Triplets

Saturday April 12, 2014
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Triplets

I took my notebook
for a walk when I went
to check the mail.

I planned to sit
on a bench near the marina
to write a poem

but the sun was an electric
blanket thrown over me
and I couldn't find my way out.

Instead, I sauntered back home
and settled in the shade
under our stilt house

to read two letters from a friend.
The first has an owl, a snail, a blue bird,
a pink flower, a tiny butterfly, a star,

and cloud stickers added for my
enjoyment. The second is framed
by colorful polka dots.

I had a hard time writing a poem
earlier when I first got up
so thought a change of scenery

would help. I was wrong. But, I'm
writing, anyway, just putting my pen
on the page and watching

the black letters emerge and curl
into words. See how I'm faking it
by enjambing the lines and dividing

them into triplets? There is a small bird
on a rain gutter across the street
warbling away, turning his head

this way and that, creating his own
poem. Wish I could, too. I glance up
but he has flown away.

Crochet

I'm wondering if there was a storm
out in the ocean over the weekend
that produced these huge waves.

I was here on Saturday
and the ocean was flat
with just foot high slats.

Today they're six feet giants
building, building, falling
into lace, a doily crocheted

by my grandmother. I can see
her hands grasping the hook,
twirling the thin, white thread

over and under, punctuating
each move with her anger, her
dissatisfaction, her mouth a straight line,

creating beauty out of her everyday
disappointments. The sun is warm.
The wind is cool. The waves keep pounding.

Yesterday

I don't even bother to lock the car since the area is deserted.
The sky is a paragraph of sadness and the wind a scythe
slicing through me. I put on my sweatshirt, grab my phone,

and almost run up the boardwalk to the beach, snapping a picture
as I go. I have a letter from a fiend in a sunny envelope I plan
to read on one of the benches, but, as soon as I sink my sneakers

in the sand, I know it will be too cold. Instead I walk around
and notice an area fenced off for the nesting plovers. I don't see
any, though. I take a few photos of the layers of steel waves,

then say goodbye for today. I tighten the strings of my hoodie
and head back over the dunes of short, spiky, grasses. Stop. Lilac
blossoms arch over the sidewalk. I put my face right up into them

and take a big sniff of memory. Of our old lilacs in the back yard.
Of a vaseful on my desk at school. Of walking by the neighbor's
and plucking a few flowers then chewing on them. That sweet

bitter fragrance on my tongue. I don't steal any today but I think
about it. I glance up and spy a sentence of blue. I continue on
to my car, lilacs in my lungs, breathing in the the poetry of nature.