In honor of National Poetry Month, I wanted to share the collection of poetry I am currently enjoying. Over the past year, I kept seeing lines of poetry from Mary Oliver in numerous places from research texts to Instagram accounts. I’ve found it’s one of those odd things about books or really any art. Even a prolific or cannon writer may not always be one I stumble on, or it may not the right time.

Receiving Oliver’s compilation of work as a gift turned out to be a gift at the right time. Complied by the poet, who unfortunately passed away in 2019, Devotions was created and arranged by Oliver.  I have taken my cue from the title and used it as a way to start my morning. While I have struggled in many ways with the idea of faith and with the structure of religion, beginning the day with a poem and one by Oliver who focuses so much on nature, on spirituality through the senses, and wonder, I have found it as centering.

What poetry have you been loving this month?

Dream of rusty robots
Rusty red-scoured robots that tilt over to the side,
against walls, against each other
Against you.
Dream of grey robots
Grey slinky-seal robots that rummage
through file cabinets, once locked,
Your memories.
Dream of live robots
Live jazz-cool robots that slam
on pianos, breaking floors, while
You sing.
Dream of bitter robots
Bitter dust-covered robots that fight
each other, fight the wind,
tear the sky, set
You against--

​I worry all the time: 

Because my mother
taught me not 
to trust a man, who
has good intentions like
buying candy on anniversaries.

Because my father
taught me not
to trust a woman, who
smiles without any
teeth through red lips when
accepting flowers. 

Because my sister
taught me not 
to trust a man, who
laughs at every joke
another woman makes. 

Because my brother
taught me not 
trust a woman, who
has good intentions like
sharing the last cigarette.

I worry
because my mother, my father, my sister, my brother
never tell me to trust them either. 

I worry
because my family
never will tell me what 
happens when trust is
broken.

[is candy poisoned/flowers dangerous/
just not funny/smoking kills/woman/man/left with the dogs]
 
No one ever tells me,
Because some truths just take time
Like trusting a man, who
sings in the shower every morning
Like trusting a woman, who
plays dominios and never cheats
Like that.
And finding out there were things your
Family didn’t warn you about.

my grandmother
can't wear watches.
she and time are
old enemies--he kills
the timekeepers dead
the moment they dare
touch
her skin.

his greatest revenge
was my birth.
the clock above the fireplace,
gold filigree, walnut encased,
that hadn't worked in days
(or was it years?)
chimed 13 times the day
my mother labored.

a new born reminder that
he would always win.

now i never wear
watches and am
always
late.

out of respect.

you understand.

River--
the house was awake, stirred by the restless call and response--blessings--
after, pictures would show only the remnants of the seven empty bottles.
Three red.
Three white.
One sparkling, with a cork found lodged in the tree outside.
Nothing of the women.

Seven women left to feed an old murky
dream built by bitter second sons.

Can't you hear?

River--

He found her on a god forsaken dessert planet
far from any map his mother had painstakingly drawn for
him.

She was in a cage.
The kind that said she was worth more alive than dead--
but only just.
He bought her
for a bargain. He asked, as he signed,
the papers if she was human.

Only half, the slave keeper said.
half demon, half human.
When the cage door opened, she
looked at him.

In all that was to follow
he would never know
if it was the human
or the devil
looking at him
--ready to devour him whole. 

​is akin to sucking the venom
out of a rattlesnake bite
and spitting it into the desert.

Much more
useful in fiction.

Fate encompasses why the world spins
why no word rhymes with orange and
why it just didn't work out.

Steady, unwavering belief that all the
strings are eventually tied,
all lost dogs found,
every mitten left out in the snow
finds a mate
has never been a
flaw of mine.

I am much more willing 
to believe in a deity
that set up our own system
and walked away. 

Our wonderland is the 
parallel reality of all that 
could have been. 

The missed buses,
the upswept umbrellas,
the kiss with the wrong one
and a 
dance with the right one. 

Instead, let's love the idea
that time does not exist.

And everything I could--
I should-- have been
is already happening
will always happen
and
has
never
happened.

Meant to be in more
realities than mine.

(the stack of turtles sinks lower

into the pools of the worlds)

Uncertainty is embraced
when I look
at equations I cannot-
willnot-
understand.

Chaos is loved much more
when a fall that should have
been nothing
spins a life around like a
penny caught on the edge
and then slapped face down--

In another world,
I never lose socks,
never wear mittens,
and hate oranges.

In another world,
I said yes--

In another world,
you asked--

I can admit now it was my fault.
Asking why is always the gauntlet throw down.

 Church and State.

Now that was an excuse, a mindset, a state of being. 
So then the church: sacred, vessel, reverent.
So then state: power-hungry, liar, games --me or her?

Church and State.

Mind and body. Peter and Paul.

Yet, still the voice in the back of the mind murmurs 
seperation is the real lie. 

I look in the mirror and a strangers stares back at me.
She is also murmuring into the night, 
running a faded rose-bud rosarie through her fingers.
Speaking a dead language only the righetous know.  

For I have never been the praying kind. 

Never have I ever
loved with the simplicity of fresh toast.
Never drank so quick the ice didn’t have a chance to melt
as whiskey pooled and caressed throat.
Never sang too loud
in a car too fast
as rain came down
fast to blind a road
all too familiar.
Never have I ever
hated anyone enough to sell family heirlooms handed
down, soft jade caressed— by faceless hands.
Never fought off jealous bees for honey fresh and warm.
Never have I railed at the world as the sun moved behind clouds.
Never have I ever lusted over another’s hands at hammer and nail.
Never saw a need to devein cold shrimp
until my fingers bleed.
 
Never felt the lack.
And yet even though I never wanted anyone enough to wear
tall shiny shoes, they still wait lonely in my closet.
​Odd sentinels for all that has not been done.