Golden Birthday

For Guy

Yesterday you spoke
of the anticipation
of tomorrow's tomorrow - 
a golden day
for celebrating eight.
And golden it will be,
a sun-drenched day following
a pink full moon,
and cherry blossoms
on the breeze.
What a day to be eight!
A day to wake up
to presents on the table
and cards in the mail,
to hear your classmates sing
(in Irish, no less!)
in your honor.
A day for self-portraits
and soccer kicks
and chocolate cake
with extra whipped cream.
Because, after all,
you only turn eight once.

Standards

Relax your standards, the advice says,
these are extraordinary times.
Nobody needs to be perfect right now,
it’s not worth trying.

But what if my standards are the only thing
holding my feet to this high wire,
the only net below me if I fall?

What if every slip of my standards
is a slip of my foot
down a slippery slope
tumbling to a no-net abyss
I haven’t even considered because
I’ve been so busy avoiding
its possibility?

I cling to my standards,
avoid the news, avert my eyes
from the numbers, tell myself
I’ll make the masks tomorrow,
I don’t want to think about it today.

Today I demand clean hands,
square meals, fresh air.
Respect. Kindness.
Forgiveness. Space.

Perhaps one day soon
my only standard
will be

Breath

No Shortcuts

The order of things:
Allow. Accept. Love. Forgive.
All will heal with time.

The Last Beautiful Day

The last beautiful day
was the one we spent with you.

You said, this might be
our last beautiful afternoon
for a while.
To which I replied, Nonsense –
We’ll make them all beautiful.
 
And you smiled and said, 
Of course we will.
 
Little did we know
the order would come –
the park is no longer a safe place
to enjoy an afternoon with friends.

The weather shifted,
we retreated into our separate homes,
brought the soccer balls inside,
shut our doors against
the grey tide of rising fear.

Now we share hailstorms over FaceTime,
text about getting caught in the rain
that seems to have settled in for good,
marvel at how the world has changed
since that last beautiful day.

Exchange

A 5 lb bag of all-purpose flour
knocked on my door this morning,
my friend’s smiling face
six feet down the path. 
Thanks for the bananas the other day, she says, 
do you need any more elastic for masks?

I talked to my mother like this yesterday,
standing in the rain
an emotional mile from her front door.
I’d better go now before I get soaked.
 
I closed the door softly,
hugging the unbleached promise
of fresh bread and biscuits,
momentarily satiated
by the sight of a familiar face
unfiltered by technology,
all the more precious for its distance from mine.

The ways we care for one another
may have changed,
but not the fact that we do.

Pollen

By a thousand cuts
Comes death to my poor eyeballs
Every time I blink.

The Words Will Come

One day the words will flow like water
Torrential, unashamed,
heedless of the cost –
weathering stone
with the sheer necessity of motion.

For now, the words come slowly,
filling the reservoir, drop by drop.
The dam still holds
the salty tears of all the words
unspoken, unallowed.

Ready your craft
for when the waters break.
One day the words will come.