I've never stepped on a stingray

This time we had to shuffle into the waves.
Two more people had been stung by stingrays.
After fifteen seasons without being stung,
I was shuffling into a swarming flotilla
of stingrays - stiffening, floundering.
The stingrays darted over the seafloor
trapping me where the fresh and salt water mixed.

Waves slapped out the mantra,
shuffle so you don't step on the stingrays.

Our relationship had been skittering away
far before this last visit to the bay,
but somehow we didn't know that.
We fell into step on the beach again.
It was part of our arrival at the bay ritual:
roll down the windows, smell the salt water,
listen for the gulls' cry, splash into the tide - laughing.

Waves slapped out the mantra,
shuffle so you don't step on the stingrays.

One of the things I learned from you
was to love the ocean, to trust it,
to cool down by taking off my shirt -
wrapping it into a turban on my head,
dropping down on my knees in the waves.
With my dry shirt protecting my sunburned head,
I learned to love the frigid drenching.

Waves slapped out the mantra,
shuffle so you don't step on the stingrays.

Again, tiny wavelets played off the shore
echoing through the inlet where we walked.
You began collecting shells from the wrack line,
something I had taught you to love.
Alone in the water I saw the spade-shaped wings
fluttering on the muddy bottom.

Waves slapped out the mantra,
shuffle so you don't step on the stingrays.

I found myself chanting childhood prayers,
that froze above the hum of the ocean current,
before blurting obscenities and running to you
with recklessly high steps, unharmed.

In the Nursing Home

"Pick up my stone," my mother said to me
as I bent at the foot of her bed cranking.

"Your stone?" I said cranking away to lift her head.
Red faced - laughing, guffawing really -

she repeated, "My stone."
This time knowingly.

Trimming a model plane

When only three students showed up last week,
I tossed my cooperative group lessons out.

The students, a pair of boys and a girl,
said they like math, experiments, and building.

Yes, of course. I gave them each a sheet of paper
and asked each of them to build a plane.

The plane should be one which
could be thrown accurately.

A plane which could land on a X.
The "X" I taped onto the floor.

They each built their own model,
then worked in a group.

They decided to throw each plane
five times. They measured and described flight.

One plane was far better at the task.
They each built that plane.

And this week when 5 students
attended my class,

the boy who designed the winning plane
showed us all how to build it.

I took the 3 girls and 2 boys into the hallway
with their planes so we could test them.

I showed them how to gently toss the planes
to assure the wings were symetrical.

We tried to land our planes
on the tile lines we stood on.

I held a hula hoop out at arm's length;
they tried to toss their planes through it.

We bent one fin up, the right,
and watched our planes turn to the right.

We bent the left fin up
and one child said, "I bet it turns to the left."

We bent both fins up, straight up
and one plane after the next stalled.

We bent both fins half-way up,
and the planes flew down the tile lines (mostly).

We bent one fin up and one fin down.
"I bet it corkscrews," said plane designer.

I said, "We're identifying trends."
"What's that?" someone asked.

"A trend is a tendency. We're leaning how things will act
based on how the things have acted.

As we've trimmed our planes
they've responded in similiar patterns."

One of the new girls giggled,
"I'm trimming my plane's hair."

I laughed and asked them what we were learning,
One said, "We're making history throwing planes in the hall.

"We're making history. We're making history."
"I'm taking my plane to the beauty shop for a trim."

Magnolia

Today a magnolia seed pod
as full and sensuous
as life in the sixties displays itself.

It is the lowest cone on the tree
and has not yet opened
its furry follicles.

Crimson dye of the maturing fruit
bleeds through the conelike
aggregate

staining its furry skin from beneath,
like red wine flushes
the threads of a linen napkin

I want to touch each of its multiple
furry end-to-end seams,
to caress the tender swollen tinge.

I don't touch it, though
don't break it
don't carry it home;

just as I didn't touch the flower
that opened there
in the spring.

east and west

the sun and her minion, the moon
mirrored each other tonight
in the round

the one orange in the western sky
the minor white in the east
skies lavender and white blue

the pilgrimage which began
with the big bang
continues

Orion

The river birch in the center of my back yard
barely leaves a view of Orion in the morning sky.
It vies with city lights and stratus clouds
to turn my vision back to the fences, and decks
the pyramidal roofs and mounded oaks.

What about the origins of light draws me?
I seek the hunter's belt in the black sky,
search for the sword, the shield,
though I stumble to remember the names
of the nearby stars and constellations.

















http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Orion_constellation_map.png