Cravings After the News

The appeal of silence
is an oft-understated thing;
the yearning for quiet
in the dark of day,
in the caves of work,
where echoes abound
despite the muting of
all important voices,
is a thing of passion and
vitriolic discussion and
really anything but the
very thing that is yearned for.

A deep, dark, silent space:
impenetrable emptiness,
please, I'll take two, and you
are not to follow;
get your own and do not share.

We Minions

Watching dandelion puffs burst into flying tufts
under the spitting, huffing breaths of small children,
she wonders what the dandelion puffs must think
of those who dare to submit to their silent commands:
spread our seeds, they say, with tuft-temptation;
and small grasping hands obey with the reluctance
of a cat gobbling a scrap of begged-for chicken.

Silken sun nudges its way through the leaves and
warms her hand, highlighting a small brown spot
that never existed there before--ow! She squishes the
no-see-'um bug, but its secret feast has made a red spot,
and the man-made bench crawls with pesky 'friends'
who admire her more than she admires them; how
considerate they must think humans are; to make them
a table sat with such ever-changing variety of flavors.

Walking the shady path she scents honeysuckle,
newborn to the season, vines winding along fences
whose so-convenient checkerboard wires are the ideal
handholds for fast-climbing green things, and happily
placed right where the wandering hands of walkers
can pluck a flower and slurp its nectar from a bloom
turning gold with age and sweetness. She tosses the
emptied vessel into other flowers, in thanks for a treat.

I'm going to say something controversial. Lots of people will probably gasp in shock and take an affronted step back, or call me a radical and a crazy person. But this is how I feel, and I just want to get it out there:

I don't want to look younger.

I am almost 30. I am nearing the age of no-longer-a-fresh-faced-20-something. And I like it.

One of these days I am going to get grey hair. I look forward to this, and while it may impact my income to the point doing so becomes necessary, I would prefer not to dye it.

I don't want to hide my fine lines and wrinkles. I'm okay with getting age spots, so long as I'm taking care of my health--to me sunscreen isn't an avoidance of wrinkles so much as an avoidance of cancer. And yes, I probably will wear makeup on occasion--because it's fun to do so.

Age is beautiful. Truly, awesomely beautiful.

And Americans fear it.

If it seems American women fear it more than men, well, maybe they do and maybe they don't--but they'd have a right to do so, as ingrained prejudices make it harder for older women to support themselves financially, to find role models in fiction (our cultural narrative) that aren't evil or crazy, to be considered savvy and beautiful and valuable in a society that often seems to value women for beauty more than any other form of competence.

But when people get older, they generally become more confident, more capable of seeing the bigger pictures, more willing to laugh. They're funny, they're often wise, they're usually more emotionally resilient.

Yes, there are the negative stereotypes, as well: the fear of the body's slow decline, the greater fear of the loss of ability to learn. The danger of becoming stuck in a certain way with the assumption it's the only right way. But I know more people who avoid these stereotypes than fall for them, and I wonder if we pushed ourselves as a culture to make age about learning and accepting, if we couldn't even reverse the stereotypes completely. Because I know plenty of older people who are open-minded, tech-savvy, and if not cutting-edge, then at least willing to learn.

Which is as much as can be said for any other age range of people.

If we tell people that with age comes the ability to love more, and that growing old is accompanied by the responsibility of accepting that others who are different are not innately wrong--would that make it so? I don't know, but I hope so.

When I say I don't want to look younger, when I reject the fear of age and instead welcome it, it's because I see in it a stronger, more powerful beauty than youth. Because unlike youth, age doesn't fade. It only enhances. Because the stereotypes we give it are flimsy and avoidable, while naivete and inexperience are both the hazards of and part of the definition of youth.

I want to celebrate surviving this world as long as I have. I want to celebrate my experience, and all the things I've learned. I want to celebrate age, not hide it. I find it beautiful and rich and brilliant, a trophy of passing time and a marker of things learned, mistakes made, people known and loved. No, I don't want to hide my age.

In short, I don't want to look younger.

Easily avoided

Fog encapsulates a dewy grassy field
and I wander sluggish through the mist
Droplets sitting on grass, pearly white
against misty green, wetting my hems.
Some lady with a gun shows up, yells,
aims for my head but the smell of her
tasty brain has given me warning, so
I move, and take just a nibble, just a tiny
nibble
and then I have a friend wandering the
misty field by my side, and if only we'd
made a little more tea this morning, all
this could have been avoided.

Make more tea, people.

I like camping, anyway.

I'm sitting by the fire alone
its heat soaking into my skin and
almost painful against the cold
of the room--the heater's broken.
You come back and, grimly,
shake your head, putting down
the flashlight to scoop up a
protesting cat, whom you hold
and nuzzle as you sit beside me.

I scritch her chin and she extends it
but mewls angrily, except she purrs
as she glares up at us, and when we
let her go she runs across the room
but grabs her toy and runs right back
dropping it dingling at our feet.

I throw it for her and she bolts away,
and leaning into you I say, "We'll
be okay tonight. They'll curl up with
us, under the blankets, for warmth."
You nod, and sure enough the cats
array themselves around us in front
of the fire. By the time the repairman
shows up the next day, we've made
hot chocolate twice and you've got your
super-duper spicy chili on the stove.

Obviously the milk is fine, so I have
a full bowl, and survive, grateful for
a broken heater.

Frost dreams

Watching the sun rise
while standing in a forest
catching the glimpses of sky
between trees and pine needles
made easier because of winter
You ask why I love summer
so much when it is winter
that gives us glimpses of
the sun I idolize.
Holding your hand I
take you to stand out in
a field sixty meters wide
and point to brown ground
with its twisted grass corpses
and say, "In summer these
are flowers, weeds, seeds;
not just grass but also
life reborn, a field
of sunshine wherein
we, too, begin growing."
But you laugh and dig up
a piece of dirt to show me
a seed, and say, "Too late, see?
We are even now planted, waiting,
Though we don't grow much, we
spread our roots while sleeping,
and though springs warms our
roots, it's winter that settles
us, that makes us dream of
summer in the first place."

We watch the sun rise
through slips of trees and pine
and I hold your hand, wishing
the spring's warmth would return,
but last summer, I really wanted
just a simple taste of frost.

If there is a failing, it is not in the figment, who is what it is.

Should I be
not a dream, a figment?
You chase me, little cat,
and I am but a speck floating
that no one else can see.

Will catching me bring you joy?
But how your face falls when
I am truly in your paws,
how quickly boredom unsettles
the unfathomable joy you had
when I was beyond your reach.

Was I more to you
than a speck, than a figment?
Did you think I would finish you,
that I was the last drop of paint
the painter forgot in painting you?
Or that I was an everlasting rat,
sure to please your never-ending hunger?

Should I be not a dream, or a figment?
Should I dare to be just a speck,
when you think to dream more of me?
I can give only what I am, little cat,
and that is but a moment of passing
interesting in a wall that
humans cannot fathom.

Lay your dreams, my hatchlings

Do not throw away your hopes and dreams--
they guide you away from the sea.

As children we trundle on the sand towards the moon
and lay our dreams in clutches, daring to hope
that some will survive to adulthood.
Few do.

But twenty-some years pass, and then
crawling, lumbering, we return, the nests
now empty, yet
somehow, one, two, four of those dreams
find us, join us, lead our way
back to the sea.

Do not throw away your hopes and dreams--
they guide you back to the sea, and become
the water in which you swim,
so that no matter how lost you become
you may always make your way.

Silence in the Office

I smell rose petals in the air
when I walk into the dull, dark office;
silence fills the halls, but I smell
hot coffee, rich and thick, percolating.
The cologne of the neighboring cube
overpowers the sound of his typing
until I hear nothing; the lightly burnt air
scent of the heater running fills a
hum-less room.

I sit, and work, in the silence,
bright colors jumping past my eyes.
Reds, greens, purples of ink
bleeding papers into Standard English,
while pastel blues and eggshell whites
backlight purple mardi gras beads
and turquoise posters of ocean scenes.

I sit, and work, in the silence
and wonder where everyone has gone,
in an office full of scent and color,
the dystopian quiet plays an anthem
to the tune of rising zombies.

Here comes the fall

I.

On the first day of fall, burnt leaves
actually taste okay, even if it's not
how I usually like my tea.

II.

The world sings year-long songs
and the lyrics change every so often.
As a child, the first day of fall was
the change from glimmering opal drops
in the morning grass to
the scent of cinnamon and leaves
in the morning air.

III.

Fall would depress, but
I can smell the State Fair approaching,
caramel apples and crowds so thick
my elbows already hurt, produce
piled high on tables and fried foods
that make my gut churn a month away.
The delight of my fall, the rambunctious
celebratory wake for summer.

Sencha and time

I scoop two teaspoons of sencha leaves
into the strainer--wait, I should have only
used one. But it'll still taste fine, so I
rumble my way down to the coffee machine
and pour the hot water into the empty mug,
leaves still waiting on my desk. Thankfully
that habit is strong enough, or I'd have burnt
leaves with bitterness under the roots. And
I wonder if it's worth it, morning, if it's worth
the heavy eyes and hold hands, today when I
imagine I still feel half-digested catfood under
my nails despite lots of soap, when the blinds
have been near savaged by orange fur, and
what sleep there was, was fraught with snippets
of the kind I was almost glad to be woken from.
No, I think, no it's not worth it. But since I'm
here anyway, I'll drink my sencha. Later, I'll
sit with the writing group and be glad;
the luxury of friendship and time with friends
is harder to afford without that paycheck, so
the "worth-it"ness of mornings changes the
farther I get from them.

image by Maiko Kinari Shincha, from 2010

It's the people that make home

I can't read the signs, but
I know what they say:
"Home, this way; 
city and work that way."
I can't read the signs, or
the menu, but I know what
I want, and where to go:
They looks so happy and so full,
the wait pushing the doors;
let's go there. That, on that table,
it looks delicious. What is it called?
I think I'll have that.
The father frowns at the
impudence of the stranger,
and the small son giggles and
laughs and points. The mother
touches the child's seat but smiles,
knowingly, and I think they
look a lot like my parents,
not by their faces but by how
they move and act. I am home
in a home not my own and
if the food tastes a little odd,
it is delicious and hearty and
there is so much reminding me
of home, I cannot remember to
feel homesick--except of course
the every now and then that I do,
because "familiar" isn't perfectly
the same, even if it's awful close.

Battle Lost

Forgive me, but
the garden can't be saved.

The squirrels made their
inroads as the cats sat
in the kitchen window,
watching and chirping,
cursing the lack of kitty doors.

The soldiers are willing,
but the generals do not
want fleas in the bed.

Washing Away

Standing on the sand watching the tide come in,
I wonder why I bothered drawing anything.
The doodles are rich, beautiful; I had no ink
no paper and no pen. But I had sand, lots
of sand. So I drew what I wanted in the cold
damp medium, and it was coils of life and richness,
a truth I'd forgotten I had within me. Now here
comes the tide, and no one will ever see it
on the beach on a day too cold to swim,
and it will be as if it had never been--
to all the world except to me, in whom the
memory has been planted, and begun to grow.

Watching the Sunset

Watching the sunset
colors spreading gold and coral
orange turning pink, that touch
of light that slices across patches
of shadows, illuminating in highlight
the treasure within the trees.
ratatatatatat

Hearing the birds songs
settle down for the night
and the laughing children
playing in the street--one
last call from mom before
they retreat.
ratatatatatatat

The salty brush of briney air
the last swift, hot breeze touched
by sea and sand over a shell-strewn
beach, cotton fluff pink and bright
against purpling blue of oncoming
night, darkening minute by minute
until the clouds seep to dark grey.
ratatatatatatat.

Watching the sunset
through lightning and storm
on a beautiful evening
parking lot people running
listening to children's laughter
thunder rattling sheets of rain
 in the warm seaside breeze
ratatatatatatatatat.

10-12 at 375F

I roll the dough
quickly, without taking care
to avoid rips--those I press
back together. The oven
preheats in the background;
I knew the temperature by heart.
Three of the four make it into
the pan. This is why I refuse
to buy cans of 8, because
I find them so delicious and
they never make it more than
an hour, unless I've saved you
one and you're too caught in
a game to save it from me, or
me from it--I'm not really sure
which that it goes--but if I said
it was yours, I'll leave it, and
it will last out the twitching
of the clock.

My love of crescent rolls
does not exceed my joy
at your smile,
but I wouldn't suggest you
decide to leave yours until
tomorrow.

A starduster would wipe away the starsong

You know when you wake up
out of a dream and find the dreams
have scattered your pieces over the sky;
when you wake up and try to gather
all those little pieces, and find most
except for one, which is crammed
under the bed or tucked beneath
the pillow?

And you finally find it and grab it,
but it's covered in stardust, and
no matter how you shake it off
you can't quite wipe it clean,
and so you put it in place
and go off to face the day,
but everywhere you go
there's still a little stardust
clinging to a piece of you.

Moonlight hits the river

I want to see
the world smile today--
I know; I know;
it's the end of the day.

But wouldn't it be nice
to drift to sleep and know
the moon casting her silver
glow over the Earth lights
upon a hundred-mile smile?

Instead of fireworks
or death works, or
bursting red air,
she sees as she crests
the curve of the world--

nothing brighter, nothing darker,
than that broad silver smile.

The true answer to the quest

Who am I?
         ->Ask not who, but what.
What am I?
        ->Ask not what, but why.
Why do I exist?
        ->Have you no sense? Ask not why, but how!
How do I exist?
        ->What matters how? Most important of all is not what nor why nor how, but simply "who."
So, who are you?
        ->Finally, a question worth answering. Let's discuss.

Cat in the sun

The stripes fall on the wall
and my eyes light up.
I'm pressed against the cool, white plaster
feeling the soft touch of sun
for the first time in months--
not that it's the first sunshine I've seen
in months
but rather that it's the first time
I've had morning sun in my home
as my last apartment was a cave
And this, though still mostly unsettled,
is my new home, and it
has sun
in the mornings,
which makes me happy.
The stripes move, brighten, and
I notice another patch on the floor.
Excuse me while I lay here for a while.