Two Poems
Heat Wave
Do you think Persephone enjoyed a break from all the sun?
I know I would.
She ate the seeds on purpose, you know, one
by one, six in all, just enough to stain
the tip of her index finger and her thumb.
I like to imagine her mother there
watching, that Persephone looked
her in the eyes as she plopped
each seed into her mouth.
*********
It is hard to constantly produce —
seed, shoot, bud, flower, fruit.
The Asphodel fields of the underworld
need no cultivation. They bloom
eternally and diffuse their listless scent
in a constant wave for the indifferent.
*********
Sometimes it’s all a little much —
the noise, the fecundity, the relentless
growth. Cycle, cycle, cycle, pumping
like a kid riding a bike uphill.
*********
One summer my best friend and I waited
until the sun set, then positioned
ourselves at the top of the sledding hill
on our Schwinns, poised and taut.
We rode down, blind, foolhardy
reckless and alive.
This Waste
It comforts me to know that Jesus let
perfume run down his ankles,
spikenard pool between his toes,
that incense burned day and night
in the temple;
that he shushes the disciples,
that beauty is a thing,
that the fragrance probably filled the house for days,
persisted, as this woman did to enter the room
full of men and break that jar,
that if he loves waste, so can I
and maybe the waste of this year,
the pouring out, the breaking, the fragrance,
no, say odor, no say smell, no,
the scent of these days
is the right basenote for the heady days past
and the heart that I know should be there,
steady and resonant, it should be there,
it should linger, it should be there,
wasteful and right.
