How many times

...will I re-affirm my desire to write or my intention to be a better-published, better poet?

How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

Thanks to Suzanne for the re-inspiration yesterday,and for this great poetry resource link.

The work progresses. I was re-inspired by hearing Rebecca Foust speak at a panel last Thursday sponsored by Marin Poetry Center. The discussion was on "The Professionalization of Poetry," and she was by far the most articulate, informed and relevant speaker for me. She's a woman who had a career as a lawyer, raised three children, and is now getting her MFA at a low residency program. She has gained a great deal of recognition and won several awards in a short period of time. How? By writing well and sending those well-written poems out there. Sounds like a plan to me.


The rain is still relentless. And this little snippet of a blog entry skirts around the thing that really must be recorded: the fact that our dog died a week ago today. I want to gather pictures, though, and perhaps also the little video clip that R. has of him nosing the camera and wagging his tail, and make a proper tribute post. But for now, Quiescat in Pace.

Oh. My.

**warning. mush follows. not for the cynical of heart.**


The first love note I found this morning was attached to my car keys when I went to start my daily half-pot of decaf.

(Um. Not that I need my keys to start the coffee maker. They were just near it on the counter.)

That one post-it note would have been enough to have me secretly smiling to myself all day.

But then I found another note on the bathroom mirror.

And another on the dashboard of my car.

It seemed like a note had been placed in every spot I might run into one at oh-dark-thirty when I prepare for work in the morning.

Short and simple.
(The notes, not their author.)

I came to work feeling like I was the best-loved woman on the planet.

And to make it even better, I'm loved by the coolest, smartest, funniest, dearest man I could ever hope to meet.


***


I divide my workdays between two desks in two departments in the office, so I wouldn't have found the last note until after 9am if my coworker hadn't emailed me to come to my other department early to see what had been left there.

I can't believe the lush beauty of the bouquet of red roses D. had delivered.

The note attached to the blooms is the same short message that I'd seen on the post-its.

There's hardly room on my desk (either desk) for the arrangement.

There's hardly room in my heart for how grateful I am to have such a sweetheart as a best friend and husband.

undulation

i.
the first grief is a white water slam
dashing into itself, erupting again
a tattoo beat in spikes and dips
like green blips on a screen.
between breakers this abrupt there is no
almost forgetting you are gone.

ii.
later, waves swell and fall like hills
spills of starlings twist and spin
in the blushing dusk. without counting
days or distance, here is the farthest away
you’ve been, now the longest
we’ve spent without your kiss.
orgasm, seasickness, the heat of
fire, the wind, and this. what else
comes in waves and goes in waves?

iii.
even now when we think ourselves
becalmed, sneaker waves capsize us.
we look for the horizon, everything
moves. terra infirma, the world reincarnates daily.
what of you? you in the flocks of fish wheeling
up and down in deep water. you in the modulation of bees
in the breeze-stricken apple boughs.