Call and Response: 13th Day: Rush

All the late Winter
Flowers make way for leaves
Their reproductive duty done
Success or failure unknown
Until an uncertain chill bares
The branches once
Again

Rush
Originally uploaded by vajra

Call and Response: Day 13: Unidentified Woman

Whose mother? With prayer book and many generations of mothers
before her in this hoop of a pure white dress. Does she harvest
daughters and sons before the age of twenty-five, or will she
graduate into underground abolitionist hiding runners in her cellar?

Jesus loves her. This I know.

Call and Response: 12: Downtown

Downtown
Originally uploaded by vajra

something has changed
we don't need to hurry
the end will come
soon
enough

Call and Response: Day 12: Mailboxes

These sturdy red mailboxes hold ready letters for the dead
family decoupaged onto the hearts of those left whittling
hallelujah recall or riding out the early grief on bareback

where otherwise sister and mother would stand mid-infinity
at the shiny boxes' mouths in morning, groaning


(with acknowledgement to the Martinez family, Santa Fe, 2010)

Call and Response: 11th Day: Cole In the Rain

rain in windblown cold
torrents and steam on windows
we drink dark coffee

Cole In the Rain
Originally uploaded by vajra

Call and Response: Day 11: Eleven p.m.

Eleven p.m. airport in Albuquerque
only incoming flights at this hour
planes filled with teens toting home
west coast enthusiasm
more effective than caffeine
for pairs of parents waiting
while the rest of the work force turns
in their sleep, gates drawn down on this day

Call and Response: Day Ten: Fat Tuesday Parade

Fat Tuesday Parade

Fat Tuesday Parade

Not many of us but enough to introduce
our city of sainted enchantment to true New Orleans
survivalists. Hot pink feathers in one girl's hair
                and a matching boa of lipstick
at the neck of another's, night
                drumming the wind of our mutual black
blue and silver instruments.

Call and Response: Day 10: Single

Single
Originally uploaded by vajra

Spring rushes forward
caught between abundance and
restraint

the single poppy
the thousand plum blossoms
each

but I refuse the choice
instead I walk from gold to pink
aglow