Author Archives: tamolantern@gmail.com

When Will I Be Home?   When will I be home? I don’t know. In the mountains, in the rainy night, The Autumn lake is flooded. Someday we will be back together again. We will sit in the candlelight by … Continue reading →

For Keeps   Sun makes the day new. Tiny green plants emerge from earth. Birds are singing the sky into place. There is nowhere else I want to be but here. I lean into the rhythm of your heart to … Continue reading →

Reading the Obituary Page In starched dresses with ribbons in miniature jackets and tiny ties we would circle the chairs at birthday parties and when the music stopped, lunge to be seated. One by one we were welcomed to hard ground … Continue reading →

Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road? Don’t fill up on bread I say absent-mindedly The servings here are huge My son, whose hair may be receding a bit, says Did you really just say that to … Continue reading →

Poem after Bouncing the Rent Check and Waking with a Hangover, while Searching for My Car Keys Twenty Minutes before a Very Important Interview A sudden jolt. And the Ferris wheel rolls free of its axle —- a blackened screaming circle … Continue reading →

Inventory Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I’d been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, … Continue reading →

Male Beauty I bought a bag of hard green pears today. I came home and sat in our room listening to music for hours, solo piano, things from France, from the beginning of the century. When we were very young, … Continue reading →

Thinking of Work A brief storm blew the earth clean. There was much to do: sun to put up, clouds to put out, blue to install, limbs to remove, grass to implant. (The grass failed. We ordered new grass.) A … Continue reading →

little prayer let ruin end here let him find honey where there was once a slaughter let him enter the lion’s cage & find a field of lilacs let this be the healing & if not      let it … Continue reading →