COPPER LEFT HER LAUGH
Copper Love
LIGHT SHINING ON COPPER
I can mostly buy
the whole spiritual thing
that she is neither dead nor gone
or at a perfect time
and to a perfect place
But there is
this hole in a hug
where she used to fit
In memory of Copper Love 1947 – 2017
www.copperlove.com
PRECIOUS METALS
(for Copper Love)
You can keep your gold and silver
that divide the world in war
It is copper that connects
Cold crowns of kings and queens
behind the glass beyond the touch
copper is the human metal
it is copper that conducts
Greed and hate abide in gold
in copper there is only love
it is copper that conducts
it is copper that connects
In memory of Copper Love 1947 – 2017
www.copperlove.com
THE ALBUMS
Mother’s shrinkage was marked by domicile
House, apartment, retirement and nursing home
shedding at each move, furniture, china, and art
except for, and never, the old photo albums
heavy in padded leather brown and green
Each visit when conversation stuttered to a stall
(Religion all but Baptist drowned
and what use is weather without crops)
out would come the albums
and in we all would dive
for pennies
bright and shiny at the bottom of the pool
Here’s one from 1958
how young the queen looked then
SONNET 43 REVISITED
How do I love thee
let me not count the ways
Lists are for laundry
and for going to the store
One item more or less
I would not love you less or more
GENESIS A LOVE STORY
On the first day God created light
on the fourth the sun and moon and stars
I see and feel the sun
court the moon and awe the arching stars
But what of the light before the light
is that the light I see in you
WHAT ADAM AND EVE ALMOST LEARNED
Distracted by the first sweet taste of naked
they never got to the core
WRITING THE AUSTRALIA TRIP
We went to teach, we went to learn
we did a lot of both and more of some
We met amazing people – they met us
perhaps none will be the same again
Details I leave for further poems
which I hurry to hurry to write
before the ripples rippling out
are lost
clockwise and counter clock
down the toilet bowl of time
FAMILY TREE
My father took the roots into the ground
And the tree of my mother
began to fall
And oxygen hose tethered her some
a forest of family and friends
slowed the fall
She tore off some leaves
as she fell
GRANDFATHER’S MOUSTACHE
The moustaches
of my grandfather and Carl Jung
(Twins separated at birth)
have lives of their own
Jung’s stays in Switzerland
combing the unconscious
My grandfather’s travels to Brazil and Canada
gathers rainforest moisture, dirty thirties dirt
and remnants of strong cheese and pipe smoke
(Carl’s certainly contains some of that too)
When grandfather sneezes, I get to share it all