National Poetry Month 2019

It's that time once again--in both Canada and the US, April is National Poetry month!

I will once again be attempting to write a [finished] poem each day.

I hope you will follow along or, even better, join me (either by reading a poem a day or writing one). 

Obviously, I'm not the only one doing this--you can find more participants here.

 

sometimes

the things i don’t tell

you could fill a room

with questions

but they don’t.

instead our house is

filled with silence

as i waste my time

playing video games,

watching television,

reading poetry,

feeling guilty

about not making art—

hoping to find my voice

the things i don’t tell

you haunt our nights

as we fall asleep

to the sound of our breathing,

the crumple of sheets

as we turn our bodies

over and over

sometimes facing each other

sometimes side by side

sometimes quietly embraced.

excavation

they came looking for roots

tendril of family names

branching out into the striated past

constant rhizomatic search

you dig and

        you dig and you

dig deep into the bone of history

the spade glances off something hard

and resolute, all that force returns

to the unsteadied hand

you scrape away the top layer of dirt

and what is revealed is everything

you did not know

the past is a hidden country,

let’s say, the past hides

facts about our families:

this one married their niece,

that one abandoned their post,

this one was an angry drunk,

that one spent the family fortune,

this one died by lightning,

that one drowned in the river

under mysterious circumstances.

all of them had reasons

too complicated to write down—

the answers buried deeper

than you dare to dig.

and so the question

and so the question:

is there any way

you could let me know

when the moment is right

and you no longer so broken?

concert

i wanted to tell you

you played beautifully

tonight. as we gathered

in the living room

with friends and family.

we sang the old songs

with smiles and with tears

all our voices blended—

a deep sounding

we find the edges

of tradition, where

yesterday and the moment

meet. no need

to put it on the page

just let it find a home

in voices as they rejoice

in the stories of all of us,

the shared adventures of failure

and triumph, the ways we left

the motherland

an echo in every word.