Breaking the Rules
Poetry Where You Least Expect It
left metatarsal bone could inspire poetry?
Not I, clumping around all week
in this heavy black boot
replete with stays and Velcro straps
like Jack's noisy giant who lived at the top
of that unstable beanstalk -
though I only crashed down a frivolous shoe.
Then the doctor today,
as he put on the second week's cast,
described the new bone cells
as flying in V formation to mend the fracture;
drew pictures in the air with healing/artist fingers
"six on each side," he said, "like birds..."
He stopped in mid-sentence;
shook his head at the wonder of it.
"It's funny how nature works" he said.
~ Linda Albert
First Thaw
Having just come through winter myself
I notice
sooty sentinels of snow
darkening the curbs,
crab-apples pickled in the sidewalk slush,
derelicts
of trash and << MORE >>
Tantric Breathing
Paddling back to camp from the small island
after the heat stroke and the disappointment
had subsided; the others gone on to see
the bald eagle’s nest a portage and lake away,
we came upon a deer standing alone
in the marsh grass along the near shore,
so close we could almost touch it -
a magician’s gift in the yellow light of
afternoon. We froze on an in-breath,
raised our paddles slowly -
slowly
and with exquisite care
from the clear green water,
as though the air itself was fragile,
and any sound or movement
would tear us from the moment.
The deer remained unmoving, gazing at us
in what seemed equal fascination -
wilderness creatures,
breathing together
in rhythm.
- Linda Albert
august
(for Jackie and the others)
We fall in love
with
rocky
earth
stones magnified
by water clear and moving;Greedy womenchildren
pockets
filled
to burst,
gather hearty portions:Stars and messages
we dare to ask for;Sand
between
our
toes.Linda Albert
Changing Shapes
I'm not so interested these days
in shape
as I am in shapelessness
and flow.
What good does it do to change
from square to circle
or triangle to polygon or helix
when what is called for
is letting go. I think it's best
to be like water, to be
not just the ocean, but to know
the tide and current
as supplicant and lover.I'm not so interested
in hanging on to any shape
when the challenge
is to learn to flow; to be the wave
that cascades, or laps,
or crashes without protest
against a hostile or a foreign
or, with luck, a gentle shore.
There is punishment in clinging.
Not God's,
but just because
it goes against the order of things.
I know that.
Yet I do it anyway.
Imitating the ocean
is presumption.Still I haven't given up hope
of turning into
stream or river
when I remember
in the nick of time
to save myself from drowning
by refusing
to shift back
into an old, discarded shape.