A POEM A DAY

I'm just happy to be here.

Tag: napowrimo

17/30: Friendship is a saucer of soy sauce with wasabi gently folded in.

In my mind, I try to make time work for me,
as if my hands push each moment forward,
forging seconds to form long enough to
come together for something simple like dinner,
which will hopefully become a story we tell,
a memory we fold into
our wallets and slip into the pockets of time,
or throw back into the well like a wish for more.
It is Thursday in Austin,
a city of origin stories
Tonight, time was made
and I’m grabbing dinner
with Marshall and Pablo,
my best friends, old friends
still capable of making time
for new memories.
I try nigiri for the first time,
fatty bluefin tuna, king salmon, and yellowtail,
each piece carved clean from the body
They guide me through the menu,
I don’t know what I want, only
where I am and who I’m with
And isn’t this lovely?
Uncertainty is a gift,
The unknown can co-exist with truth
and what I know is true is the unknown still
makes me curious, makes the time
I have in any window compound like interest
when my cup is empty.
We take delight in every bite,
in the low light, blending into the
hum of conversations that surround us.
We disappear like a second order of dumplings,
losing track of time,
using our spoons to pick up the pieces
of each other’s puzzles.
A story as old as time.


 


15/30: Notes from A Parent-Teacher Conference

Mateo is so happy
Everybody loves him
He’s always smiling
He always say Hi to everybody 

He loves to say Hi
We call him Caballero and he reacts to it!

He understands!
He’s very smart, so smart
He learns very fast
He always repeats

He likes to participate in everything
He loves to paint side to side
He wants to participate in everything
He loves everything
He loves to dance
He loves circle time
He loves to sing and dance to
The wheels on the bus go round and round
He’s a very happy baby
Every morning he comes in a smile 

He’s playing real good with his friends;
He plays with everyone
Mateo loves books
“Un niño excelente”, they say

He loves everything.

14/30: April in Austin

You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time

-Take It to the Limit by The Eagles

The blue sky is a promise
I honor with all my might
Bluebonnets bend in the wind
I find myself walking under the Oak Trees, again

Time traveling is easy

Walk through the world

with your best friend
with nowhere to go
and nowhere to be
Rewind and reminisce.
What I carry

carries me forward
What I keep
has kept me
grounded
and searching
and still I return
to the present,
hungry for more time
with love and more love
and more love and
more time.

13/30: When you cannot catch the wind

I cannot catch the wind but I welcome

the invitation.
I surrender to what surrounds me,
the wonder within me,

the love that moves me.
I love a song called Let the Mystery Be
Another one called Set Your Spirit Free
Listening, listening, listening .
Isn’t the spirit a mystery?
One I cannot see, one I cannot hear

All week, the sun self and the shadow self

move through the music. 

I dig my roots up from the ground
to see how deep the soil

goes. What do I know other than

what I feel? I know pain, I know the names

of the ghosts I let go.
Past or present, the feelings are mine 

and mine only. I walk through a door 

and the breeze is gone. The wind goes on.
This is what I know. 

The sun rises, the shadows show.

We grow, we wake and we make meaning.

11/30: Pink Moon

The Pink Moon, Queen of Spring
Bluebonnets bloom under a pink moon
Wildflowers swoon and sway along the highway
Texas is a canvas of color
I see a flower and remember it forever.
Is the same true for you?
How much love exists
under a full moon?

10/30: Ode to the Pastrami Reuben at Roegels Barbecue Co.

With thanks to Russell, Misty, Bruce and the whole Roegels Barbecue Co. crew

Thursday is a special day
Smoke rolls into the sky
like a spire
I chase the smoke like a dream
come true, like a family heirloom
The gospel of low and slow
casts a holy shadow
I know what blows in the wind
I know what time gives
and how time takes.
The Pastrami Reuben is a gift
time gives, made by hands
that take what was given
Some days, I show up too late,
and I am still grateful
What I want isn’t always what I get,
and I am still grateful
What I receive is a recipe
made with love and smoke
I’m learning the lesson of letting go,
no matter the teacher.
Good things come to those who wait.
When I reach for my plate,
I trust my fate.
When Thursdays come,
The Pastrami Reuben is an offering too
tender not to fall-apart.
The bark, a piece of art.
I offer all of my senses to this moment.

9/30: A MAN IN BLACK EATS A PINK CONCHA

For My Grandpa Fred on his 84th birthday

It’s your birthday, today, Grandpa.
84 years alive.
I’m 33 years here, now.
You love God, your family, and Johnny Cash,
the Man in Black.
I’m rocking black boots and pants just for you.
This morning, I eat a pink concha,
the same kind you’d buy on those mornings
I woke up early enough to eat before my brothers beat me to it.
As a boy, I learned if you put a sea shell to your ear,
you can hear the ocean waves.
I take the pink concha and hear the
ocean of time you had to travel through
to be here, now, celebrating your birthday.
Did grandma make you breakfast?
Did you stay out trouble?
I hear your voice call her Guerra, or your supervisor
I married my own Guerra too, a beautiful Mexican woman
who supervises me too. You told me a story once,
the last Easter before I would become a father myself,
about a boy who gave
you an orange when you had nothing to eat
on the coldest winter day of your life,
You were just a Mexican boy
with hunger in your bones—
and how many times have you fed me?
How many times have I had a plate of food
you worked to buy?
The love you built into our lives
became a blueprint I follow to this day.
My son, your great grandson, stands in front of you,
mesmerized and full of laughter, clapping his hands,
running through the house you built when I was a boy.
When I was boy, you’d ask me,
who’s grandpa’s little boy?
Now I am a father, and I ask my son,
Who’s daddy’s little boy?
Another year around the sun
Remember when you saw the solar eclipse?
I do. I watched a video Grandma recorded.
You’re standing outside, in the driveway, with glasses to see the darkness
standing on your own two feet, looking up into the sky.

8/30: Birdsong

With thanks to The Engines of Our Ingenuity, Episode 3310

When we walk into school together, the birds are with us too.
The romantic poets romanticized birdsong with scientific precision.
I carry you through the music each morning.
I never named what I heard
until today.
The birds sing and we call it birdsong. The soundtrack to
the small steps you take beneath the trees.
We all have our antidote to loneliness.
A reminder of our worthiness.
Evidence of our goodness.
Listening makes me a witness to what is.
The whispers we share on the walk to school
blend beneath the morning symphony.
It feels like a show just for you and me,
and before the curtain calls and I have to go,
You say DaDa and ByeBye and wave goodbye.

7/30: The Apple Tree

I move my mouth to form a letter
and you follow me like a mirror.
Together, we make sounds
called words. In other words,
I’m trying to teach you to speak,
to pull your voice from the well.
Yesterday, you say Appppppuuulll
in the grocery store. Of course you mean
apple, and the word falls out of your mouth
like an apple from a tree. Of course I mean,
the tree is me.

6/30: Springtime on a Sunday in Houston

Your mama tells me she used to feed the ducks
at Hermann Park with her mama, your grandma.
The oak tree where I kissed my-soon-to-be-wife
during our engagement photoshoot is still standing,
branches bending below, almost touching the earth.
Everyone is outside. Kisses exchanged at crosswalks
and sidewalks. I feel joy in every stop you take. The train
passes by and we wave. Your voice is music to the birds.
You want to walk everywhere. Even when your steps
turn into a stumble, you stand tall. Me and the sky,
both in awe. We forgot your sweater today, and when
the sun stands behind the shadow, your mother would
hold you close to keep you warm. I put my hoodie on your legs.
Halle and Luis join the adventure, our neighbors-turned-friends
take pictures of us as a family on a Spring Sunday in Houston,
a memory to memorialize this time. Time passes by and Mama and I
hold you, sometimes together, sometimes apart. My favorite part
of the day is when you and mama rode the carousel. I stand in the audience,
and watch your face spin with joy each time you pass us by.
Mama laughs and holds you close, and the carousel feels like time itself,
with each passing second telling me what the last second meant,
and what the next second could mean. Next time, we’ll feed the ducks together,
with mama holding the bread, like she used to do, all of us together.