Using Happy in a Poem

Spring arrives in cold wet buds
and packs the trail with color.
Green is shipped home in winter.

Banks give way to supermarkets
parking lots become condos,
and a restaurant, is now a pool.

Down the street on Ashby Avenue,
a pizza parlor changed overnight
into a music store.

A year ago, you moved into my heart.
I've become what I've always wanted.
H A P P Y.

Tkhine in Nisan

Offshoots of spider
plants on my deck keep time
with the wind as do leaves

of the California Laurel behind them,
moving with something that can only be felt
and not seen.

I am feeling my way in this month of Nisan
showered and rubbed with olive oil
as I burn caskets of memory,

faces that shaped me
by what they demanded,
drifting inside their own shredded bark.

Now vernix covers my nakedness.
I am in a subtle time of my age
when I can appreciate what sheathed choices contain.

A goose feather for the counter-top.
Bless this man who comes to me
as I listen for his car driving up to the gate,

and let me always remain open toward him
and to myself
and to You.

Email Message Sent to on High

I keep hearing about guns going off in funeral parlors,
watch the polar ice cap splinter into teepees on the evening news. Oil runs into blood in deep ditches without a staff. Today somebody spray-painted the 10 Commandments on the pavement in front of where I work. I took it as a sign recounting the day in my small place across the street from a canyon preserve where poison oak flashes its red glittery leaves, cattails teach scripture wearing seeded beards, and poppies slope down the hill blazing a golden path.  

Tkhine in Adar II

I come before you,
a woman who catches white blossoms
before they drift to the ground,

begging you, merciful God,
to allow my country to hear the words
of the Winter Soldiers
testifying this weekend in Washington, D.C.
how they can no longer
honor military guidelines for killing
other human beings,
and while I'm on the subject,

allow the people of Israel and Palestine
to become so weary of violence
they demand of their leaders
to find an olive branch
which has not been cut down,
and to stand beneath its small shade
as they approach each other
with an offering of fresh goat's milk.

Chekhov List

On the drive back from LA
we pass through almond trees dusted with white blossoms,
from mountains, rolling hills, farmland, to a web of powerlines,

half-way houses of gas stations and their convenience stores
with heavy duty oil booster and engine oil treatment,
thirsty tune-ups in a 32-ounce glass,

models of Chevron gas trucks from different years
mounted above the cashier where there's phone
and gas plastic, but no redemption cards,

flag decals, flaming eagles, skulls grinning inside
glowing crosses, girls in stiletto heels wrapped in the American
flag, a dust brush, a life lite, a flashlight and a CD organizer for the car.

We settle on a jumbo pack of corn chips
sealed with its own container of salsa, pull-off top.
I am hungry and want to get it

the way I thought about you
all weekend on a retro hotel bed
carved with roses.

Long Line

There's a long wait in a long line
People are standing in the street,
No one's handing out bags of groceries,
I'm getting cold waiting in a long line.

To pay parking tickets at the DMV,
or for some crazy stuff at the store I don't need.
I have to send a money order to my family.
I'm getting old waiting in these long lines.

For a chance at a machine to wash my clothes,
then I go next door to see a sports show,
Drink a beer, wait for the bathroom key.
I still need to make an appointment with the DMV.

Now I'm stuck in traffic to pay a bridge toll,
Or on standby so I can fly back home,
I'm waiting for my divorce to get final,
I'm waiting for my life to get real.

I've been waiting in a long long line.

DOAEN 20: Tkhine in Adar

What is Revealed / What is Hidden

1.
Last night I heard frogs
that survived the winter in Leona Canyon
celebrating their mutual existence
a chorus of peeps and croaks
from beneath piled reeds.

2.
More hidden is Gaza
where wounds are always open
shipments of medical supplies
and food pour through barricades
from beneath the watchful eye of the Sphinx
while children sell their bodies
wondering where on standby
God waits and at which airport.

3.
A cantor sings Saturday morning
of the dwelling place for the mishkan
where the Shekhinah builds her nest
from our offerings, twisted linen
blue, purple and crimson
yarns with a design of two cherubim,
a breathing space for Your holy spirit

to huddle between.

4.
Help me this morning

to understand why countries can only offer

law and not justice,
why peace

is the absence of war,
why hate

sings Your name,

and why our hands clutch

at these gold nuggets of fear.