reckless optimism

reckless optimism says nastalie
about the forces responsible for shuttering the doors
of an arts organization and gallery
that had been around (and flourishing) for 40some years
_______
sami, nastalie and i sorting through the grey mammoth variety sunflower seeds on a sheet tray at the kitchen table,
first separating seed from chaffe and then
sorting out the seedless casings (crushable between two fingers) from those with the idea of next year’s flowers tucked inside them
_______

the sun that finally comes 
after what feels like months but has only been weeks
and how it walks with us
up/down the kale rows for what i’m guessing might be the last harvest
of the season
________

the bright shock of yellow/green 
with an occaisonal red/orange flourish
of the silver maple leaves stll attached
to the tree i call my maple
because of how it arcs over the path that leads to the room/cabin i live in
_______

inheritance mahogany says 
about his hand on his dad’s heart
as it beat its last and
being in the room that changed/filled
with his huge spirit
and sole talks about the impulse 
to throw anything open – a window, a door, to make room

_______

the good that it feels
to look at a hand-carved spoon and know that the light-ish blond with dark swirls and the deep dark wood is black walnut
(something similar to how i said the other day the thing about
the years it can sometimes take
to learn things,
and how sandhill has been
one (of the many) greatest teachers
_______

rhymes with spruce sole says
about mahgany’s given name
and there we sit near the heat of the woodstove at night, the three of us
each knowing what it’s like to name ourselves
_______

a cold that merits double hot water bottles
(one for the foot of the bed and one for place my core will be once i tuck my body between the sheets)
in a 35 degree room at night

all this light makes me

the gold coming out – 
laying itself across cornfield stubs,
the land a great sheet
snapped out in the wind before us
as we travel north
_______
hugging goodbye in the kitchen
my dad says the best couple days i’ve had in a while 
not to insinuate that he’s been having horrible days for a long time
but to insinuate that he (and we) had a great time
_______
ty on the couch catching me up
on stranger things while i continue the methodical winnowing of cosmos seed
palmful by palmful in the living room
with a box fan, two sheet pans and a tarp laid out on the floor
_______

the weight of a hinge in my palm
cool and solid
with pages sewn in between
written on which is a short poem for a blacksmith
and a heart swinging open 
penned by a lion
_______
a pond whose exact temperature i don’t know
but whose water regiesters as cold! cold! cold! on my skin
as i splash in and clamber around
through the quick shock of it
to haul myself up onto the dock
into a patch of sun
and the pink-skinned evidence
on mica and kris
of their own cold! cold! cold! experience 
_______
all this light makes me think of you I write 
and attach this photo and its caption

A crowd releases lanterns into the air as they celebrate the Yee Peng festival, also known as the festival of lights, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The event is held to show respect to Buddha. – voice of america, day in photos

_______

from the water world:

Participants row their dragon boats during the Water Festival on teh Tonle Sap River in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. – voice of america, day in photos

into the barely-light

ashby the cat waking me up just in time
to frantically toss on some clothes on
and bound into the barely-light of night-becoming-day
with a flower and note in my hand
for eric before he makes his grand departure
(the first of sandhill class of 2017 slowly disbanding)
_______
the unexpected message from andrew
who met me on the portland library steps and planted onions on the island in 2000
and who is the only living soul i’ve met face to face that was also a near-and-dear to kate who passed on in 2010:
Happy Birthday! from me and double on Kate’s behalf.
and my response:
i can’t tell you how important it is to be connected right now to another living human who was close to Kate
_______
the particular plink, though it’s not a plink at all,
but more like a small rock or big sand
landing on metal
as i winnow
handful by handful
all the frivolous cosmos seeds
(it takes an hour and a half or more
to work through one gallon)
to be sent off to southern exposure seed exchange
where they will be germination-rate tested and (if they pass) packed and stocked and then sent out to whoever orders them and i love
thinking of these seeds
touched by eric and trish and me and baigz and jenafr
eventually landing in the hands of strangers
and blooming in gardens i have never entered
_______

earphones in
fan on
chaffe flitting across the living room while i laugh at the
sara schaefer section of this two dope queens episode

_______
what i pick out (in exchange for the 15 + found nerf bullets) from emory’s pumpkin
after he in his whale costume hit up memphis town square for trunk or treat:
one reese’s peanut butter cup
one little snickers and one
actual sized twix 
_______

how the hum in the night
is the part that spooks me
as i walk from karma to cool ranch
after eerie movie watching
with cynthia and ty
_______

from the water world:

A man sifts through rubbish in the Yamuna river in Delhi, India.

while the sky moves

the shower of so many walnuts
thumping, thwacking, banging down
onto the metal roofs of the sugar shack, the mill and cool ranch
in the morning winds picking up
announcing another storm (to follow last night’s) rolling in
_______

the rustling of seeds as they land in shallow plastic tub
sprinkle by small sprinkle from each cosmos flower ready to give
while the sky moves from blues to pinks
and shadows travel long into the east

_______

the photos coming in from jeaux
of gibbous the orange red blond cat:
lounging under the small garden cart,
kicking it on the 55 gallon drum,
perched on the woodstack
_______
soft cool wet ground
under bare feet
while rain pounds
where else does one just get to do this
(wake up and walk ‘to work’ [through the woods and through the yard])
in scrappy clothes and bare feet
(an acknowledgement: it is a privilege to have shoes and choose not to wear them)

when something rattles inside

a name for the tea i pour in the morning
into a cup i leave on the windowsill
for her spirit to sip on
(today it is the chai kind with MACAW and verna’s honey)

_______
feet bare on hard lookfar soil
and sun on my shoulders asi move slowly through
the whites pinks purples and greens
of the cosmos
whose seeds i gather in a plastic ice cream gallon
and i think about how just when the plant is browning/drying/dying
(a think people might want to turn their heads from)
it sends out seed
more magic than any bloom
________
the whir-buzz-hum-drone
and emerald
of the hummingbird
beelining and diving
around the pollen-full flowers
_______
the white whisps drifting
as i pre-winnow, fistful by fistful,
the just-collected cosmos seed in the slight breeze
_______

when something rattles inside trish says
leaning over in the cowpeas explaining
when they’re ready to harvest
_______

gibbous the gold orange cat
who disappeared for a day and a half
reappears at his feeding perch
with a limp in his hind legs and a crusty scab spot
on his forehead 
moving even more gingerly
than usual

_______
not neon and not molten 
but somewhere in between
(the redpinkorange
of a perfectly round sun
as it hovers just over horizon)

the kind of blue that lets light through

yeah, we could call it burning the man
i joke while we all joke on the front porch at lunch about how sandhill
becoming a festival
at which dj deep dish is a wedding officiant
and attendees can choose from a menu of five options
of what kind of ceremony they’d like
(hip hop being one of them)
_______
wearing steel toed combat boots and walking in formation to sit at a desk in an office kris talks about the weird comedic experience
of being a fema/americorps volunteer
and how we wore these shirts that said FEMA in huge letters on the back
and it was like wearing a ‘kick me’ sign, people hate FEMA
_______
a kind of summer victory:
tightening the final knot of the final string of twine of the final tomato trellising
not that the plants are done growing
but that the Tposts are only so tall
_______
there is something quaint
about tying brown bags around already-bloomed sunflower heads
to catch their seeds before the birds pluck them out
some things are just
that simple
_______
the drone/whine/buzz
of two hummingbirds divebombing the red-yellow sunflowers
at the south edge
of south garden
_______
me in my sandals and skirt and sleeveless tee
walking west on the gravel road that i first cut my gravel-road-biking teeth on (literally)
sentence by sentence whispering intentions
my finger hooked through the water bottle cap
which dangles and sways with each step
_______
and the sky:
broad feathery streaks
of luminescent cloud
painted across it,
the sky itself a dome
painted the kind of blue that lets light through
and beginning to copper and gold-rose
at the edges
_______
from the water world

People take a foot bath at a park in Tokyo’s Roppongi district, Japan. – voice of america, day in photos

as all the light recedes

in the dream
hy instructs me to grab blindfolds
and even though i don’t like being blindfolded
the offer is too provocative to refuse
_______
the doves that gather
on the electrical wires
strung along the backyard
(how they sway and flick their tails
to balance on the thin wire
and how they work less at balancing
on the thick wires)
as the sun fills the beginning of the day
with its light

_______

the yoga move wherein michelle (in the coral-colored leggings and
teal big shaped dangle earrings)
guides us to weave our arms together and apart again
while transitioning from warrior two at the front of our mats
to warrior two at the back of our mats

_______

the chiming of brown tepary beans
as i pour them into a glass jar
(like the sound of candy in a dish)
and the black/white checkered library table
where i fill out the seed library donation forms for the
cosmos, marigolds, amish paste tomatoes, edamame and tepary beans
_______

how the dining area window
frames the mountain pink-purples of a setting sun sky
as all the light recedes
like a wave after it washes up 
rolling back 
into its oceany origins
_______

the steam that rises as lino, rachel and i
remove the lids from two huge bowls of pho
(nests of noodles swimming with tofu, broccoli, carrots and napa cabbage)
over which we discuss:
the alienation of academia (gradschool version),
assault and accountability in activist/queer communities, 
and the joke of which is more of a lesbian food (shellfish or mushrooms) – to which i respond by joking:
the most lesbian meal
is the one that gets cold/goes untouched because
people are too busy processing
(or because they’ve spend all day
tangled in bed)
_______
the shamefulest of shames: forgetting a name
(in this case, sharing about three weeks in quito
and not, in the moment, able to recall felilpe’s [or the word huaroni])
_______
it’s up there i say in the collection of golden non-monogamous moments 
as we drive off into the night
and i recount the last dinner meetup
that resulted in a breakup in the parking lot
_______
thank you for slow time with me she says
from the front seat
in the orange of the night lights
seeping in

on a scale of one-to-cold

how, based on the crinkly sounds of my
bright green puffy vest
i can tell on a scale of one-to-cold
that today it is cold cold
(the crinklier/crunchier sounding it gets
when i move in it
the chillier it i)
(translation: the forecast/current conditions
say it’s 30, but feels like 20)
_______
small pawprint melted into
the frost on the black pvc tube
that leads to the cistern
telling me one of the younger cats
passed here earlier than this early
in the morning
headed towards the road
_______
the floaty fally zpinny dance of zinnia chaff
in front of the round fan as i laugh
at one of the many 2 dope queens jokes
especially the one involving
white noise
_______

rhonda and i at the post office
shoving one box into another
in the name of a lower price
laughing at the tug-of-war
push-pull feeling of it
from across the counter
_______
moonstar and her sibling birdie
paws to paws/paws to bellies
mirroring each other
in drowsy hibernation mode
in their warm box
in the greenhouse
_______
the victory of finally
completing the zinnia seed winnowing
and resulting in 2 and a half pounds
which is enough to fill somewhere between half
and three quarters of a 25# rice sack
_______
the crispcool of a clear night
nipping at exposed skin
(fingers, ears, cheekbones)
as emory, kim, darien, trish
and maybe tyler and i
step out to listen
to the tinny high pitched
one-at-a-time
fox barks coming in somewhere
southwest of us
_______
but the thing is i write
in response to my own assertion that perhaps
listening to the universe
and taking note of universe-says-yes moments and
universe-says-no moments
as a guide to right or not so right path is naive
in some senses
i really like listening
to the universe

by handful

mustard seeds (round and brown)
popping in hot coconut oil
in the cast iron
while the ground cumin sizzles
just before i add the onions and saute until clear
which is just before i add the garlic
and so on
_______

handful by handful
winnowing zinnia seed from its chaff
an exercise i tell myself
in patience as it takes three or so  hours
to work through a gallon bucket
and how it is serious preactice
for me to not keep looking at the slowly slowly
(handful by handful) diminishing bucket
of not-yet-winnowed seed

the tiny sounds

unnamed phenomenon: a word for
the very specific sense of wonder
that wakign up to the sight
of the season’s first snow brings on
as its glow coats rooftops, woodpiles and branches
while it swirls its confetti-dance down
_______

all of which makes me think of
the first snow i encountered two years ago
in an ale house parking lot
after a night of two-stepping
(an ale house where i tried to be an adult
and ordered wine, 6 or so sips of which
i managed to drink)
and how we would land there again
later, in the season of flash-storms
followed by rainbows arcing
across the wide gray sky
which mountains to the east rise up against
_______
a pausing at the pond edge
while em, on the other side of lookfar
builds up his fort
the smaller-than-a-sploosh,
but bigger-than-a-drip sounds
of the mighty flakes falling
into the pond
_______
em and i stalking each other
around a small white pine tree
with snowball surprises in our hands
_______
how it becomes this game:
each of us eating snow cakes
and telling each other which flavors ours are
(stawberry, caramal chocolate pecan, lemon,
vanilla, coconut, chocolate)
and then saying
would you like a taste of mine?
and each of us saying why yes
and then inching closer for a flavor sample
which turns into a snowballattack!!!
_______

perched behind a fan on low
in karma woodshop
handful by handful
dropping zinniz seeds in front of the breeze
and the tiny sounds they make landing
on the sheet pans and
blue tarp below them
while the cool of below
(lower level karma)
soaks into my limbs
_______
the way,
at the sound of the door opening,
mama cat steps out into the entryway
of her warm box
peering around the edge to see
who/what
_______

jillian michaels telling me
not to phone it in
while we move between
crunches and jump ropes
_______
victory victory victory i write for now
regarding the news of the army corps decision
for cessation of the dapl pipeline
under the missouri river