tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76487053937535206832024-03-13T16:25:53.781-07:00Dear Spring,Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-88627380785661586002013-10-27T10:48:00.000-07:002013-10-27T10:48:10.626-07:00Old Poems ReFoundTwo toothbrushes sit in a mason jar<br />
on the bathroom counter. One falls,<br />
pulled by gravity, head first into the other.<br />
Their bristled bodies rest<br />
against each other<br />
<br />
and I do not understand<br />
how such rigid objects can wrap themselves<br />
around each other so softly-<br />
<br />
I am longing for your nearness and wonder,<br />
as I search my own flourescent reflection<br />
in the bathroom mirror,<br />
<br />
how is it that the insides of our pink lips can<br />
lean into each other like this-<br />
when our jaws are set against<br />
a single, small word?<br />
<br />
November 6, 2010Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-79184573261417777302013-09-01T22:41:00.003-07:002013-09-01T22:41:31.482-07:00Poem for Memorization<em>“In the evening we shall be examined on love.”</em><br />
<em> -St. John of the Cross</em><br />
<br />
<a href="http://connectere.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/thomas-centolella31.jpg"> </a>And it won’t be multiple choice,<br />
though some of us would prefer it that way.<br />
Neither will it be essay, which tempts us to run on<br />
when we should be sticking to the point, if not together.<br />
In the evening there shall be implications<br />
our fear will change to complications. No cheating,<br />
we’ll be told, and we’ll try to figure out the cost of being true<br />
to ourselves. In the evening when the sky has turned<br />
that certain blue, blue of exam books, blue of no more<br />
daily evasions, we shall climb the hill as the light empties<br />
and park our tired bodies on a bench above the city<br />
and try to fill in the blanks. And we won’t be tested<br />
like defendants on trial, cross-examined<br />
till one of us breaks down, guilty as charged. No,<br />
in the evening, after the day has refused to testify,<br />
we shall be examined on love like students<br />
who don’t even recall signing up for the course<br />
and now must take their orals, forced to speak for once<br />
from the heart and not off the top of their heads.<br />
And when the evening is over and it’s late,<br />
the student body asleep, even the great teachers<br />
retired for the night, we shall stay up<br />
and run back over the questions, each in our own way:<br />
what’s true, what’s false, what unknown quantity<br />
will balance the equation, what it would mean years from now<br />
to look back and know<br />
we did not fail.<br />
<br />
Thomas Centolella, <em>Lights and Mysteries</em>, Port Townsend, WA: Cooper Canyon Press, 1995, p. 114Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-2354883108163750442013-09-01T22:39:00.002-07:002013-09-01T22:39:39.869-07:00Summer Farming Art<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-65373403559647000552013-08-16T22:49:00.001-07:002013-08-16T22:49:10.184-07:00Poem of ThanksgivingHow lovely and strange<br />
to wake up to a man<br />
in my bed this morning.<br />
What bodies can do in the dark<br />
can be displaced in the light<br />
But not here, not now.<br />
I am enveloped in a stupor of comfort<br />
and the humble realization<br />
that I understand so very little<br />
about myself, yet<br />
I increasingly know<br />
the prayer of gratitude<br />
the beauty of being seen<br />
the courage of stepping into the river of love<br />
when it bends towards you.Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-43625391353309987462013-07-19T23:25:00.000-07:002013-07-19T23:35:08.354-07:00Hot NightsHot nights make me think of you<br />
wrestling in bed to find no sleep, but lips and hips<br />
and foreign familiarness that fits.<br />
On hot nights I smell your smell<br />
in the crook of your neck when we are<br />
ninety-nine and never dying<br />
but when we do, it is from so much loving,<br />
drinking deep pleasure,<br />
dining on the hours of this precious life.<br />
Hot nights soothe me<br />
into the restless slumber of a small child<br />
forehead wet with sweat, face pressed against hand, lips<br />
pursed in angelic anesthesia of not knowing what cannot be.<br />
Hot nights do not fall heavy often,<br />
until recently, suddenly-<br />
I am wholly unable to resist the heartbreaking heat.Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-23168708894977019432013-07-13T15:33:00.001-07:002013-07-13T15:33:36.073-07:00For Florentino: Saint of Desperate Lovers<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“My heart has more rooms
than a whorehouse.”</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>-Florentino
Ariza, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love in the Time of Cholera</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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And in each chamber is a lover </div>
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that I do not want or do not need</div>
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but cannot extract and sometimes</div>
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old men to throw themselves from old bridges</div>
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who no longer takes money in exchange for the offering</div>
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lips</div>
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for the good fortune of too much loving.</div>
Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-67627369301608399212013-07-04T12:22:00.002-07:002013-08-16T22:52:57.230-07:00i you, ee cummings, do loveSomewhere I Have Never Traveled<br />
e. e. cummings<br />
<br />
somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond<br />
any experience, your eyes have their silence:<br />
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,<br />
or which I cannot touch because they are too near<br />
<br />
your slightest look easily will unclose me<br />
though I have closed myself as fingers,<br />
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens<br />
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose<br />
<br />
or if your wish be to close me, I and <br />
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,<br />
as when the heart of this flower imagines<br />
the snow carefully everywhere descending;<br />
<br />
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals<br />
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture<br />
compels me with the color of its countries,<br />
rendering death and forever with each breathing<br />
<br />
(I do not know what it is about you that closes<br />
and opens; only something in me understands<br />
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)<br />
nobody, not even the rain, has such small handsOliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-78501753971480050312013-07-04T12:18:00.001-07:002013-07-04T12:18:23.465-07:00FinallyEach year I am lead back<br />
to this tree<br />
that gave birth to me<br />
I crouch under its branches<br />
and tend the embers of a long ago fire<br />
I have worked so stubbornly to keep alive<br />
The spark is imperceptible<br />
but my eye of knowing<br />
knows what it knows, what can't be<br />
spoken, but only wished for-<br />
I fan forgotten flames <br />
and stir cold hard ash with unshakable fixation<br />
<br />
Years peal away and life calls <br />
me to crawl out<br />
from the den of the brooding tree<br />
and stop trying<br />
to breathe breath back into a body blue<br />
and rigid, whether right or wrong,<br />
there is no one to blame- only blind longing-<br />
has kept me tethered to the same spot<br />
year after year, turning over the same<br />
stones and asking the same questions<br />
desperate and hungry<br />
Until, at last, a new question plays at the edge<br />
of my mind: Do I have the courage<br />
to let the fire extinguish fully and finally<br />
and, after so long,<br />
sit in cold, hard darkness?<br />
Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-52836487601905267862013-05-26T23:24:00.003-07:002013-05-26T23:24:36.358-07:00snapshots of a year<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
For as long as I can remember writing I have always kept
some sort of journal or diary. In elementary school I had a Lion King
journal with a heart shaped lock; now I write in much more austere black and
white composition notebooks, anything that can be procured cheaply or re-purposed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I journeyed from Wichita, Kansas and back to Seattle in a
whirlwind wedding weekend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the hours
lingering between layovers, I found myself writing and reading passages I wrote
the last ten months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here are some
thoughts over the course of an-almost-year.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Omnis cellula e cellula.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
All cells come from cells.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Life begets life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
(Non)Life</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Of teacher, English</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
no more brain</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
room<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>no room-- </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>nothing<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>more<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>stop.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
stop feeling -- <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feeling</i>?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
NO time; NO words</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
NO language; NO first</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>name<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
two <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>too<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>many papers</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
white winged birds</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
shit
on your desk</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
try to clean it up-</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sigh:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
eleven hour days…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
RUSH TO FOURTH PERIOD!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
debate the industrial revolution & wage</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
labor</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s always ironic.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-53603048899187585832013-04-07T15:17:00.001-07:002013-04-07T15:17:04.786-07:00The Grapes of WrathI grew up in Steinbeck land and was forced to read all of his shorter works in middle school: <i>The Pearl, The Red Pony, </i>and a few longer works like <i>Cannery Row</i> and <i>Sweet Thursday.</i> I remember feeling sucked in an inescapable vortex of despair when I read his writing (really just compounding my maladjustment thanks to raging pre-teen hormones) and overall despising such morose indoctrination. For heavens sake, the red pony dies in the first few chapters, the strange boy spends the rest of the novel torturing small animals, and a dead baby is tossed into sea. These were my middle school takeaways and enough to deter me from further Steinbeck reading. That is, until <i>The Grapes of Wrath.</i> <br />
<br />
I am teaching American Studies this year and felt like I have a teacherly duty to say something about Great Depression and this iconic work. So, I tentatively picked up <i>The Grapes of Wrath </i>for the first time and have been radically surprised by my new love affair. Steinbeck has created such rich, complex characters, superbly uses dialect, and manages to maintain a strong poetic essence throughout the narration. There is such a lovely sense of humanist spirituality and deep ecology. I can't help but be pulled into the story, to be enamored by the goodhearted decency of the Joad family, and to stand in allegiance with displaced migrant families gathered around their rusty cars on the side of route 66.<br />
<br />
Thanks Steinbeck.<br />
<br />
"Before I knowed it, I was sayin' out loud, 'The hell with it! There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing.'... I says, 'What's this call, this sperit?' An' I says, 'It's love. I love people so much I'm fit to bust, sometimes.'... I figgered, 'Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,' I figgered, 'maybe it's all men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy Sperit-the human sperit-the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of.' Now I sat there thinkin' it, an' all of a suddent-I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it."<br />
<br />
<br />
"I ain't gonna preach...I
ain't gonna baptize. I'm gonna work i the fiel's, in
the green fiel's, an I'm gonna be near to
folks. I ain's gonna try to teach 'em nothin, I'm
gonna try to lear. Gonna learn why
<br />
the folks
walks in the grass, gonna hear 'em talk, gonna
hear 'em sing. Gonna listen to kids
<br />
eatin
mush. Gonna hear husban an wife a-poundin'the
mattress in the night. Gonna eat with 'em an
<br />
learn. Gonna lay in the grass, open an' honest with
anybody that'll have me. Gonna cuss an' swear
<br />
an' hear
the peotry of folks talkin. All that's holy, all
that's what I didn understan. All them things is
the good things."<br />
<br />
- John Steinbeck, <i>The Grapes of Wrath</i> Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-19004623846618154872013-02-17T09:47:00.002-08:002013-02-17T09:47:54.971-08:00Now<br />
Now<br />
the scales have fallen<br />
from my eyes and I can see<br />
clearly, once again, the trees.<br />
I can almost inhale fully<br />
and feel the pulse of my body<br />
moving through space<br />
and taste the great vibrations<br />
of life.<br />
<br />
For a flickering moment,<br />
I almost<br />
owned myself.<br />
<br />
Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-66770997379168259852013-02-17T09:46:00.001-08:002013-02-17T09:55:03.239-08:00I Don't KnowGod,<br />
I don't know if I pray anymore,<br />
if I believe, of it I even need to.<br />
Still, I sometimes think you're useful<br />
in the case of death and divorce,<br />
heartbreak and panic attacks,<br />
after running a red light and frustration <br />
of lost keys. I confess:<br />
I only want the magic and the comfort<br />
the way I look to my horoscope<br />
and catch-phrases on the thin paper tab<br />
of a tea bag. After all,<br />
if I can't find the stars in this city's sky<br />
what do I look for?<br />
<br />
God, I don't know how to pray anymore.<br />
But love, I still want you,<br />
ache for you, hope and despair for you.<br />
Love, I don't know if I believe<br />
or if I just need you.Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-85665960119177602692013-02-10T10:46:00.004-08:002013-02-10T10:46:47.279-08:00Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird- Wallace StevensI do not know which to prefer,<br />
The beauty of inflections<br />
Or the beauty of innuendos,<br />
The blackbird whistling<br />
Or just after. Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-22547008940053658532013-02-10T10:44:00.000-08:002013-02-10T10:44:07.746-08:00The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockLet us go, through certain half-deserted streets<br />
The muttering retreats<br />
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels<br />
And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells:<br />
Streets that follow like a tedious argument<br />
Of insidious intent<br />
To lead you to an overwhelming question...<br />
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"<br />
Let us go and make our visit.<br />
<br />
Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-74614141688181028142013-02-10T10:41:00.002-08:002013-02-10T10:52:21.604-08:00Funeral In ChicoThe sun is red this morning<br />
and the smoke hangs heavy in the sky.<br />
The grasslands are burning<br />
and there is nothing to do, but inhale.<br />
My hands and feet are swollen<br />
and the stiffness makes me wonder<br />
is this what it feels like to die, and dry up,<br />
then burn in blue flame and be no more?<br />
<br />
The day of the funeral we pack boxes of mementos:<br />
high school yearbook, Navy flags, work overalls-<br />
and carry the things that wont fit- a rod iron bench <br />
lifted from the front yard- and try to reconstruct the story<br />
of a dead man from the hallow remnants.<br />
All day I sweat in my red dress,<br />
perspiration rings my underarms like ripe melons<br />
and the heavy curtain of fabric sticks to my thighs<br />
when I stand and approach the podium.<br />
The microphone is adjusted and readjusted<br />
and all the flat words sound like they come from another mouth.<br />
<br />
Do you know the cost of dying?<br />
More than marriage or birth.<br />
Fifty sleepless nights and thousands spent<br />
to eulogize the dead to death.<br />
I cringe at half truths about suffering and salvation<br />
and barely force myself to exchange<br />
pleasantries with the strangers of family.<br />
Even when it's over<br />
it's not over.<br />
All day and night the telephone rings<br />
and the stream of visitors beat against the front door.<br />
I want to crawl into a borrowed grave<br />
and ask for borrowed peace.<br />
<br />
I lay in the backroom, under the ceiling fan and listen<br />
to the meaningless ebb and flow of sounds from a distant world.<br />
Sweat soaks through my underwear as I stare, <br />
glassy eyed at the world<br />
<br />
Outside <br />
hummingbirds dip their delicate beaks<br />
into the nose of blooming flowers,<br />
ripe figs are ready to explode, their purple skin<br />
pulled taught over sweet pink flesh,<br />
and the fertile ground, which so easily yields up<br />
sun ripened tomatoes and sweet basil,<br />
is ready to give itself over and over,<br />
without apology, to the cycle of things.<br />
I wish, more than anything, to forsake<br />
taxing human contrivances,<br />
to rise and fall like the hummingbird,<br />
to be as beautiful and fully consumed<br />
as the grass that was<br />
and is no more.<br />
<br />
Finally, I understand, if nothing else,<br />
that all nature desperately years for consolation.<br />
Even these lines are part of the striving.<br />
There is no right way to be helpless<br />
or to try to understand what it all means:<br />
a funeral in Chico, California,<br />
the red sun in the sky,<br />
figs and hummingbirds,<br />
a poem I do not know how to end.<br />
<br />
Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-44205919446483277732013-02-10T10:11:00.002-08:002013-02-10T10:11:30.236-08:00If I Was To WriteIf I was to write a poem<br />
I wouldn't start here<br />
or now or ever<br />
because I don't know how<br />
to feel my way through<br />
all the unspeakable territory that is<br />
too near and too far<br />
too dangerous to feel in my mouth<br />
and hear in my ears.<br />
<br />
If I was to write a poem<br />
I would feign ignorance, I would <br />
tear it up, burn it<br />
in blue flame<br />
and scatter each hanging letter on the air<br />
kiss the memory into oblivion<br />
and refuse to believe there is any way <br />
to immortality.<br />
<br />
If I was to write a poem<br />
I wouldn't start<br />
because I couldn't possibly find<br />
an end.Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-21730634162844867532012-12-01T14:54:00.001-08:002012-12-01T14:54:27.354-08:00Poem of Undoing- by Sharon Venezio<br />
<br />
How many kinds of undoing are there?<br />
The word love in the back of my throat,<br />
mouth ajar, as I don't say your name.<br />
<br />
Is unhappiness a kind of undoing?<br />
The heart's fault line, a fracture<br />
in the space between two bodies.<br />
<br />
My heart is a thirsty artichoke,<br />
each petal a different version of undoing.<br />
<br />
If I knock three times, will you reappear?Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-70009845242606027652012-10-03T22:33:00.000-07:002012-10-03T22:33:19.715-07:00This is the Fallthis is the fall<br />
day that smells like first<br />
year college<br />
chloroplast green<br />
billowing skirt reading<br />
poetry on the well <br />
manicured green lawns<br />
frisky squirrels act <br />
out the part of bright <br />
students and buoyant<br />
fresh love<br />
Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-55440147856254065402012-10-03T22:29:00.003-07:002012-10-03T22:34:50.500-07:00Mama Says, Thresh the LaundryMama says, thresh the laundry on the line<br />
It’s time to mulch the garden with bathrobes and slippers<br />
Put on your shower cap and hoe with your sisters under the blue moonlight <br />
Watch the men irrigate the accordion and weed the violin<br />
Drink and clap and sing!<br />
<br />
We slaughter the ironing board every spring<br />
and sell bent nails each winter<br />
We sow the curtain rod, harvest the lampshade, groom the fly<br />
If only you could bundle and weigh our weary joy!<br />
<br />
But when I go, because I will go-<br />
I will plow under the marigolds in my heart<br />
I will carry the big leaf maple- even through the gutters<br />
of the fine city- I will carry its dirty roots and all its shade-<br />
deep in my blue jean pockets<br />
<br />
Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-35689552915066593862012-09-29T17:20:00.000-07:002012-10-03T22:35:49.738-07:00Cranky PantsToday I have my cranky pants on<br />
pulled up high<br />
so that I ooze irritability <br />
out the seams.<br />
I’m cranky about my bumpy bus commute <br />
that reeks of stale beer, cranky about unpaid overtime,<br />
cranky about the cell phone dropped in water,<br />
and the headband that pinches.<br />
Cranky without a caffeine and sugar fix,<br />
cranky because I am so behind on piles of paperwork<br />
bills, dental appointments, and car repairs.<br />
Cranky because I’ve gained fifteen pounds<br />
and can’t even fit into <br />
my cranky pants.<br />
Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-1441432274534067152012-09-29T17:18:00.000-07:002012-10-03T22:35:12.457-07:00The DanceThe dance of drawing inward<br />
and extending outward<br />
I never get it right-<br />
I think to myself this morning<br />
with the fall nipping at my heels.<br />
The leaves are starting to change<br />
<br />
colors and float to the ground<br />
just like they are supposed to<br />
but I wonder<br />
if they are a little sad<br />
about their inevitable transformation,<br />
if it is difficult to change<br />
<br />
deep inside; to know it is time<br />
to let down their fiery garb, and then-<br />
to let it down.<br />
I imagine that most of these tall towers<br />
retreat into their hard insides,<br />
wrap layers of pine, maple, red alder<br />
<br />
around their green hearts,<br />
and bunker down for the cold months to come<br />
but maybe a few- the courageous, the foolish-<br />
open their naked bodies wide, extend<br />
their branches to all the fierce elements<br />
and sway with the wind.<br />
Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-18441289259293960982012-04-10T22:33:00.000-07:002012-04-10T22:33:06.167-07:00Subverting Natural TendenciesI am not the kind of person who takes physical risks or pushes myself out of my comfort zone. I play safe. For example...<br />
I never played team sports growing up.<br />
I have never broken a bone.<br />
I have never had stitches.<br />
I have never gone skiing or snowboarding.<br />
I can attribute my cautious tendencies to a multiplicity of factors including my pragmatic nature, protective mother, and grab bag of phobias/anxiety/insecurities.<br />
<br />
All this to say that I am going to do something that is totally uncharacteristic of my behavior. I want to conquer something that I totally believe I cannot do: a sprint distance triathlon.<br />
The Danskin Triathlon is August 19th & is an all ladies sprint distance triathlon. It is a 0.5 mi swim, 12 mi bike, and 3.1 mi run.<br />
To many people, these distances seem reasonable and short, and in truth, that is an accurate view. A sprint triathlon is a feasible challenge for most able-bodied individuals, but it is more than the physical challenge for me- it is mental.<br />
<br />
So I am going to give it a try.<br />
While I don't really need to start "training" until mid-May (if I do a 13 week tiered program) I have to start talking about this triathlon with people to convince myself that it is a reality. I also have to fork over the money to fully commit myself to following through. In the mean time, I am working on increasing my general fitness level and activity and strengthening my sense of what I am able to achieve with my body.<br />
Oh, this is a scary journey for me. I could use a cheerleader!Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-26212362407038038642012-04-01T22:44:00.000-07:002012-09-29T17:22:34.502-07:00Moon ChildI love that my first word as a child was moon. It is the perfect word to mark my linguistic beginning, although I cannot explain exactly why. Sometimes a person simply knows deep inside what is true and what is not.<br />
<br />
One warm Wailuku night I was held on the golden beach outside our home. I stretched my chubby little finger to the sky, like Adam reaching toward God, and named the floating white lantern. Moon: it was my first identifiable word other than the traditional gurgles of “mama” and “dada.” This fact alone feels like magic to me. It makes me feel set apart, like Moses in his basket of bulrushes.<br />
<br />
I wonder what was happening in my infant brain when I gazed at the silver glow and watched its rotund reflection dance in roll of waves. Did I see two moons? Did I understand them to be one? The image I hold in my heart, even now, is one where my deepest self surrenders to the mystery and majesty of the way things are.Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-59117858407043132952012-02-11T10:40:00.001-08:002012-02-11T10:40:23.559-08:00Mother and Child SleepingI sleep on the far edge of a large double bed<br />
under the weight of a quilt I stitched together<br />
to pass through the string of cold winter days and nights.<br />
The pillows- six of them- take up more space<br />
than the full female figure of my body.<br />
I tuck my arms, legs, head inward<br />
and curl up like a small dog, back to the wall,<br />
not even hoping to be held.<br />
<br />
I hold myself<br />
like I am my own mother<br />
like I am my own child.Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648705393753520683.post-87734291426014755352012-02-11T10:39:00.003-08:002012-02-11T10:56:31.266-08:00Friday Night Behind Closed DoorsI’ve had too much dark chocolate, caramel, red wine.<br />
I am flushed with sweets and blushing with the glitter and tassels<br />
of Friday night burlesque, drag, accordion ballads of unrequited love.<br />
Tonight I fanned the flames of flirtation with a man from Ohio<br />
I used his large beard and computer coding jokes to skirt <br />
the awkwardness of not having anyone <br />
beside me and always being early.<br />
<br />
Someone tried to take my jacket. I let him wear it.<br />
Someone asked if I was drinking moonshine in my honey jar. <br />
I wasn’t, but laughed and tossed my hair and hooted<br />
with the rest of them and at the end of the evening<br />
one friendly acquaintance asked, when is my debut?<br />
<br />
Next Friday night I will mount the stage <br />
with metal card table and red velvet bag of tricks<br />
I will adjust the tension---<br />
pull out my scraps<br />
and sew them a quilt.<br />
<br />
This is what I do behind closed doors.Oliviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13663334200326793090noreply@blogger.com0