Let the Sun Shine In

Mike Doughty is a terrific songwriter, a great musician and despite all that an amazing guy. His song "Fort Hood" was part of the inspiration for my "Valentines" poems. Take a look. (And keep your eyes peeled for a goofy redhead in a red shirt.)

The skinny: Politically minded post-punk rocker Mike Doughty took to an alleyway in his current hometown of Brooklyn, along with some friends for his new video for the song 'Fort Hood.' Although the video showcases a dance party, the song itself carries a heavier meaning. "Fort Hood is the base in Texas that's lost the most people in Iraq and Afghanistan," Doughty explained to Spinner. "I went to Walter Reed last year, met some guys who had lost limbs, and came out scared and grateful. I grew up an Army brat in the '70s, when many of the adult males around me were in Vietnam, and there was lots of strange behavior that I now recognize as PTSD."

Valentines, After

(read "Valentines" first.)

I finished the whole thing
in one sitting, leaning forward
against the comforter, one knee
to my dreaming husband. There were

barns, little barns, and picture after picture
of the same spotted dog. I was not
enchanted. I did not see the art
of an empty heart-
shaped box.

And then it was done, a few
pages of acknowledgments and things,
and the back cover. The red foil
heart on the front had lost
its shine in the night.
The book was smaller, suddenly,
and my hands felt gritty with sand
and bandages
that were neither here
nor in Valentine,
Nebraska.

I wept.




photograph by DeviantArt user Sinse.

Valentines

The library did not have the book I needed.
“I’d better mark it missing,” said the limping man,
returning with me
to the reference desk. “It hasn’t been seen
in seven years.”

The radio news is noise in the car. I wonder
where my book is living, on whose
dusty shelf, if the thief even knows she has
what should be mine.

I park across the street from my house, still
muttering about the wasted trip.
The man on the radio strikes a sudden somber tone.
“The Air Force says now that all four men aboard
a bomber that exploded
over Qatar today”
—he pauses—
“are safely on the ground.” I exhale,
having held my breath for these
invisible soldiers,
the men I did not know existed.

On my way out of the library
I passed a Poetry Month table, the volumes
tipped on one end to showcase their slenderness.
The pages flipped fast
and my answers were not inside.
Lying flat on one end of the display,
an afterthought, a push
of a bored finger, Ted Kooser’s Valentines.
I bring it home.

In front of my neighbor’s house I pull
the Kooser from the car and slam the door.
The street is silent and I realize
the imaginary bomber passengers landed safely—
landed safely, only to return
to the incessant emergency
of war.
I realize that even as the NPR man informed me
of my own relief
they rose from their stretchers
and prepared to die all over again.

The library book, glassy in its plastic jacket,
Slips from my fingers
and lands on the wet road.
In that deafened moment my eyes know only
Black street, white book,
red heart.

The Language of Flowers: A Collaboration in Process

Hellebore
Calumny, scandal, treatment for madness and paralysis, highly poisonous

I will love you like loving you
Will cure me. I have seen
The others cast you into fires,
Hissing your name as your legs curled
And glowed; I have heard
What you did to Alexander, who slept
Like any other man, wrapped in your arms,
Great no more.

I have seen your children ground into dust,
Tipped into bottles, pulled in droplets to clapping mouths;
I have seen eyes go black with the force of you.
And when I am yours, and yours alone,
They say your face will open, like a shield of angels’ wings
To bear me hence.



painting by Cassandra Barney

Business

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painting by Stephen Mackey

Processing

Glance at the sun.
See the moon and stars.
Gaze at the beauty of the earth's greenings.
Now,
Think.

Hildegard von Bingen


Let the beauty you love be what you do. There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.

attributed to Rumi




photograph by Marie Hochhaus

An Open Letter to the Blue Whale on the Ceiling

You were, if such a thing
is possible, even bigger than I
remembered.

The rest of the room had shrunk
as I grew; infinite clatter and light
grew sapphire and silent,
and the ceiling--horrible ceiling--
had dropped.

The baby ran from taxidermied sea lions
to brass-dipped giant clams,
excitedly pointing out
the empty scallop shell beside the roaring beasts,
the way the letters of the clam's name glowed
in the underwater dark.

I walked the full length of this blue ballroom
before finding your eye,
flat and empty in its painted depth.
You did not blink, but neither
did I, floating stunned in the currents
of your terrifying, shy smile.

Children ran beneath you dizzily
singing sea shanties,
while onscreen the jellyfish
unfolded her glittering heart.