Glimpses of Heaven on Earth
As Pema the old pug,
Deaf and blind,
But still overflowing with love
Nuzzles up against my side
While Lily the young and wild one
Runs in zoomies around us
Up and down
Couches and coffee tables.
Who would imagine finding Heaven
Here and now
As simply and clearly
As a dog’s joy.
(7/22/26)
My dogs are similar to cats in some respects
sometimes they get a certain stance
give each other a knowing look
a chase that rivals a squirrel chase ensues
they jump from couches to recliners
circle to the bedroom and back
the furniture moves two to three feet
as they begin their next jumping session
they are huffing and puffing now
it is like having giant four-legged gorillas inside
they just raced out again, the chase is on
I wait before straightening the furniture
Cutesy Petootsie Halloween girl with a baby crow
lived down in the bowels of Texas, near Mexico
They had a good life, baby crow and She
Lived in an Airstream with two couches and a TV
A generous grandmother had left her an endowment
She was asked how she got her money where ever she went
It was such a rude question, she did not answer it at all.
Stared them down until they felt silly and small.
There’s a world under all that snow
a world I’d like to get to know
Lots of bug-type critters, I imagine
sporting faces dark and ashen
No, no – that won’t do
winter must be positive too
Perhaps they’re playing hearts or bridge
downing cold drinks from the fridge
Or watching ‘Bug-TV’ from makeshift couches
of leaves, twigs or damp grass with their spouses
Every Spring I promise myself to ask them what gives underground
Maybe this is the year when that question I propound
Blossoms like my journal.
Scratches like the underside of my desk.
Chases me like a magnifying glass.
Twiddles its thumbs like a drawer.
Tangles like patterns on socks.
Flutters like a glass orb.
There were two days until therapy.
Bright and stunning conversations.
One hour until therapy?
I was gone.
One minute until therapy.
Tastes like opening up.
Stripes undone.
Couches like sitting in stew.
Suddenly, I lost the urge to sit on the couch.
And talk.
Tired like someone walking out the door of the therapist office.
30 seconds until my absence is noticed.
Abrupt like a therapist’s phone call.
But I’m already as gone as a rabbit.
Laughing like a rabbit so.
The morning bell is silent now,
No rush upon the stair,
Just one bright screen upon the desk,
And silence in the air.
We log into the endless class,
A grid of muted faces,
A digital, two-dimensional world
In familiar places.
The clock hand spins, the work piles high,
The day is soft and slow,
It takes a different kind of will
To make the focus grow.
Self-discipline, a sudden test,
When couches call your name,
To manage time and find the fire,
To keep hold of the game.
But still, the signal falters fast,
The video breaks down,
A voice that chops, a message lost,
Throughout the busy town.
The Wi-Fi lags, the device freezes,
A barrier so great,
The Digital Divide appears,
Sealing a cruel fate.
We miss the shared and sudden laugh,
The quick chat by the door,
The little human energy
We never knew before.
A wall of glass, a lonely sound,
Where community should be,
We wait for when the world spins round,
And learning sets us free.
just give me paints and some brushes, the little girl said.
She had drops and drips all over her face and her head.
Her overalls were saturated with paints in reds and blue.
What else could we do? Asked her mother, what else could we do?
She painted her way through college, covering canvases galore.
Sixteen hundred paintings, and maybe two hundred more.
The paintings were crowding her parents who had no more room.
Can we sell them? Asked her mother, who was on Zoom.
No, the girl said, just burn them, I can make new ones every day.
But her parents could not do this, so they threw furniture away.
They got rid of their couches, chairs, and tables to make room.
“What happened to your house?” asked their daughter on Zoom.
Blasphemy, truly—
To treat a poem like lab equipment.
Smearing souls on damp napkins,
scribbling overwrought sorrows.
We are sacred, young lady.
Vessles for disciplined sociopaths and
occasionally, prophets.
Not therapy couches
for freshly wrecked teens.
Yet here you are—
dismantling verses
with the rollerball pen from middle school
and deliberately gothic tragedies.
“I’m figuring it out as I go.”
The audacity.
But fine, if you’d rather,
learn poetry like the ruined—
I guess I can take this blow.
I’ve always been too soft-hearted.
Charlene has to have everything new
New light fixtures, new carpeting, new furniture
She tosses out six-month-old couches as if they are lice-ridden
I see her dragging things to the dump she had to have two weeks ago
Charlene is never satisfied; she tosses husbands out too.
Or they leave, screaming. We will never know which.
We get approximately three boxes a day in deliveries
My husband is the ultimate order-machine
He takes more stuff back than most people order
I am sure UPS knows his name now
These boxes stack up on couches, the back of a bookshelf,
Beds, chairs, tables, and other not-for-boxes-places
When I get tired of them, I burn them in a huge bonfire
I love this part of the boxes the best, thus I encourage these orders.
My dogs like to find hidey holes
Putting their backs against couches
Curling themselves into dark corners
Sleeping where they can, when they can
Wiser than most humans
New Orleans’ 1962 ostentatious hotel lobby
extravagant crystal fluted chandeliers
highly polished walnut counter tops
opulent Italian marble floors
plush scarlet velvet cushioned couches
swankly brass and glass décor
luxury never seen after nineteen sixty-two
I sat upon couches and couches
To search for a new one to buy,
Yet each had a negative aspect,
Though my husband gave each one a try.
Some had shapes that I didn’t approve of,
Others colors that had no appeal.
Quite a few were so deep, my legs dangled
And I hated how that made me feel.
We saw fabrics and leathers and pillows,
Most of which I rejected on sight,
But we finally found one, not perfect,
Though much better than merely all right.
Did we buy it? Not yet, but I’m thinking,
For I need time to sit and decide
And my good-natured husband is waiting,
For with what I conclude, he’ll abide.
Mrs. C and Mrs. H. had a little competition
They did not call it that, but their husbands knew.
It was a baking challenge, not featured on TV.
and their men benefited big time from it.
Mrs. C. held a coffee at her house on Tuesdays.
She served scrumptious desserts with whipped cream.
One time there was a pastry with oozing blueberries.
Today her concoction was stacked high with pancakes.
Mrs. H. would ooh and ahh and comment, but secretly seethe.
Her coffees were on Thursdays, and it was difficult to top Mrs. C’s pastries.
The husbands begged to come along, knowing what treat was in store.
On Thursday Mrs. H. served a quintessential peach cobbler.
They have done it again! The men retired to their couches for naps.
The women congratulated each other.
That is two days a week we can do what we want, they agreed.
Loving that they had put their husbands into a diabetic trance of sorts.
Sump pump is broken
Constant water run
Plumbers cost money
Homeowner is sad
Waits a bit too long
The basement floods
Ruins couches
Bedding thrown out
Salvage nothing
Expensive
Life lesson
Plumber comes
Nasty
Stump pump
Flood
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