Ode to your Christmas decorations on the mantel

Idealized image of home,
simple pattern from a simple time,
school, drugstore, house, hotel,
buildings that softly shine.
It’s a world of imagination
from the heart of the little girl,
who lives within the woman
that arranged this loving world.

I sit back in my chair,
and you sit back in yours,
admiring the invented village,
its bright windows and bright doors.

(The flicker of electric candles
moves the skaters on the pond,
and the cotton among the trees
makes us glad we’re safe and warm).

It’s a setting of wished-for scenes,
built on love and being kind,
where people help each other,
and are glad to share their time.

You’ve spent your year in meetings,
in classrooms and county halls,
fighting to help the schools
break down dividing walls,
but tonight you’ll go with me,
on a journey through your town,
hand in hand through imagination,
beneath its starry crown.

I sit back in my chair,
and you sit back in yours,
admiring the invented village,
its bright windows and bright doors.

And tomorrow we’ll sit down
with the Grinch and Charlie Brown!

Ode to my guitar in your living-room closet

Closed in your closet,
next to the vacuum,
leaning against the wall
with its head in the coats,
my guitar dutifully waits.

Hand-made guitar
of rosewood and cedar,
Spanish guitar that kissed you
with body vibration
and starry sound.

Each day it waits in silence,
remembering the times it touched you.

It remembers in the darkness,
beneath the coats, alone.

(But sometimes a Patagonia jacket
will rest a sleeve upon its shoulder).

Ode to the dimmer switch on
your dining-room light

Dawn, mid-day, dusk:
with your dimmer switch
you create
any time at any time.

The evening begins
with the brightness of day,
with the table illuminated
by the full glow
of the dining-room light,
and it continues to burn
with its mid-day shine,
while you toil in the kitchen,
chopping and seasoning,
heating and cooling,
stirring and simmering
the evening dish,
but when the recipe is ready
and the plates reach the table,
the dazzling sun is dimmed
to a twilight tint that tempers,
that darkens and disguises
the objects of day.

Later, when the plates
are withdrawn
and the switch is dimmed anew,
your iPod plays a tune,
and we dance in the kitchen,
arm in arm,
in the gentle glow
of the electric moon.

Ode to the straightness of your back
as you sit at the table

I watch you sit at the table,
with straight back and soft shoulders,
talking to me, or typing,
or calling family on the phone.

Your manner and movement
immerse me in ease.

Your words and rhythm
encircle me in calm.

You sit patiently at the table,
with straight back and soft shoulders,
talking, typing,
or calling on the phone.

You will never believe
how beautiful you are.

Ode to the happiest steps I’ve climbed

I walk the short, sloped driveway,
up the two cement steps
and the four tiled steps
to your door.

I ring the doorbell.

You pull open the wooden door,
and push open the glass door,
and smile, and invite me in.

Ode to your dishwasher
 
After breakfast my love
takes her bowl and glass to wash them
in the small creek of the sink.
But after the well-attended dinner,
she takes the plates and pots and pans
to the mouth of the river.
She takes the stacked dishes
to the dishwasher.

Open jaw
with a hundred rubberized teeth,
with slots and baskets
to secure and carry
the porcelain, glass, and silver,
with wider molars below,
to clasp the clumsiness of pots and pans,
you are the receptacle that receives
the remnants of the day,
the basin that collects
whatever can be renewed,
whatever can be filled and used again.

You are the uncomplaining helper,
the ever-ready assistant,
who adds his watery voice
to the after-dinner conversation.
You are the waterfall
through which
each utensil passes
on its circular journey
from cabinet back to cabinet
and from drawer back to drawer.
You are the crystal pool
where the silverware swim,
shining their teeth and tails.
You are the pond where the pans
soak their water-lily leaves.

And, next morning,
you are emptied,
with a syncopated series of sounds,
with the opening and closing of cabinets,
with the swish and jingle of drawers,
with a clink and clank like the sound
of a knight storing a suit of armor.

Ode to your china cabinets
 
Glass cabinets,
mounted to the ceiling,
above the kitchen counter that separates
the dinner table from the kitchen,
your china seems weightless,
suspended in air,
waiting to be plucked
like porcelain fruit from a branch.

My love gathers her harvest,
plate, bowl, wine glass, glass,
filling her basket
with assorted shapes and sizes,
then arranges them, carefully,
in still-life patterns
on the canvas of the table.

And when her guests arrive,
she offers a meal and merriment
beneath the translucent branches,
beneath the shiny shade,
beneath the weightless canopy
of porcelain and crystal.

Ode to a painting of a girl playing piano
 
I lie back on the loveseat and gaze
at a painting above the piano
of a girl playing piano.
Her back is to me,
and her piano is the same
as the piano beneath the painting.

The girl sits all day at her piano
and plays in silence.

Then my love sits down,
with her back to me,
at the piano beneath the painting,
and I suddenly hear
what the girl is playing.

Ode to the timer on your living-room lamp
 
The timer clicks and the light shines,
surprising you and me
in the shadows of early evening.

We’ve been talking for hours,
lost in the give and take
of speculation and opinion,
of debate and deliberation,
considering how to teach
and encourage imagination.
You’ve spoken with passion,
and I’ve spoken with passion,
and we’ve both played apologist
in order to more fully understand.

The world outside has continued,
unnoticed, slipping from day to dusk,
until the electric click
and sudden illumination.

Now it’s time to turn
to evening endeavors—
a bite to eat, recalling
the day’s pleasures,
the poem you’d like to read,
the song I’d like to sing,
the podcast we can listen to
together—a fresh procession
of uncounted hours
leading to preparing for bed,
to candlelight,
to unhurried embrace,
until we finally drift
to the kitchen for water.

Then the timer clicks off
and we’re drenched in darkness,
except for the light
of the microwave clock,
recalling the world of hours
and confirming that it is,
in fact,
three o’clock in the morning.

Ode to your upright piano
 
Lonely piano,
waiting to be played,
I know what it feels like
to long for her touch,
to long for the feel
of her fingers upon you,
and long for her
to sit by your side
and share
the hours of the day.

There was a time
she worked
to know you better,
a time she pressed you
to sing for me.
It was a time of blossom
and growth,
a time of tenderness,
and the desire to please.

Sad piano,
don’t be discouraged,
you know she knows
where you are
and what you offer,
you know she knows
the melodies you contain,
and she knows
that you are waiting,
and only has to decide
that today is the day
to sit down
and begin to play.