Volunteering at the library in Mendocino

Ode to a Bookmark

Pressed between words,
Caressed by numbered pages,
Sandwiched in trash or classic,
Separating past from future,
cutting the author's thoughts in two,
Serving as memory . . .
     This special bookmark
     Is soft and green and supple.
     It traveled with a friend
     As gift from Ireland...
Compressed by paperback and bound,
Embraced by poetry and prose,
Held firm by comedy or tragedy,
Marking a novel's progress,
Tracking the disclosure of knowledge,
Recording the passage of time,
Serving as memory . . .
     This special bookmark
     Travels loyally
     From book to book
     And is my friend.
 November 25, 2002

For Father's Day: Mom remembers her father

Paul H. Daus, a mathematician, bred iris in Los Angeles, sometimes enjoying blooms every day of the year.

Existence and Uniqueness

Dreamwise he stood in my early wakefulness
Holding out toward me what I could take.
Can anyone say anything unique about
Being father and daughter, that the leaves
Drifting downstream on the waters
Have not swirled by before?
He and I, closing mindwise only so seldom,
But more, to be sure, than with the others
Who have shared our time-space
Quarters as human beings.
For laughwise he was good for me.
Loud, gentle, with tall stories.
A rollicking parody on furry-footed hobbits
Written to me when I was ill and away from home...
Writing now, therefore is in his image.
And flowers -
Branching trident-like
Are his iris.
I recall mulched beds of pincushion flowers,
of snapdragons and chrysanthemums
That serve me now with happiness.
An iris has three standards and three falls.
Three upon three for three square
And 3 to the third power and thus
To infinity of natural numbers and
Infinity of real numbers.
Q.E.D., uniqueness and existence
Of my father and I are proved.
Who can doubt it in the 
Persistence of dreams?




August 6, 1973

Community Gardens, Mary Milne

Needlework

These hills of mine - 
These patchy valley squares - 
These muted colors
Singing morning songs.
I weave into their constancy,
A threaded needle 
Dragging life behind me,
Trailing cotton continuity
From one side of reality
Back to the other.
I leave uneven stitches -
A quilting pattern
Of sleep and consciousness
Across the crumpled
Valley folds.

May 11, 1977