Poems below:
Don’t Call Me Grandma
When I am old I might
live
in a commune
Smoke pot
Eat tofu and brown rice
or a juicy red steak
Share everything
Wear other people=s clothes
Maybe even their teeth
Stomp my walker to psychedelic music
if I can
still hear it
Wear granny glasses
and high top sneakers
Don=t
call me Senior and don=t
call me Dear
I=ll
change my name to Starlight
and shine
Tint my hair purple and gold with
neon
Highlights
Stick rhinestones on my belly button
and
my earlobes
and wattles
When I=m
old I=ll still be me
Let the strobe light shine
Let the music blare
Pour the good wine
and kiddies beware
I=ll
drive my Mazda Miata with the
top down and the sunshine pouring in
When I am old I will still be
me, only better and badder and don’t
call me Grandma.
Our New Normal
Diana
calls
to
say Joanne has died, this
is
not a surprise
or
a mistake
It
is a part of our new normal:
Doctors, hospitals, old
lovers
Friends who had nothing
more
to say
Now
Donald rearranges the shrine
that
is her study, books
on
the desk just so
Zafu
for sitting zazen
This
is unlike Donald, who is usually high
in
the tops of trees, apple, pear
oak,
majestic redwood
trimming
them aesthetically—
Careful!
Joanne would caution—Don’t
disturb
the golden crown’d sparrow.
Or—Donald, the
spirit of the old magpie
Lives
up there Leave it be”
Today,
the wind
sings
in the trees,
the
finches call to their mates,
apples
lie uncollected on the ground below
in
Joanne and Donald’s backyard
where
we gather to remember
and
feast and drink pink wine
Diana
makes the toast—
To Joanne in the Bardo
Gati gati paragati
and
we layer one more example
of
our new normal,
one
more familiar sadness of age
to
the heavy pile of losses
we
each bear on our separate backs
even
as we dance among the fallen apples
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