Found Things.

Cleaning out my computer, I found two things I wanted to share: a drawing created by one of my daughters two years ago or so, and a poem I wrote, who knows how old, now. I thought they went well together, and would buy me some time until I can come up with a real blog post! (It's been very, very hard trying to get back into the swing of things after the trip...)

(I touch with my hands. I touch you.)


I've learned so much since you've been away:
the small word,
overlooked,
that marries subject and predicate-
it has a name, as all things do:
it is called a copula.
Infinite ways to be joined,
taken apart, put right again.

I want to think of sweetness, love,
but my heart catches
on the ragged edge of
your absence.

So I have become obsessed
with other things,
the jade sliver of avocado
soft and yielding under my tongue,
the names of groups of animals,
stronger in number
than standing alone -

a pitying of turtle doves,
a gaze of raccoons,
a murder of crows.

This space is an ocean,
an eternity.
It is a comfort and a cruelty
that life goes on in its infinite wonder,
oblivious
to the absence of your honeyed eyes,
to the forgotten taste
of your imperfect mouth.