thanksgiving

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

- e.e. cummings

I am thankful this day and this night for really beautiful, creative, loving friends to share food and music and laughter and conversation and happiness and love with.

when reading my own poetry
or the poetry of others

I am filled with the enormity of
the significance and insignificance
of my own life
and the lives of others

Jane.

Twelve-year-olds are nearly always peculiar, but this particular Jane was more peculiar than most. She had a pet rabbit that she intended to roast, and a collection of spices that had arrived in the post. She loathed rhymes and only wore white stockings and had a habit of kicking walls when bored or nervous or confused or happy. Her father had been Greek, but nobody who knew Jane had known him, other than her mother, but even that might be a stretch, unless when you say "know" you mean in the Biblical sense. She liked to drive cars but was never allowed, which made her incredibly frustrated, which she vented by kicking walls. The walls of her home were covered in scuff marks and mud and even dents here and there, because although Jane was small she was quite strong when she wanted to be. She hated the color grey but her mother made here wear it to school because it was sensible and would keep her warm and also because it was the school's uniform dress code. Jane thought the idea of a dress code was sensible, but that the color grey had been a poor judgment on the part of the school board. Jane had decided a few years ago that she was probably going to be an insurance lender when she was grown up, or else own a fish market, or, if the world was vegan by then, a seaweed market.

one-ninth

I asked myself, why were we
so careful with each other, and

it was because we were young
and everything was infinitely
important
to
us

, including the poetry we wrote.


I put, in parenthesis,
(If I am going to be honest,)
because
that has become a disclaimer.


Two years ago,
you were beautiful
and I was focused.
Our places may be
reversed—

halloween eve, wilshire.

beetlejuice and brides.

copper animal heads.

my dress glowed in the luminescent nursery.

pastel inspiration.

tattered capes and cloaks!