitors

_______

you can really taste the sweet
tyler says
of the guests’ water kefir
that makes a celebratory pop
when we open the bottles
orange lemon flavor
_______

what should the title be mica asks
let’s get ripped i respond
(which reminds me of liz
and our adventures to the gym
in that place that both of us have probably
mostly tried to erase from our memories)
and so it is
a triathalon training calendar
where purple = run
blue = swim
and green = bike

_______

mica’s frog sounds
echoing back from the
freshly filled pit
at the cistern site

_______

fog so thick on sunset walk
the bugs must mistake it for rain
because nary a one lands on me
or buzzes in my face
or bites me
the entire way there or back

_______

darien and i
approach, pass each other and recede
on the back road
under a fog shroud
slightly pinked
flanked by the glow of all the greens

_______

from the water world:

 
A Hindu devotee takes a dip as she collects holy water from the Bagmati river during the Bol Bom pilgrimage in Sundarijaal on the outskirts of Katmandu, Nepal. Picture: Niranjan Shrestha/AP – telegraph

squiggled up

thunder/lightning/gray sky morning
clouds and their edges floating past
out panorama-shaped loft window
is what draws me out of bed

_______

something like purslane
but not quite
tugs out of the ground in one flat piece
and i wear it on my head
darien says it looks circa flapper style
emory and trish and joe try it on
reminds me of vita kitchen days
wearing an outside leaf of a cabbage
(purple or green)
as hat/hairpiece

_______

my hand (half inside, half outside)
under the mini waterfall
where rain rolls off the hoop house plastic
where we are obliterating the weeds
which is  a good place
to do such a thing on a thunderstormy morning

without doors on the structure
and the sides rolled down
we are in the rain without really being
in the rain
lightning flashing over us
visible through plastic ceiling

_______

green stripe (lime)
and redorange stripes
of green/gray/black garter snake
squiggled up under a scrap of black plastic
in the hoop house
(google tells me
after i search garter snake red stripe green stripe
and look through images
that it is a western plains garter snake)
and this is what the impressive creature looked like:

_______

three pieces of blue paper
front and back
folded and addressed
to new orleans

_______

like madelines trish and joe say
of trish’s mom’s sugar cookie recipe

_______

i stand corrected
it’s kama:

not comma:

but i like thinking of slicing up weeds
with a piece of punctuation anyway

_______

triathalon training calendar
(three month)
(three pages)
on the couch in upstairs karma

_______

from the water world:

A herd of goats graze at the almost dried out Maria Cristina reservoir near Castellon. Spain’s southeast is suffering the worst drought after the driest winter in 150 years.– voice of america, day in photos

Daniel Gallegos drinks water while the temperature remains in the triple digits in Las Vegas. Gallegos says he drinks two gallons of water a day to stay cool in the furry costume. Picture: AP Photo/John Locher – telegraph

People use a plastic sheet to protect themselves from strong wind and heavy rainfall as Typhoon Matmo hits Hefei, China. – bbc, day in photographs

gold gold and pink gold

we line up behind the truck
to push it down the gravel
in order to pop the clutch
so it can start
and when it does we hop in
with files and hoes

_______

the cutting-through
of hoe blade to weeds
in field thirteen
(sorghum)
_______

sun-pinked arms after a day
in the tomatoes
with the comma for cutting down weeds
and a fine wet stone for sharpening
and a bucket of baling twine
and red handled scissors

_______

after dinner
emory passes around the first amish paste tomato
i plucked from the rows and rows of vines
each of us taking a bite
and passing to our left
sweet and tangy

_______

sky spilled with gold
(gold gold and pink gold
and perhaps some amethyst too)
glow edging the clouds

_______

i’m not writing about gaza
because i don’t want to
but because i can’t
language hasn’t been made yet
not for this

A Palestinian man cries after bringing a child, wounded in an Israeli strike on a compound housing a U.N. school in Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, to the emergency room of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya. – voice of america, day in photos

A Palestinian man holds a girl injured during shelling at a U.N.-run school sheltering Palestinians, at a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. – time

Displaced Palestinians from Beit Hanoun sleep inside the UNRWA school in Jabalia. – time

Palestinians take cover as warning Israeli air strikes are fired at a nearby building in Gaza City. (Finbarr O’Reilly—Reuters)

A doctor cries while standing next to a table with the bodies of four dead children in overflowing morgue of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City. (Oliver Weiken—EPA)

_______

from the water world:

Buses are stranded in a flooded street in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China. Typhoon Matm headed into China after hitting Taiwan and it was downgraded from typhoon to tropical storm. – voice of america, day in photos

A young girl plays in a fountain to keep cool on a hot summers day in Shanghai. Picture: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images

because we’ve been connected

a goodbye hug on mainstreet
(one of us still unclothed from the pond)
which is kindof not a big deal
because we’ve been connected already for 14 years
the majority of which has been between mid and west coast via mail
but also kindof is (a big deal)

_______

once again, frisbee has made
broken-feeling things in my body
feel good again i say
heading to the line
to pin my field-sweated clothes to it

_______

i’m going to be your person this morning
i tell emory and simon
while we walk up whitehouse stairs

_______

splash sounds
in the pond
(various contests
simon and emory counting down)
while i tie yellow baling twine
to Tposts
and weave it down the row
while the tomato tar marks me
(forearms, fingers, hands)

_______

emory wearing a shirt
we might all be envious of
(lavender colored
with a black/white photo of a dog
wearing shiny heart shaped sunglasses
and a million hearts in different bright colors
bursting forth
in all directions)

_______

a name for that thing a first child never gets over
(the readjusting to the usurping of mama’s attention
by a newborn)

_______

pan of blondies
balanced on
porch table
which is really a bench

_______

secret ballot is the name of the parlor game
wherein people write questions on pieces of paper
and someone reads them to the group aloud
(they are yes/no questions)
and then the secret ballot box
is passed around
and a black bean is dropped in for yes
or a white bean is dropped in for no
the box itself (in this case, a scotch tape roll box)
is concealing
so no one can tell what color bean you dropped in
the rules: there is no discussion/votes remain anonymous

_______

from the water world:

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama (C) and the Partnership for a Healthier America show a giant “Drink Up” logo, as part of the “Drink Up” campaign aimed at encouraging people to drink more water, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. – voice of america, day in photos

A Tokyo DisneySea cast member (L) sprays a bucketful of water towards guests during a special summer attraction called “Minnie’s Tropical Splash” at Tokyo DisneySea in Urayasu. – voice of america, day in photos

we are the storm

sweat gathering at my temples
the bridge of my nose
and rolling down
while i wipe with a short sleeve
and continue  weaving tomato vines
into the trellis
working my way down the row
until my arms are red with temporary irritation
and my fingers are coated in
the tomato tar green which will turn black upon washing

_______

i read the day right i say
about deciding to wake and work
(tomato beds)
instead of waking and writing
because the storm that rolled in
after i strung up two beds of trellising
allowed me to write
rainwet
after 10am

_______

rachel and i lying
on the rug under the ceiling fan
a tennis ball under my hip
the sweat on our skin/clothes
cooling

_______

the sky i exclaim while
we drive over to d.r.
pale but glowing
the quality of haze
that veils the sun
so it is orange and fuzzy edged and
coated enough to look at directly
and the clouds that edge around in
pastels, gilded edges
some soft some hard
layered and smudged

_______

never heard thunder like that before
i say looking skyward about the sound rolling above us
in the gravel parking lot
sound that moves but doesn’t stop
(a constancy similar to lightning
that moves from cloud to cloud)

_______

we are the storm
the sky’s been waiting for
i say sitting in the bay window at
sharon and dennis’s robinia
after we realize
the mighty storm whose approach we read in the sky
never appeared

_______

marshmallow tax i say
for the cutter of the s’mores pie

_______

snack luck table:
popcorn
s’mores pie
kombucha
lemon lime with ice
mint tea
sangria
berries and dried apricots
and speakers projecting out the
quietwarm softslow playlist

_______

in the round of
imaginary gift-giving
(for a 40th and for a departure)
i hand over the prairie/bird vision/sound glasses