24/52: for Barbara

I feel like a song
would be appropriate -
it's what the Greeks or Asyrians would do.

Don't each of our lives deserve a song?

It's something we've forgotten,
embarassed by having overcome
what portions of life did not kill us.

I don't mean a sappy doo-wop,
or a whiney country twang,
or the empty angst of rock,

but maybe something chanted to a drum -
to capture the fact that each of us
wakes up each day
intending to do the best she can do;
to be the best she can.
Until she cannot,

and the drum would go silent
and the words would trail off

23/52: waiting for my wings

The bones losing calcium
becoming fragile, hollow,
are just waiting for the wings to grow.

On the next stage of the journey

I can't be carrying all this extra luggage,

all that extra rock,

I'm leaving that behind

with a healthy serving of meat and fat.

I'll be just an outline

of the grounded being I was

when my wings grow in.

What will be left will be the pure me.

The essentials only -

I'll be unmistakable, 

all the confusing stuff gone,

the pure form when I leap toward heaven

and don't come back down

because my wings

have grown in.

audio: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/waiting-for-my-wings

22/52: #whathappensonEarthstaysonEarth

if a star booked a week's vacation on Earth
(7 days, six nights, spacefare not included)
and racked up the millions of light years
on her miles account

why would she take the form of a human?

weak, slow, half blind and stone deaf
by comparison
to the other package options.

the marketing department of
Celestial Leisure and Recreation, LLC
would be better to offer her
something beneath the ocean -
perhaps a blue whale -
to dive beneath the sea

something completely foreign to her experience -
to be embraced on all sides -
held and caressed by the water
as she ribboned through the private dark,
or gluttenously passed through clouds of plankton -
mouth wide, swallow and
rush.

she would crave something other
than the wide open expanse,
not to see her sisters would be such a treat -

she would have stories to post on
the stellar social media when she returned,
but they would be vague with innuendo
about someone dark and strong,
but mysteriously musical and filled with song,
concluding with that new old slogan,

#whathappensonEarthstaysonEarth



Audio: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/whathappensonearthstaysonearth

21/52: The Time of Open Windows

when we opened the door in June
after months of the house standing, waiting
for us and our truck from San Antonio,

the still heaviness of last year's wood smoke
thickened the rooms
and seemed to swirl around our legs as we walked
through the sunshine on the floor and walls

we happily wandered through and opened every window
to let in the cool June breezes.

because June in New Hampshire is
The Time of Open Windows.

and in The Time of Open Windows
the windows stay open,
as you might imagine,

and the world's edges blur along the lines
of inside and outside.

Yankees know air conditioning is a sign of weakness;
a character flaw associated with dependency.
Of being too close to New York,
or worse, LA.
To not live in New England is a sign of weakness
to a Yankee.
we are glad to be home again.

in The Time of Open windows
we live a little inside and a little outside;
we breathe to the rhythms of the cicadas
and woodpeckers.

in the morning the coffee steams;
in the afternoon we sweat;
in the evening we lie still under the fans.

there is a greater possible range
when living in The Time of Open Windows,
so many things seem so possible,

until the leaves begin to fall
and The Long Winter sets in.

we dread a bit the time
when everything is closed,
and things are rushed
and huddled,
and the lines are sharpened:
this is inside,
the fire and life;
this is outside,
the cold and the darkness.

one must survive,
until The Time of Open Windows
comes again.


audio: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/the-time-of-open-windows