by Kathleen MacGregor

It is spring

But it is not lightness and joy that

Are visiting her today.

The daffodils

Are blinding in their yellowness

And she turns her face away.

The crocuses

Are unfolding themselves and having a stretch

But she walks past them without a sniff.

The robins

Are feasting and round on worms.

So many worms

Lay dead, having drowned and are uneaten.

If she finds one alive on the walk

She picks it up and

Carries it to the dirt beside the road.

Because a worm she can save.

But she can’t save a boy in uniform

In a street

In a war.

She can’t save her sons

From all the ways there are to

Be tortured.

She can’t stop the relentless

Turning of the seasons

And in her heart it feels like

Winter.

And she would like the sky

To feel like winter too.

Her heart feels like bare

Branches, that the trees would be bare too.

Remember how we’re all connected?

Remember how we’re all one?

Remember how killing the whales is killing

Ourselves?

Are you saying that it is I

Who cut the elephants from their faces?

Are you telling me

That I turn redwood trees

Into fences?

I don’t want that.

I don’t want to do that.

How do I stop it?

Yes,

I am telling you that.

I’m so sorry.

You have had to feel so small and alone.

Please, please forgive me.

My unconsciousness.

Thank you.

For be-coming to my awareness.

Thank you for showing me my love.

I love you.

by Kathleen MacGregor

Because his body sat itself down

And I could almost hear…

Because he thought he was alone, unwatched, unknown,

Because I was home and could afford

To spend some time,

I opened my arms and heart to him,

To us.

And because I did,

He spilled his worries and his sorrows-

The purple bags beneath his blue eyes,

His trembling hands,

All the things he doesn’t know

That he needs to learn

To survive in the world,

Trees that get bulldozed,

Whales, dolphins, wolves

And children in wars,

The last flower.

Because space opened up all around us,

Time yawned and stood still

And invited the troubles to linger and be tasted,

And tell us what it’s like,

Because we sat together

In our willingness to feel,

In our desire to connect,

I got to hear him say, through crying eyes,

“When will they know they are killing themselves?”

“When will we know we are killing ourselves?”

Because it seemed much too big for a 9 year old,

I was shaking when I held him,

And together we loved

Not dimmed by grief

But brightened.

by Kathleen MacGregor

While you were away,

I swept up a bit

And shelved the books

That had been piled into

Tottering columns and

Spread across the Ottoman.

Piles you shifted each time

You came home.

Piles  I insisted were

Exactly where they needed to be.

While you were away,

It seems I took over

The fussing,

The irritation with clutter,

The discontent.

The resentment.

While you were away,

I woke up early, and

Made tea before walking

Out into the garden

To prune and pull up some

Weeds, coming in to

Fold laundry and put it away.

While you were away,

I got a lot done.

Calls were returned,

Bills were paid.

And I didn’t write a single poem,

Make a collage,

Or take a nap.

No photographs were taken.

While you were away,

All the parts of myself

That make it fun be alive,

Died. Quietly. Vanished.

As if they never were.

I know who I’d be

Without you.

You are the sculptor’s hands

Kneading, squeezing, pushing

And I am the lump of clay

Coming into form by your hands.

And even if I am unsatisfying,

Never turning out the way you plan,

I am.

And you keep returning to the wheel.

by Kathleen MacGregor

Dear Love,

We’ve changed. At least, I have and I can see how much you’ve grown from boyfriend to husband to father. Thank you for walking with me.

What I want to know is: What is your desire? Do you want to skim the surface of a lake, laughing over waves, behind a boat in summer? Do you want to try scuba diving and go deep? Explore places no light’s ever reached before and be innocent and new together? Do you want to get comfortable in the shade of an old tree in the middle of a cool green lawn with a glass of white wine in your hand, a New Yorker on your lap, and watch the croquet players? All of it? Something else?

I am restless for the deep sea adventure. And the sea is restless for me. I want to be known outside of whoever I think I am. To explore who we are at our cores, to finally be completely naked with you and discover Everything.

Will you come with me?

Always,

Me

by Kathleen MacGregor

Learn the broken, secret questions.

Perhaps morning blushes with need

Even as flowers

Blaze

Bleed

Devour

Celebrate

Its coming.

By Kathleen MacGregor

During those years my children were at school, I was like a ghost haunting the other parents, teachers and staff. Barely visible, gauzy, unnerving. Only the children could see me clearly and hear me – and the visiting grandmothers. I walked in the shadows of the drama mamas, dressed up to drop off their children. Dressed like rebels, dressed like liberals. To me they were the pawns of the government who allow them to feel like rebels by keeping pot marginal. “Don’t make trouble”. They scold the homely questioner. Their voices scrape in their throats. Expensive gypsies. I am a ghost to them, transparent and unreal. They might think they glimpse me but my presence has faded already into a small story, a ghost story of a mother who used to haunt this school. And when I open my eyes my son is sitting next to me and asking what the tooth fairy does with all the teeth. I picture his teeth in my jewelery box, tucked into pillowed satin pouches. I don’t know why. I don’t have a plan for them. I only know I want to keep them. My child’s teeth.

by Kathleen MacGregor

What I love about family gatherings,

is being a sister to my brothers.

We play games and laugh and I can see how we’re alike.

I see the shadow of me in them and can love my shape.

I can hear the echo of my voice in their voices and can love

my voice. I love to feel that connection

and I can feel it even though

we’re playing a card game or tossing a salad.

Divided.

Part of me is with the game and the chatter and

another part is sitting back. The great- grandmother.

Watching, listening, smiling understanding.

Sometimes dozing lightly into dreams.

Waking to the sound of my own voice telling the cousins that dinner

is ready. Dinner that the other part of me helped prepare.

We all helped. I love it when we all run outside

after dinner, when it’s good and dark, for a special game of

hide and seek. We are all children then,

running through the darkness.

by Kathleen MacGregor

On Thanksgiving, when we all come together,

gathering up our stories and our stances

in our arms, like crops from the field;

When we come bearing insistent separateness,

proud individuality,

spilling our armloads clumsily all over each other,

because we have come with more than we can carry,

there is a grief.

The grief pours down from the

middle of us and

pools on the ground at our feet. We are standing in it.

The grief is dammed. Held at bay,

it never makes it to our hearts,

our throats,

our eyes.

Our eyes stay dry.

Just because we think we can’t cry here.

We can’t show what we feel.

Can’t be real.

Walking across the room to my niece,

to help her with her jacket,

I splash through grief. I wade. I swim.

She is growing more distant, unreachable.

The tide has taken me out.

I sink. I watch myself drowning.

Drowning in grief suppressed.

I watch.

And it isn’t until the car pulls away and heads back down the road,

gravel crunching dryly,

that I reach down into that

warm ocean of grief.

And save myself,

gasping for breath,

finally sobbing,

ocean meeting ocean,

love meeting grief,

thanking life

for life.

by Kathleen MacGregor

Something’s bothering me.

In the dim, cold bathroom this morning,

I stubbed my toes as I was rushing

between getting dressed

and a time that hasn’t happened yet.

A time later in the day, the week, the month.

Almost immediately,

holding my foot, and offering my breath to the pain,

to say sorry,

I took it as a reminder to come present.

Aloud I said, “Thank you. Thank you.”

Because I was feeling thanks.

I am learning.

Now, I hear my husband stir in bed. His stirring is irritated somehow.

That cat woke him up twice last night and it’s my fault. I think. I think he thinks.

He doesn’t like the pets. He doesn’t want to be inconvenienced.

I want to hold soft warmth

and cuddle.

I am remembering before we married he told me about his childhood neighbors.

They kept homes across the street from each other.

They visited each other when they felt desirous

of each others company.

The story enraged me. What was the point?

If you’re not willing to fully

be with one another, what’s the point?

In a room so full and dim,

with irritation, blame, and unfulfilled desire

circling like sharks,

I know.

It’s easier.

It is easier than learning about

what you say in a blinding, red rage-

when your body stops, and your mind stops, and

your soul stops resisting the ancient buried hate

and anger wanting to be resurrected.

It’s easier than that.

by Kathleen MacGregor

Out on the edge of things-

edge of comfort, politeness, legality, acceptability, of “what we do”,

there aren’t a lot of arms

holding you.

There aren’t a lot of voices

reassuring you.

Because you’re somewhere

no one’s ever been.

You don’t know.

And you know

you don’t know.

You are leaning, balancing over the edge

toes tingling, gripping.

Hoping to feel some security

about the place that’s here.

The world is burning behind you.

You will surely burn with it,

if you go back.

But it might be a slow burn, smoldering and singeing.

Jumping will be a death too.

You will be changed.

Your children will be changed.

It’s time to jump, or burn.

The swirling clench deep in the belly

wants to scream the walls down.

Help me!

Wants to panic and sob with wild abandon. And throw things across rooms with brick walls-

smashing, breaking, crashing, deafening, blinding, gasping.

This is too hard, maybe it’s a mistake, go back, fall back, fall apart, I can’t do it. Take it away from me. I don’t know how.

You become the gaping, yawning hole

opening over the edge.

How can you hold a hole?

How can a hole fall

into itself?