Wet Walking

When water seeps through

My shoes,

And sky changes from grays 

To blues,

Wet walking becomes me.

Drawn to my heels, toes, soles--

Sticky notes with lists that leap

From small square to large bear

Growl a little softer;

They know.

Slinking back to their caves,

Lists of doing 

Feel deceived

By the relief that resides

In wet walking.

Stopping,

Remaining drops

Pool on pines and leaves,

Leave hope behind

Where once debris 

Of mind

Fumed with rage.

In wet walking,

There is no cage. 

Again

The drops that hang on edges of

Pine needles

After heavy rain

Don't realize how precarious their 

Lives are.

They shine.

They shimmer.

They glimmer.

Their spark barks 

Loudly because the sun

Shines brightly.

Nightly,

They fall

And crawl along the soil, seep into it,

Deeper than even they thought they could go.

One day,

They join roots to rise

Once more.

On Sadness

 Its purpose, we cannot find

When we sit around its table

And dine.

What little we find

Tastes as though

Sand has been ground in--

We chew slowly, 

Clsoing our eyes as if

Not seeing makes

Not feeling, Not knowing.

Growing never was easy,

No matter how many proverbs tell us

It's worth it.

Trying to be grateful,

We hold hands 

And instead wish everything

Were different.

Feast, Beast--

You will not stay forever.

You may leave a sour aftertaste,

But in your place

We find new ways 

To chase grace,

Eyes opened once more. 

Poem for the Maybe-Inclined

Open up the world.
See it for its breadth, depth, beauty, pain.
Life is bigger than we think.
Smaller than we scoff.
Go out and touch it.
See it.
Swim in the oxygen that
Sits still unless we take
Staccato breaths
And big steps
Off cliffs, out of boxes,
Where the air is thin and
Meaning is thick.
Reach.
Teach.
Learn.
Burn.
Think not of thriving
Or of dying,
But of all that is
Waiting to come alive.

Acceptance

The perks of working as writers / researchers / night-class teachers: yesterday, as Tyler was in pre-school in the morning, Jennifer and I rode our bikes to the Starbucks in town, ordered two coffees, lugged backpacks heavy with books up the stairs to two comfy chairs whereby we look out the window, and also at one another.

Our goal was reading--Jen for research purposes, me for novel purposes. But soon into a few sips of our coffees, we both sensed that our outing would be more one of those delve-deep-and-reflect missions than accomplishing much reading. (But hey, later that night, Jen would be elbow deep in research and I would be teaching a Public Speaking class, so we gave ourselves the leeway to let the momentum carry us where it would.)

It also happened to be our eight-year anniversary of when we first became engaged. I had proposed on the rocks of Bearskin Neck, Massachusetts right outside of My Place by the Sea restaurant (where we dined after Jen had said yes, and a bus-tour of senior citizens from Texas had clapped heartily to celebrate with us). So it felt particularly appropriate for us to have one of those conversations where inspiration sparks inspiration sparks inspiration, and love just kind of hangs out all around.

The floods that swelled from the River Ouse here in York only a week ago had dissipated, leaving the bike trail along the river free and open. So we rode it, then rode the caffeine of the coffee, then rode the words and meanings and messages of the conversation. And I'm still thankful, thankful, thankful, that my bride said yes eight years ago.

After our conversation, we did actually do a little "work." And during that space of literary-focused time, I wrote the following poem:

Acceptance

We walk, and should our shoes scuff silence
Shame balloons and we cling
To its strings.
Higher, higher we rise
In condensating skies until we
Can view every mistake we ever made.
From that vantage point (as the
Strings stretch the skin of our hands
So tight we bleed)
We learn--nor know--nothing.
Should we sink back down to
Where the divine is always married
To reality, we find
Space for silence, and words for shame
So that it cannot rule our lives again.

Accepting Different Tides

Out over the buoy that bobs in the water,
Where the waves are only preparing--
Staring hard at you
Is what's true:
Nothing final is coming your way
Except the visions of
Your own manufactured fear.
No longer must you strive for love,
No longer cover eyes and ears
Against reaction--but open all
Your heart to the first action.

We, Teachers

We stand at a place where justice meets grace.

In the thousand-thousand words we share and hear,

Constant mystery lingers from ear to ear.

Is it wrong, what I said?

The mark I gave, the essay I saved, the student whose song

I let reign today?

The questions we ask lean in towards answers,

And the answers we hear

Are echoes of the souls within the stories.

They are you.

They are me.

They laugh at the off-beat themes, 

Cry at the agony, grow wide-eyed at the dreams.

At our best, we are momentum itself--

Staggering forward without a water-break, destroying the fake.

At our worst, we clutch faith like a flame,

Burning ourselves again, and again, and again.

Somewhere in between lies both the promise and the present.

We, teachers, merge the two.

We make something whole even as its blinding holes

Blink back at us.

We, teachers, every day shut our eyes against what was and

Make something new. 

On a Clear Morning

The bird swoops downward
Without fear.
He knows a rising arc
Arrives as soon as
Ground is near.

An Ode to York

The Way York Walks, Remembers
The footfalls gather like moths to fire
While stone walls walk canvassing the city:
Entire. Complete. History—as they say—
Repeats.
On Coney Street the masses gather,
Arching forwards towards
A café where they can stay, sway,
Maybe
Share the moment that momentum
Has claimed already.
On Stonegate, purple pencils
The lines of our faces,
Traces each emotion like rain
That fades only after days.
Whip-Ma-what-did-you-say
In an endless chorus of robust
Street performers:
Fire, Drums, and the Beginning of Days
That reach like nights into
Memories that like living,
Always living.
Never repeating.
And York, like a man unadorned,
Finally stands in the deep end of the pool:
School term over,
Harried living ends,
And the messengers in pigeon suits
Gather round the fluted breadcrumbs.
Eating, eating, always eating—
Digesting the history, the you,
And the me.

Actually

Jennifer and I first watched the film, Dinner with Friends, four years ago, when we were living in Flagstaff. No one had told us about it--we just saw the cover and we both thought Dennis Quaid was kind of a neat guy. The kind of actor you think would be your friend if he ever got to really know you. And hey, the movie was based on a Pulitzer-Prize winning play.

Must be good.

But after two hours of watching with our jaws hanging off the bottom halves of our faces, we knew it was beyond good. Better than great, even. It was into that realm of Stuff-You-See-That-Speaks-Beneath-the-Seeable, and yet it doesn't make a whole lot of pretenses about doing so.

There's a scene at the end of the film where Dennis Quaid's wife, played by Andie MacDowell, asks him how they can keep a marriage going: How can two people continue to love one another amidst the battles that daily life confronts them with--everything from the tiny tussles to the most massive hardships? How does love survive and grow and withstand it all?

Dennis Quaid (in that Quaidish way only he has) thinks for a moment and then says, Uh-oh.

And what happens next is mythic.

Beautiful.

Profoundly moving in a life-altering, universe-shaking kind of way.

What happens next is more complex than any algorithm, more true than any time-tested theory, more authentic than any super-authentic quote from a human being / fount of wisdom.

He tickles her. This husband answers such a profoundly poignant question with a tickle.

Because, actually, that's how love survives.

Lately, Tyler has been using the word actually a lot. And when I write a lot, what I actually mean is all the time. And when I write all the time, what I actually mean is in every single sentence he utters.

"Tyler, do you want to have some juice cool dude?"

"Actually, Daddy, I would like to have some juice AND a cheese stick!"

Or this:

"Hey T-Man, do you want to play with the Gruffalo?"

"Actually, Mommy, I think I want to play with the castle."

And when I contemplate Tyler's usage of the word actually, I've got to admit that I'm kind of inspired myself.

See, WB Yeats wrote this incredible poem about love, entitled "When You Are Old," and in the poem, there's a middle stanza that articulates a vision of love unlike anything the synapses in my mind have ever before encountered. Yeats claims that love isn't seeing someone's "glad grace" or "beauty" and loving them for it. Instead, it's seeing someone's "pilgrim soul" and someone's "sorrows."

Actually loving is about seeing the authentic person--the self that is yearning to grow and change and journey forward. Love is about seeing someone's sorrow, and loving them not in spite of it, but rather because of it.

So tickling one's wife in the face of an insurmountable question is an act of love which Yeats might watch and get giddily gleeful about. It's the thing in motion--the truth in practice. It's the saying and doing what you actually mean rather than settling for a generality or a mixed-truth.

Yeats might see that scene from Dinner with Friends and nod his head.

Then, if he bent down to say hello to Tyler, the great poet himself might grin and say, "Actually, poetry that doesn't become life isn't poetry at all."

To which Tyler would say (respectfully), "Actually, Mr. Yeats, I would like to play with my Gruffalo now and drink some juice."

How We Know

This is the sound a poem makes:
Flapping wings pushing air;
But the air, too:
Fleeing for new space.

A poem aches
With the kind of grace
That arrives only from
Suffering we can taste.

Because our hunger is so acute.
So finite.

In one number,
A poem moves a thousand ways--
Dancing not just for me or you.
It has to: unanalyzed.

We know when we meet it
Because its stubborness
Is quiet, unrelenting--
As our stomachs, hearts.

Charlie McNarry Has a Query

Yolanda Mews has exciting news:
"Anything times zero is zero!"
The teacher nods, munches pretzel rods,
Says, "But don't think you're some kind of hero."

Beatrice Shelly has a pain in her belly.
"I need to go to the nurse!"
The teacher's head shakes, he eats his cakes,
Says, "Not until you're much, much worse!"

Charlie McNarry has a query:
"What makes the sky so blue?"
The teacher sighs and east his fries,
Says, "Does the sky ever ask about you?"

Phil Brigands has a worm in his hands:
"Look, it's so slimy and cool!"
The teacher yells, belches taco shells,
Says, "Touch it again and you're out of this school!"

A few weeks pass; teacher has gas.
"Oh, my poor poor belly is aching!"
He falls to the ground, sees a worm sitting down.
The ache makes him cry, look up at the sky.
He pleads for a hero to make the pain equal zero.

Charlie and Beatrice, Yolanda and Phil
Go down to the nurse and get him a pill.
Teacher says thank you, teacher feels great.
That night, at home, teacher stays up late.
A book lays on his lap as he falls asleep:
The Science of the Sky is one he'll keep.

Alternate Mapping

It's one of those things
You can't control:
What tides bring, how sun sings.

Content to settle with clouds,
To leap from pavement,
Or lay in valleys, pool unproud.

You don't want to, anyway.
You know it's not to know,
But to live the unknown
In ways steady and new--
Dancing barefoot on soft grass,
Rain the only room around you.

Gratitude lives a life hidden.
Old habit, really.
But your knuckles at his door,
Then a warm cup of tea:
Better than knowing more,
Stronger than what you see.

It

We cut our fingernails,
Peel back the sleep from our eyes.

We pull the stray hairs off,
Watch them fall.

Crooked eyes make for
The straightest disguise:

We wear the face of humanity--
Our imperfect noises, ideas, cries.

In the face of despair,
We turn our tired eyes towards

Light.

However dark our lives,
We rise.

Against all logic,
all fear,
all confusion,
all despair.

We rise like rain
That bounces off rock:

Too bold too stay,
Too strong to remain.

Made for more than this,
More than superficial bliss,
We rise.

And while we stand,
The crooked of our pain remains,
But the straight of the sun dances
Like it's new again.

Like it's piercing holes in
Despair.

Like the Nothing that we
Worshipped was a sham.


(I wrote this poem while listening to the following song on YouTube over and over, and over and over, and over and over. And again. Hold Us Together by Matt Maher

Tonight

Sweeping the kitchen floor,
Washing dishes,
Picking pasta remains off my bare feet:
Singing "The Eye of the Tiger."

A new kind of tiger.
A new kind of eye.

Beauty

When I was an undergrad studying in England ten years ago, I had a tutorial in the Romantic poets. Like a lot of young, single, helplessly hopeless college-age students, I fell in love with them and with what they told me about love.

And beauty.

Keats's line, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever" stays with me from that tutorial not just because I thought it was a remarkable line but also, I confess, because it appeared in the film White Men Can't Jump. So we begin today's blog with Keats's analysis of beauty: that it lasts forever. Onto that premise, we add Tyler: age two and a half, in two scenes from our day today.

Scene One: The sky wavers regarding its decision to rain. Dark clouds hover like middle-aged men at a poker table, unsure whether to bluff this hand through or fold. Patches of blue open up like doors held ajar for visitors. Tyler swings with abandon. Beside him is Analin, a four year old girl whose mom has brought her to the park after picking her up from nursery school.

Analin's mother and I make small-talk. The usual. Yes, we're from Boston. Yes, I like being a home-dad. Oh? Your daughter has a scrape on her knee? (Tyler announces that he has a boo-boo on his foot, joining the discussion.) Analin's mother blushes. Yes, we call them boo-boos in America. Silly, I know.

Awkward.

The kids swing. Higher and higher. I smile.

Tyler stares at Alanin for a long time as her swinging comes to match his (or vice-versa). Then, he turns to me and says, "Her dress is pretty, Daddy."

Yes. It is . It is beautiful. I smile and Analin's mother reports, "He's already a charmer, isn't he?" When I glance back at my son, the smile he wears charms me and I respond in the affirmative.

Scene Two:

Bath time. Pasta sauce covers Tyler's face, having taken up residence there about twenty minutes ago when Tyler decided that a fork proved too cumbersome a device with which to do all the heavy lifting of his pasta. Instead, his clenched fingers made a much better tool.

Tyler stands naked before the tub, hot water coursing in like our very own Niagara Falls on Lesley Avenue. Then Tyler: "I have to do some poops on the pot!" It is a triumphant realization--a joyful occasion, and not just because he learned that by doing poops on the pot he would be rewarded with a blueberry muffin after he had done a plentiful amount. Somewhere along the line, he came to feel a certain pride about taking part in such an utterly human endeavor, and in doing it so well.

"Okay!" I reply. "Let's do it, dude!"

Tyler hops onto his potty seat, and the plops are immediate. One after the other. And again. And again.

As he conducts his bathroom business, Tyler likes to talk. He enjoys discussing memories from the day, our favorite colors (his: yellow; mine: blue), and generally making observations regarding changes in the general bathroom dynamic ("Where did those stickers go that were right here this morning?").

After pushing and chatting for a while, he lunges off the toilet and then does the inevitable turn to take in the full image of what he's accomplished. Tonight, he is particularly proud.

"Look at all those fixed poops! None of those ones are broken!" (Lingo: fixed = long ones; broken = small bits)

"I know! Wow! That is awesome, Tyler! Well done, son!"

Tyler stares down at the bowl. I offer, "Ready to watch them get flushed down?"

Tyler thinks for a moment, then replies, "No, I want to look at them for a little bit."

Scene Two, Part B: A little bit later.

"Ready to flush those fixed poops down now?"

"NO; I want to leave those poops there so I can look at them some more after my bath again. That's okay?"

I look back at my son. In the same day, he's found beauty in the summer  dress that a four-year old girl wears, and in the poops his little body has crafted. I think for a moment myself.

Then I say what any father who has studied Keats would say.

Listening to Motion

Last night, I walked into the University of York to hear a reading given by previous UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. Jennifer had reserved a ticket for me to attend the reading, and as I walked in, I felt a fun poetic thrill travel around my head and shoulders.

Okay, it could have been that I was getting a little itchy given I was walkign so fast, rushing to make an evening of calm poetry.

Or it could have been that a totally-adult activity, during which no one in the audience or Motion himself, I could be sure, would ask if somebody had to do poops on the pot, or wanted to go do some swing high! at the local playground.

(But I still think it was predominantly the poetic thrill stuff. After all, poetry was my doorway into writing--my first love of words and the thing that continualloy brings me back to why I keep loving words.)

The auditorium at the Ron Cooke Hub at Heslington East campus (read: really coolm super-sweet state-of-the-art facility with loads of modern looking wood structures) was packed. As Motion began reading poems about conflict, war, and then from the voice of a great Blue Whale, I feel into that kind of reverioe  where you're thinking and listening at the same time.

During the Q & A, someone asked him about his goals for his poems, and Motion shared a powerful line which I'm unlikely to forget: "I want my poems to look like water and taste like gin."  he shared about how simplicity, for him, rules the day, and yet he wants there to be emotional complexity and truth in his work. I found the line insightfully inspiring.

Afterwards, there was a row of computer son the balcony of the building, and I logged onto one, opened up a novel I'd recently started, and began writing. When I stopped, the sky had grown dim, and I made the long walk home to my love.

In his book Writing from the Inside Out, Dennis Palumbo says that "writing begets writing." In other words, the more we write, the more we'll keep writing. We get into a habit. It becomes a way of life. I find the rule of thumb to be powerfully true. And, I'd add, the more we hear and read what others have written, engaging outselves with themes and ideas that become universal through the very small spaces of our own experience, the more we crave to create, too.

Thank you Jennifer, for the gift of a beautiful night of poetry. And thanks, Mr. Motion, for the words that call forth more words.