COME

STRAIGHT

HOME



Come straight home, straight home after school.
Don't wander, meander -- you know the rule.

That's what Missy's mama said.
Missy heard and nodded her head.
She meant to mind, how how could she know
that a lizard would tease, that a breeze would
     blow
and push her along like hands on her back...
that a bird would lead her far off the track
into a field where flowers grew wild --
where a babbling brook woud talk to a child?


                           Published in Cricket, April 1990

MUSIC BECOMES ME

as water
becomes the creek
trilling, filling it
giving it voice.

Music becomes me
like sparks
zipping
through electric wires
making light of dark.

Music becomes me
as wind
becomes the storm
swishing, swaying me
tapping my feet
thrusting my hands up
like castanets chattering.

Caught in its breath
I dance on winter's roof.


Published in CALL DOWN THE MOON, poems selected by Myra Cohn Livingston, Margaret McElderrry Books, 1995
 
 

    

                                                                           More Serious Poems

I TRAVELED ON YOUR VOICE


I heard a voice so like your voice,
I dared not turn to see.
For you, I knew, had gone away --
miles and years from me.

Drawn back -- a church, a hot July --
borne on memory's wing,
gathering smell and touch and calm,
I traveled back. I heard you sing.

I believe

 
that life spreads out beyond the Seen

in rivulets of being to hidden seas.

I believe that spirits come and go at will.

            The day of Obon, Kyoto . . .

            when the dead come back to visit

            the mourners kneel, rock, weep.

            Droplets of grief collect in the temple

            like rain rising to the rim of a bucket

            spilling out beneath the Buddha’s eye

            Drenched with longing, as from a sudden squall,

            I see my father

            moving between the golden screens

            hear his voice, husky, saying the words

            he always spoke after baptizing:

            “And now, Lord, it is done,

            even as Thou hast commanded, and yet

            in Thy kingdom, there is room.”

He wore hip boots under his baptismal robes.

After he died, a friend scattered some of his ashes

in the stream where they used to fish for trout.

 

I believe we should drink eight glasses of water a day

and some should also be used to make tea,

strong enough to meet us halfway

across the ocean of waking,

then served with milk, not cream, and sugar.

            Scientists say that our bodies are 80% water.

            which is crazy, of course. If that were true,

            we would dissolve in the bathtub

            like the fake ruby in the cereal-box ring

            that Ben Zimmer gave me in 4^th grade.

What do scientists know anyway?

 

I believe that water connects us.

            A baby emerges from the womb, wet

            from his nine-month swim.

            And an old woman’s lungs fill with water

            stained by the rust of her years.

She boards a small boat.

Grasps the gunnels. Holds her breath.

But then, as the waves slap the sides

and splash her face with spray, I hear her laugh.

She leans forward, straining now for the harbor

where other hands will pull her craft ashore.

                                                        

                                                           September 12, 2006