An Omen is a Sign
maybe good and maybe bad
from Somewhere Else
that today that tonight or this morning
or This New Year or even right now
when the red bird sits on the porch
and actually seems to smile at me
do birds smile I’ll google the answer
when I finish this poem
a red bird
smiles at me on Friday the 13th
and All whatever All might be
is better than OK. It’s Good.
Although my poems are a little like
Tibetan sand paintings
they exist and then, they’re blown away
by wind (my poems are blown away by
other poems and dailiness and an almost full moon
and lamb chops and Ahava’s Peppa Pig sheets
and ignoring Boris Johnson and tonight’s debate
and the woman in a writing workshop last weekend who said
I Want to Be Ignited Again
and this morning’s phone call from a friend whose mother
has dementia woke up at 2 am for a 9 am appointment
and went outside and though it was dark she kept going
my poems are blown away by Real and Unreal life
even so I want a new book of them, not in any
logical order, order is not my middle name, but in a book
with an evocative cover, page numbers and a place
to say Thank You for Reading and a then, a place
for you can send me yours.
The older I get the more I want
to speak Yiddish even though I don’t know
much Yiddish just a word here and there. Like
EPES translated on the internet as SOMETHING.
EPES is better more nuanced a word with
IMAGINE THAT as well as a small OY and always
The Humor of Life as in last night
Peter and I went to the movies in Albany to see
the new Julianne Moore Michelle Williams film
(it was OK) and the theater had
a Cat Film Festival EPES.
nothing like summer even when it is too fast
too full of incident not enough of those slow days
even when the president is this one and when
there were heat waves and rain storms and many guests
and laundry laundry and trips to the store to buy more rose
more gin more prosecco more cashews and my friend Delores
didn’t feel well even when it’s not the summer of childhood
with all those days and days because summer, older summers now,
is still summer and there are still and always will be Those Nights
Those Days that only happen no matter what in summer.
Many women
a hundred maybe more together
small unusual absolutely gorgeous unexpected
village of Hobart New York population
383 six bookstores even a good bar
what we do together all of us
talk listen closely read tell many stories
three memorable exhausting full happy
days of women every age every face
days of books and books and infinite possibilities
or what words can do
If I were to write
good enough poems for a year
could dates be titles?