Sister Ann Robb Writes a Letter

Here’s another poem from How the Hand Behaves. The speaker is not me, but one of my sisters, when she was dying of cancer: Sister Anne Robb Writes a Letter Having turned in my stamps, signed on to silence, I dream the old friends open their empty mailboxes. In dreams, they come to visit, dressed

January Cold

Here’s a poem by Robert Francis:

And yet the dawn is ours

Amanda Gorman delivered this stirring poem of hers at Joe Biden’s Inauguration yesterday: The Hill We Climb When day comes we ask ourselves,where can we find light in this never-ending shade?The loss we carry,a sea we must wadeWe’ve braved the belly of the beastWe’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peaceAnd the norms and notionsof what

Round the oval, round once more

Here’s another poem from How the Hand Behaves: Penmanship Our small hands grasped the pencils as we practiced the circles and loops in the Palmer Method workbook, pages lined like music composition sheets. Intoning the chant                                                                                     Round the oval, round once more, Keep your feet flat on the floor… We bonded the memory of connection

Juggler

Here’s another poem from How the Hand Behaves: The Juggler Spinning a tin plate on a drumstick, he beckons the little girl: put up your finger. He transfers the tin plate from the drumstick to her finger. There’s a serious intensity to his whimsy. His face red with exertion,  heat of the summer evening at

Feel the tree bark

Here’s another poem from How the Hand Behaves: Go out to the woods and feel the tree bark Dogwood, elephant grey , mostly smooth, made small cracks. Blue Spruce made deep ones, blueish gray, hinting of moss. The old Magnolia, intermittently smooth, southern accent, waiting for those creamy blossoms, genteel belle with speckled freckles, liver

How the Hand Behaves

Here’s the title poem from my chapbook How the Hand Behaves:  How the Hand Behaves How the hand behaves in times of threat: sweat springing out, cooling palms to silence, to clams, or shrinking to shrimp, shaking, pink, or clenching like a lobster claw, fingers like teeth, chomping in on themselves.

Omnipotence is foreign to the wren

Here’s another of my bird poems: The Wren Omnipotence is foreign to the wren. She is all present in her garbling song, She is all knowing as she carries thin sticks to her nest box She is all loving in the dawn She is powerful in clover to the tiny bug but the crow could

Great Blue

I have written a number of poems featuring birds. Here’s one of them: Great Blue Dawn spread a sheet of satin on the glass canal and lake and towpath in between. My walk was interrupted by the scene of his arrival from the marsh to grass. I stopped stock still in case he wished to

a large, world-sized body change

I’ve been fascinated by the paintings of Remedios Varo. Here’s a poem I wrote about one of them: Remedios Varo paints “Mimesis” Woman melts into the chair, her neck and face the chair’s upholstery, her hands , claws on the chairs claws. Thighs and knees still there under her skirt, calves and feet now chair