Return to Fixing Things

Everywhere I look people are fixing things.
City workers in lime green vests repair our leaky hydrant.

A wren, upscaling his nest, flies from the Loblolly
…………………………………………with a load of fallen needles.

I’m waiting for the fiber optic guy to patch my cable up.
Uncybered for too long, friends, I become undone.

My dad, the lineman, used to say, patch me in,
………….mysteriously, a way to listen while on a pole.

Yesterday I watched Linda on a Zoom carefully patch
……………………………………..with hair-thin silk her great grandmother’s
……………………………………..deep red shawl, the one Kashmiri hands
……………………………………..once created.

Today, dear Ruth, turning 93, picks spinach from her tiny potted garden.
The sun’s fixated on her southern window, her sink of dishes.

I used to be just a neighbor, now we’re in each other’s bubble
………………for a while, or for forever. We read poems to each other.

This is a day to make repairs: the title, the pothole
…………..stanzas, the shaky infrastructure.  Or, let it be.

The Artist’s Posthumous Garage Sale

It was word-of mouth, but still, I had to park four blocks and walk,
then, wait in the shaded yard to be called forward.

Everything I wanted seemed to be quickly disappearing
down the street under other people’s arms

those early pen & inks
of women in let-loose
hair, in dressing gowns
and quiet conversation

the pencil drawings, soft
and raw as poems forming,
watercolor barnyards
thought unfinished, now
finished enough for us.

What else did we have to do this summer Saturday, but be
a splash of color in her yard, a wheel of early birds thrilled
………………………………………………………………………..by a glorious bargain.

Once inside, a hush. I became less greedy, gave up
on any big canvas –
Oklahoma light on holly hocks
flopping over in an alley.

It was like a feast day and Regina was queen of the moment.

Down to the last (I’d never say dregs) small things––
coffee cups,
a bone folder, charcoal,
pencil cases, miter boxes.

I found three lovingly used paint brushes
which I now keep in a soup can on my windowsill.

Sometimes, I paint. Some days, I just touch them––
the toe, the belly, the ferrole.––

and I think, who needs fame when you can scatter
your light, oil, and sable, all over your beloved town.