April 17th

“Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house
within the city walls.
For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in
you, the ever distant and alone.
Your house is your larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not
dreamless. Does not your house dream? and dreaming, leave the city for a
grove or hill-top?”

-from “On Houses” by Kahlil Gibran
……………………………..

Staying Power

Even a brick will buckle
after nine hundred years.
Nothing dramatic; a slight shrug
under the weight of stone,
so the wall undulates.
The very oldest structures lean and sigh,
or even dance (as glimpsed
from an Amsterdam canal).
They were built properly and plumb,
walls to defend the city
against breaking waves or fierce crusades.
Now they adjust to the shifting earth
with arthritic serenity.
The medieval abbey
has lost its doors and roof, but cows
still frequent it during storms –
leaving their pies
among sublime ivied walls.
I’m drawn back too, in and out
and in again, caressing
the weathered stone face
as rains caress it – with the gentle
relentlessness of time.

-Jenny Crakes

April 16th

“I’ve never had a way with women,
but the hills of Iowa make me wish that I could.
And I’ve never found a way to say I love you,
but if the chance came by, oh I would.

But way back where I come from, we never mean to bother
We don’t like to make our passions other people’s concern
And we walk in the world of safe people
And at night we walk into our houses and burn.”

-from “Iowa (Traveling III)” by Dar Williams
…………………………

I grew up skiing in Canada but…

it didn’t involve chair lifts or black diamonds.
Instead, I’d herringbone up the big hill
by the old log barn, then push off
while clacking my poles
out in front of me
to avoid tripping
over my dogs
gleefully pursuing
the shiny
ski tips.

-Jenny Crakes

April 15th

“It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.”

-from “Litany” by Billy Collins
……………………………

A Norman Rockwell Painting on a London Street

Tube-strike morning,
and the double-decker bus creeps along
outstripped in turn
by pedestrians and pint-sized scooters.

A dad with two young daughters
pushes the smallest
atop a full-sized bike.
Gingham school dresses billow
as feet dangle above pedals.

Hemmed-in passengers strain forward
as if they have some hope of winning
this wide-eyed race.

-Jenny Crakes

April 14th

“I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.”

-from “my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell” by Gwendolyn Brooks
………………………………….

Almost Carefree at Cuyahoga

When we drove out on a summer night
and climbed the overlook in its last light,
the balmy air and soft allure
made us linger on the Ledges, sure
that we and the world would turn out right.

Back through deep woods, we watched starry-bright
fireflies float with the same delight
we’d blasted the Chicks to speed our tour
when we drove out.

Now, left for us by those upright,
a pamphlet warned with all its might
we heathens should beware the Rapture —
the car doors slammed amid our laughter.
Well, that’s Ohio. But my friend’s smile grew tight
when we drove out.

-Jenny Crakes

April 13th

The Good Life
By Tracy K. Smith

When some people talk about money
They speak as if it were a mysterious lover
Who went out to buy milk and never
Came back, and it makes me nostalgic
For the years I lived on coffee and bread,
Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday
Like a woman journeying for water
From a village without a well, then living
One or two nights like everyone else
On roast chicken and red wine.
……………………………….

Lilac Thief

I snip a few blooms
bumblebee-soft
from the bounty
hanging over
the neighbors’ fence,
slip home
by the light of the moon.

-Jenny Crakes

April 12th

“Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!”

-from “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” by William Wordsworth
……………………….

Grumble

I have seen hundreds of faces
today and now must flee them
to sweet solitude. Tender colleague,
how can you leisurely admire architecture
at a time like this?
Indeed, that soaring roof with its blue window
of sky is truly stunning
but I will eat my arm
if we don’t get on the subway home
to dinner.

-Jenny Crakes

April 11th

"Are those real gems on their costumes?
Do they get to keep them?
Is that really snow coming down?

            No, it can't be, it would melt and their feet get wet.

I think it's white paper.

            Aren't they beautiful?

They are very beautiful. But what do the dancers do
when we can't see them, when they're off the stage
and they're not dancing?
Do you have any more pistachios in your purse?"

-from "Boy and Mom at the Nutcracker Ballet" by Naomi Shihab Nye

……………………………

In Tune

We trip along the sidewalk to the ceilidh —
skies not yet dark add just a touch of spring
to limber creaky souls who toil daily.

The vast room hums, the caller welcomes gaily
all who laugh and stumble gamely as they cling
to partners who sweet-talked them to the ceilidh.

In the frenzy of the spin we swing each lady.
Our shoulders dare not buckle on the wing
of graceful flight despite how we plod daily.

This land is used to days spent much more grayly,
but the room is crammed and bright, joy echoing —
Come trip along the sidewalk to the ceilidh.

With practice, reels weave in a vast array. We
pick up our step and let the fiddle sing.
For best results you must do one fling daily.

Outside it’s still, some petals falling palely.
Sleep comes fast despite barely tiring
and aching muscles yearn for the next ceilidh.
Oh, strings and souls should be kept in tune daily.

-Jenny Crakes

April 10th

“It is because
of the tangle
of white wild flowers
in the bright field
untidy, reckless, deviant
in their courage & in their beauty,
their happiness a holiness,
visceral & redemptive,
their perfume intoxicating
heavy rain

it is because
of them
that you learn
to be all of you
without hesitation
before you will be nothing
& everything
at some unknown instant of release.”

-from “June” by Aiyana Masla

………………………….

The Peach Orchard, 1943

They run onto the field so fierce,
a first-time dream amid the war.
They slide bare-legged yet shed no tears.
They run onto the field, so fierce.
All hail the girls of summer! Cheers
and grit can’t fail to clear the bar.
They run onto the field so fierce,
a first-time dream amid the war.

-Jenny Crakes

April 9th

“…When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.”

-from “Instructions on Not Giving Up” by Ada Limón

……………………………………

Reading Emily of New Moon

Sitting on the hot springs hotel bed,
I drank it in.
Akin to the Anne series I’d read
sipping tea at the Vélez’ kitchen table,
but with a darker, mysterious touch
suitable to double-digits age.
Inexorable aunts, red letter-bills, barn cats
and the flash — which made immediate sense,
a curtain lifting, like steam at the cave’s mouth
or fog on grey lake, tiny pinpricks
of chill rain while buoyant in the warm pool.
This was a story to turn over
and be lulled by,
so pleased at the right volume
having found me by chance.

-Jenny Crakes

April 8th

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?”

-from “The Tyger” by William Blake

………………………..

Compass Jellyfish

In this quiet Cornwall piece
of blue-green tropics,
you glisten on the sand.
Radial lines roll neatly into
a gleaming doughnut,
tantalizing to touch
even with knowledge
of the sting. Clear as day, the only direction you display
is carefully around.
Puffy little inner tubes
dot the vast smoothness
of slow-rolling shore.

-Jenny Crakes