Harvest

My legs sprout new bruises

every day and I’m never sure

where they come from or from whom

or whether they send their regards

seams pressing into seams

on the subway, leaving traces

of needing milk and honey

of wearing sadness like a pair of Birkenstocks

and knowing them as intimately—

feet pressed into seams—

of weeping,

of being born on Saturdays,

the sheer absurdity of marbles,

of the slipping—

cool glass pressed against seams.

to be a Poet is to

Love with a Love that is

More than Love (decorating underwater

gardens with bits of glass and sea

shell, coral pink and fresh in the foaming).

what is Love?

it is patient.

it is kind.

it is water.

it is wine.

it is an empty cup filled to overflowing.

we seek to fill ourselves with other

Vessels just as broken

we seek and seek and strive

and rivers run through us

like sad songs

and the whole time

Chance reminds us of wondrous

unfamiliar lessons from childhood,

make you remember how to

smile good.

Speak to me of tenderness,

of humming, of orange juice

and oatmeal in mornings

those vast grey mornings—

bruised calves

slender twigs growing thickly

together—planted between the daffodils and chamomile -

of giving thanks—

the fierce insistent joy of it—

memorizing the outlines of every windowsill,

which is ordering marbles.

I haven’t slept all night.

The irony of marbles.

Of mornings.

Chance says, the people’s champ

must be everything the people

can’t be.

because the mother must mother,

the father father,

because we the children falter

and stumble and fumble and fall

and we are loved anyway.

in this way we are imperfect

and perfect simultaneously,

loving each other across

Oceans

with Xenia,

hospitality,

with milk and honey.

are you ready

for your blessing?

are you ready

for your miracle?

my miracle came with seeing

god in the rain.

my miracle came like Moses

floating in a rustic basket

by the water,

gift of life,

adopted into a family and loved

by multitudes of mothers

and fathers,

came in moments of making contact,

in living as variously as possible

on this vast blue marble.

Are you ready? because tomorrow

has this funny tendency

to creep from day to day...

If time became a river,

would you bathe in it?

Baptize yourself with infinity, seek divinity

in flowers, embrace

the beating heartflow

blessed with blue flame carried

on the wind.

Prophet, philosophize,

proselytize the people

and remind them of joy lost,

found again,

born anew.

This is the poet’s task,

to be a Florist among her friends,

to do what spring does with the cherry trees.

A tall order, to be sure,

one taken up like knitting

needles

scars of femininity

across time—immigrant

grandmother, pink-haired poet

tugs her braids,

weaving love into soft

whisper-grey scarves.

Xenia: ancient hospitality,

an exchange of material

gifts.

(thus) the power of objects,

steeped in color wheels

of thought and feelings

which adorn their heirs like pine cones scattered

of a forest floor,

planting seeds

which grow with breathless wonder

at the beauty of it all.

So Open your chest to the windowsills;

lift your palms, ready your flowers

for planting,

because these blessings keep fall-

ing like rain.