
My first poem, from November 1995. Click image to enlarge.
One day when I get money I will buy a few things,
like a framed print of the Himalayas to hang prominently and plain.
Every time I see a mountain I feel small. As I am every day but I
forget like people’s names.
I need you like I need a pot of decaf to make me feel at home.
Like I need 25 hours to make a day. I see you like an
ant crawling through the hair on your arm; like I am crawling
through a field of wheat
to find a treat.
One day when I get money I will buy a house to put you in.
The doors will open silently and the walls will not be thin,
but thick enough to keep us warm and thick enough to stand your
kicks against them in the dark. There will be a room for books that
we will try to read. You and me.
One day when I get money I will not work at all. I will serve the plans
of perfection and hope any way I can. I will be as I am now but only more.
Until then I will think and act as if I am. And I will be. Independent of want or plenty.
I know few better ways to be free.
Sometimes I wish I were a dog
I would bark at the night loudly
I would keep you up with my pleas for attention
I would lie on your feet and lick your face.
Sometimes I think I know exactly what I want,
more than a mug of tea or a photograph.
But most times I don’t have any idea
and I am happy just to feel your fingers in mine.
I fall over myself again, tripping in the bedsheet
of my imagination. There is no way out of here but up,
and up I go. Ascending like a weightless pebble or
a current of air, I am hot on top of cool, undaunted
by atmospheric pressure. There is no fear in love and I rise
up to the love of my life: Life,
my Hope and Consolation.
September 6 2007
As I hang out my laundry I am reminded
of how I do not comprehend You.
The heat of the summer recedes; my clothes
are still damp. Unlike the gnats, swarming
and dying in the light, I am living a long life.
And I plan to live it with You. No self-serving
cloud can obscure the joy of being poured out
in a circle of something that highly resembles love.
In that circle, You are in the center, as You should be.
September 5, 2007
I woke up in my room like a little girl
This morning was so new
I ate an apple and found a leftover view in
leftover rays
The ones cast off from yesterday
I pulled on my shirt and it slid across my face
And I wondered what I had forgotten
And breathed out a hallelujah that only one heard.
I ran to class and did not miss the significance
Of your goodbye, like an umbrella over my head.
Do you know that conscientiousness is a song
I try to sing with a clear conscience?
Now is the end of all day, lit by a bulb, efficient and ugly
My shirt slides off and I bathe.
No one else knows my day.
Gloria.
Sept. 4 2007