Here & There: Transition Time

(My garden at Marci's Parents home in Page, March 28, 2012)

I pulled weeds, painted lattice work, and planted flowers in the bed along the walk here in Page, where we reside with Marci’s parents, as we’ve been doing for the past five years.  It has worked well—as far as I’m concerned as well as any house on a lot in town could.  The need to move has nothing to do with Page or living with my in-laws.  If anything, our living situation has only reinforced how important family is.  There was a time when multi-generational households were the norm.  I think we’d be happier as a nation if they still were.  Something meaningful grows out of the complexity of sharing lives together. 

No, for me, the move is all about the cottonwood along the creek bottom at sunset, the deep, damp smells, the golden light glistening off the shadow of water that runs down the center of an ATV trail in the spring and early summer.     

A couple of years ago I wrote a couple of poems for my MFA writing program which together explain my need to move.

He Entered the Poem

through a long stairway, the splintered wood

worn glossy black where heels

long ago chipped away

 the white paint and shoes dragged

down to the concrete-

floored basement.  

Heavy light dropped bars

of metallic dust.

He would have liked a poem of glass

and plush white carpet,

                                cantilevered

                                over the Aegean

antiquity perched

on an island across

a diamond-studded bay.

But the poem he had entered was the only one open that day

after a deafening sixth period class and a long walk through

Vermillion Cliffs Trailer Court under the intense Arizona sun,

 poverty sweltering like puss.  So, he did only what he could do,

 which is not much.  He added a stanza

An aquarium of glass water,

silver fishes swimming through soft light.

He almost transcended.

The Deep Porch Song

Clock race, heart pace, rat face, gotta get to that place.

Kneel down, prostrate, kiss feet, beg no, please!

I want an old clapboard house

with a white chipped picket fence

and a soggy leaf littered lawn.

I want a long gravel lane

over a slow churning creek

though a dense thicket of dogwood.

I want a narrow valley

cradled between high mountains,

with snow embraced in limestone folds.

I want a deep porch and tarnished door knocker,

I want gold shag carpet and dark wood paneling.

I want dusty old radiator heaters coated

with five thick layers chipped and showing through.

I want the smell of roast beef,

and mashed potatoes.

I want days of sitting

in my rocker reading

Bill Bryson while stoking fire.