Grandma/Dream-Pieces

Grandma

You are the comfort of twilight

and the brightness of dawn

the laughter of children

and the loyalty of mothers

You are the colors of a painting

and the strength of a mountain

the wisdom of a sage

and the playfulness of the wind

You are a lady, mother, grandmother

You are the fullness of eighty years,

a life rich and bursting,

a summer garden

year upon blessed year

Dream-Pieces

I wake

shaking off the dust

of dream-pieces

Sliding quietly

into reality

07.19.09/07.21.09

07.19.09

Our faces smile up at us
from the porch floor
bits of our lives
lying soggy, rearranged, out of place
amid the pigeon shit

What didn't we lose?

Unfair
life is unfair
don't you know I was already
dangling, precarious?

07.21.09

It's hot. Hot and heavy. I'm sweating copiously. There are fruit flies on my mangos, weevils in my flour, cockroaches in my cupboard, and burglars on my mind.

Why does it all pile up at once? Everything working together, building up force to knock me down flat. Deflate me.

Suddenly I'm off-kilter, disorganized, sad, nervous, unable to do the simplest things, my mind in some far away land. Isn't Nepal far enough? I want to go farther.