To Retrain an Egg

Of all the ways to avoid living, 

perfect discipline is the most admired.

                                  —James Richardson

When you apply force

to retrain an egg

that will not

sit up straight

in the carton—or, worse yet,

that delights in the altered states

of wobbly rolling

on the open counter,

freefall looming every second—

things end badly.

Life gone out.

Perfection fled.

But then,

how else will you

bring them to market

properly dressed for 

an orderly transaction?

How else will the consumer

get his money’s worth?

How will the unbroken horse

carry the general into battle?

The simple answer

is far from easy:

Not.

The Garment of Our Becoming

The sun is the eye of a needle

and the trailing day is a thread

through the heart of

my life and yours

so that each sunset draws us

into new closeness

a tighter weave than

we have known before

and the garment of our becoming

is worn in turns each night

while we sleep, by angels

longing to be us.

To See

To see new sky

gathered in the

mud-rimmed basket

where mama robin placed it

in the keeping of

burnished cliffs

much older than life

to see,

you’ve got to run the

gooseberry gauntlet,

a trial by

dancing daggers,

you’ve got to

trust your feet

to shifting talus

loyal to no one,

you’ve got to

put both hands on

the watching rock

and lean in

face to face,

far in,

one eye forward,

to see.

Looking at Snapshots on Mother's Day

Like this one—

fading family portrait, sixties style,

Mother, Father, Sister, Brother

in front of the fireplace.

Neil and Buzz had not yet proved

to the world that gravity,

the ultimate bully,

was not so tough after all.

That’s me, of course,

crew cut, cow lick, shirt tails tucked in,

a third grader’s leaning eagerness

to please.

But that smile is cut out and pasted

over a fact you’d never see

if you didn’t know

where to look.

That day, portrait day,

I had spent every eternal moment since dawn

tumbling down steep hills,

gravity’s newest plaything.

Freeze frame:

me pinned to my spinning bed,

the only thing left between my small body

and the dark center of the earth.

Next one:

cold porcelain hears my confession

of mortality, done to symbolic death

by viral marauders.

To see the point in speaking of such things

on a scrubbed and bright Mother’s Day,

like making a rude noise at a proper

Ladies Luncheon,

then look closely, just here:

See, my mother’s arm around my waist,

her hand placed gently across

my smoldering stomach

to say “I am here, I am here.”

It’s a detail in the snapshot that is

easy to miss, unless you

know where to look.