HEAVEN THE PLANET

Impossibly we try
to recreate home here
with the wrong combination
of gases to breath.

Treading on poisoned
soil we cover and build on
and dissect.

There we are as kind
as we intend to be
as we perceive
and we never make mistakes
with our children.

Stuck, we try to ride
the comet tale home
we drink the Kool-Aid
we suffer alone.

~j.b. rowell

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

I have an idea to write a poetry series on a pretty bizarre premise. I'll journal on it for a while and see where it goes . . . at least it is getting me writing again.

In the mean time I have been looking back through my work and realizing how this new idea ties a lot of my old work together. Sometimes I read an old poem and think, "Hey that's no half bad." And other times I scratch my head and wonder if I even wrote it. Here's a great example of one of my "What was I thinking?" poems:

The world is bi-polar
it has two poles
land and ice
ice and land
two hemispheres
two political parties
two moods

I don't know why that poem makes me chuckle, but it does.

SPOTLIGHT ON EAST BAY

A glare off the bay
beats and oppresses for days
then the fog brews
and subdues the garish light:
filters,
mellows,
cools,
hangs like garland atop dark points
of trees between houses
on the Berkeley Hills.

As the sun readies to set
it decides to forgive
us and shine
the most golden flickering
light, cueing long shadows
and a soundtrack for us
to bounce to
as we walk home.

~j.b. rowell

YEAR OF THE FIRE PIG

They're smiling when born
in their eyes
below their blazing foreheads
fiery pigments branching
up from between brows.

More than coincidence
they are to be the ones
to turn us. To pry eyes with flames.
Weight of saviors
on bird-wing shoulders.

Yes we cannot know the day
or the hour, but in their lifetime.
Even when their blaze recedes
back into reflecting domes,
you'll see it when flushed

with heat or anger. Flash
of reminder that the end
is near and they are here to
answer: what next?

~j.b. rowell

THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN

Watch . . .

SLEEPING ON SUNLIGHT

American Life in Poetry: Column 158

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Putting bed pillows onto the grass to freshen, it's a pretty humble subject for a poem, but look how Kentucky poet, Frank Steele, deftly uses a sun-warmed pillow to bring back the comfort and security of childhood.


Part of a Legacy

I take pillows outdoors to sun them
as my mother did. "Keeps bedding fresh,"
she said. It was April then, too--
buttercups fluffing their frail sails,
one striped bee humming grudges, a crinkle
of jonquils. Weeds reclaimed bare ground.
All of these leaked somehow
into the pillows, looking odd where they
simmered all day, the size of hams, out of place
on grass. And at night I could feel
some part of my mother still with me
in the warmth of my face as I dreamed
baseball and honeysuckle, sleeping
on sunlight.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2000 by Frank Steele, whose most recent book of poetry is "Singing into That Fresh Light," co-authored with Peggy Steele, ed. Robert Bly, Blue Sofa Press, 2001. Reprinted from "Blue Sofa Review," Vol. II, no. 1, Spring 2000, by permission of Frank Steele. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

CAN I SAY I TOLD YOU SO YET?

We have been cloth diapering Shea for nine months, despite the fact that many people looked at us skeptically and even told us we wouldn't do it for long. We used a pack of sposies (disposable diapers) when he was first born, compliments of the hospital, and a couple of packs when we traveled. Otherwise, we have been using cloth diapers that we wash at home. There are so many reasons behind it:

~Saving $.

~No chemicals.

~Less waste.

~Cute and fluffy.

~Better for baby.

~Easier transition to potty learning.

Here's a nice, little article in TIME Magazine about the surge in cloth diapering with a few pros and cons. Frankly, I don't think doing a couple extra loads of laundry is as much of a con as dumping a TON of waste and chemicals in our landfills PER CHILD.

And Shea likes his fluffy buns too.