A book of beautiful sentences and other new poems

During a recent trip to Amsterdam, I visited the Anne Frank House and as so often happens when I travel, I went there to find one thing and walked away with something entirely different. This got me thinking about travel and about life in general and how so often we are led in a specific direction by something compelling, and then wind up finding something we didn’t even know we were looking for. To me, this is one of the very best things about travel—and really, one of the very best things about life. There is often incredible, surprising stuff ahead—even if we can’t imagine or predict it.

Amsterdam was that kind of trip for me. I came to see the canals and the museums, to eat in some good restaurants, learn some history and to relax with my husband. Of course, I did all of those things, but the thing I loved most about this city was the way it made me feel. The way the warm good spirit of the local people kind of crawled into my heart and left me feeling so welcome and at home. The Dutch call it gazellig, which is hard to translate, but seems to mean a kind of cozy fun vibe and I will tell you that, despite the cold rainy weather for much of the week we were there, we felt nothing but warmth from the people we encountered. The lovely woman in the coffee place who sent us to the funkiest record store in all of Amsterdam, where we met some other very cool people; the warm, funny guy who shared his whole story with us as he explained how he crafted the beautiful silver ring we bought in the market; the charming Italian girls who squeezed us into the restaurant without a reservation on a busy Friday night and with whom we shared a long fun conversation later in the evening; the local couple we chatted with throughout dinner one night; the lovely chef and owner of a Surinamese vegan restaurant we loved; and, of course, our wonderful new friend, Toufik, who welcomed us to his city with a big open heart and literally felt like a dear old friend from the moment we met him.

I guess this is just to say that Amsterdam surprised us—in all the right ways—and that’s what I was thinking about as I put this month’s blog together. Although it would be a stretch to say that the poems I included here were written with that exact theme in mind, I will say that there is a certain found object quality to these particular poems, a way in which they seem to be about looking for one thing and finding another. But I guess that’s what most poems do anyway, right?

Part and Parcel

Both and neither
Too much and not enough
Two truths and a lie
Held together by a wing and prayer

The world is made of sound
Chants and rhymes, music and math
The strum of rivers, the language of trees
The wind howling in my veins

A web can be both home and trap
Find your way out      find your way back
The way is dripping in miles, lush with distraction
Far and away     as the flow cries

Constructive interference, convenience, confusion
Wordplay, windows and illusion 
Tangled in blue, wrapped in light
Lines in a haiku that longed to be more

I don’t know what this poem’s about
Could it be everything?

A Book of Beautiful Sentences

Sacred ground can feel less so 
with so many people 
milling around, taking photos
whispering and reading
their cross body bags filled with tickets 
and maps and expectations

But here I am, here
in your attic, in your story
and it does feel like a holy place
cramped and expansive
a tiny spot in the universe that was both
hidden away and 
at the exact center 
of all that terrible
warring and ignoring

Your diary of a young girl
your life raft in a sea of evil
your strong lovely script
hope and intention steeped together
like strong tea
a teenager and a heroine
wrapped up in history
sealed tight
in our collective memory
and imagination

And I knew then that I had seen
what I came to see
and felt what I came to feel
but just when I was about to go
I saw another book
one less known
a collection of sorts
but not dolls or buttons
instead, other people’s words
arranged just so
saved for the saving

A Book of Beautiful Sentences
your book of beautiful sentences
and I can’t really say
what it was about this book
that moved me so 
that made me feel just so
that made me think 
that there is no book on earth
more lovely or important
or that I’d like to hold in my hands
and read slowly
cover to cover.

Ciudad Heroica

I came here on a whim 
dreaming of old cobbled streets
and pink stucco
lime carts and coconut rice
a warm dream during a cold 
winter, brick on brick on brick 
cold in my heart and in my fingertips

And then, oh Cartagena!
you did not disappoint
your cumbia floating on the ocean breeze
your balconies dripping with flower
your wall, a stone skirt or maybe a crown
crafted of courage and bravado
brick on brick on brick

Walking it, considering its 
lofty promise to protect 
from pirates and vandals
traders and rogues
rough attacks from every
blue angle and slant of sun

And you were such a flirt
winking at the eventide
a wild jewel
glistening like gold or a siren song
a paradise, a passageway
they could not conquer
nor quite resist

In the end
it was quick disease 
and spreading fire
not pirates
that broke you from the inside out
and reduced your pale mango houses
to rubble and ash

And the strong solid wall
built centuries ago 
to keep intruders out
Instead worked only
to trap death in.

Long Story Short

A passing fancy or kindred spirits 
I really can’t say
only that there was at once
a treeful of birds
when you landed here
a murmuration on pause
all flutter and flight
an aching to fly
staying still sitting tight

Not to mention
that skyful of stars
that lit me up one flicker at a time
falling awake and on fire
drunk on moon-soaked fumes
and your favorite songs

I loved it all
and after all
what is love if not a 
longing or a memory
a thick in your throat
a storm in your eyes 
a tiny twitch in your heart
to remind you it’s beating

I’ll take that light in me 
all lit up
that holding still when I want to fly
a date in a planner
a promise unkept 
a meeting missed
which might have been

simply, a passing on the street
a smile from a stranger
on a trail in the woods
or the brushing of shoulders 
at a bar downtown

or maybe a dream
I can’t quite remember
a face I can’t forget
the page with a poem
I just had to write

Long Story Short
it might have been called. 

Rattle

As in, I am, past tense
As in, this city is constantly, present participle 
As in, for a baby, nouns are easy
As in, my heart is often, present participle
As in, and my soul is too, past tense
As in, a song, with shake before and roll after
As in, my word for today, an inspiration
As in, a question?
As in, a writing exercise, good habits are everything
As in, to shake up, get before, past tense
As in, a prompt for writing
As in, a prompt for life
As in, get before, past tense