Haiti

a lady stands on a chair
tacking up Mardi Gras ribbons
on the garland
her son screams down the driveway
on the scooter Santa brought

Haiti has fallen, buildings
flattened on buildings
Haitians stacked in the streets
Help promised
Help promised

the ribbon is tacked above the door
a neighbor wonders why the news
continues to air Haiti's problems
there is nothing anyone can do

Help is promised

Christmas time
a steady period
an easy roll of days
and nights
a holiday of lights
and words
of sounds and tastes
smells and memories
Christmas time

Some days at school

My students come in out of hand
I love their energy
and hate it at the same time.
The corralling,
the spurring
challenges me
defeats me
picks me up.

I love my students.
Blustery.
Whiny.
Silent.

I search for solutions
which support
creativity,
fairness,
and, of course, learning.

She (the photographer)

She would plant a fence on the beach
and not just one fence
a trio of fences
which intersect with one sand dune
and then another
each dune covered with wild oats or spartina
She would have three roseate spoonbills
wing their way just above the fences,
the spoonbills' neon pink coverts
contrasting with the bleached wood,
the white grains of sand.
If you happened to see
that overcast day,
the whole arrangement,
your chest might swell
and you might breath out heartily.

Things to let go of on Monday Morning

hurricanes in November
Ida,
my mother's roommate,
dribbled through the doorway

it's cold and still we sweat
the hurricane is petering out

the flood warning canceled
it's early yet

day-light savings time
I'm sure to be late

long term disability coverage
does not include mental problems

except those which are structural
I won't turn the papers in.

internet fraud, if it happens.
report it
the FBI
places a tracking cookie
on your site and monitors you

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.