Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Potpourri

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

I sleep in past nine
waking just in time
to see an insect
drown in mango juice

I guess I moved too slowly
in the kitchen
I try
to let myself
embody
rest
a concept
to feel
the way I move my hands
pour water in the glass

last night under moonlight
I spoke to the writer
about submissions
how I get to submit
to detachment
how we both got ours in
just at the deadline

I come home from starlight
fire smoke and red wine
with an armload of harvest
from Mary’s garden
chard and kale and basil
three ripening papayas

this morning
by the basin
marigold and gardenia
hold velvet treasure
in their petals
so unrelated
they are perfectly paired
in Saturday sunlight

I’m a potpourri
just settling
mango juice and coffee beans
midnight work projects
and art submissions
swim lessons and poetry
womanhood and mothering
a body in motion
this morning
rest

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Poetry and Houseplants

It’s the first time in ten days of living in my new house that I’ve actually awoken in my ‘writing hour’.  That is the time before the dawn, when I can carve out space in darkness to let words rise.

But instead of typing keys this morning, my fingers find their way to greenery.  Plants once windswept on outdoor porches have been brought inside my new abode.  Their leaves are greening, new shoots reaching.

As coffee brews at sunrise, no prose flows to mind.  I simply wander the low lit room from pot to pot, finding deep satisfaction in letting houseplants tell me of their progress.  The kettle steams as I mist the orchid in the kitchen window.

A poem completed can fill a void like an infusion.  Offer a dynamic settling, like the life-giving circle of an inhalation, an exhalation.

Maybe I shouldn’t compare.  Poems and houseplants.

There’s something magic, though.

A rooted joy stirs within me, just looking upon new tendrils unfurling.  So satisfying in the moment, there’s no need for words.

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Therein Rest the Mysteries

The opening scene of a late night movie pans the Northern California coast.  Muir Woods, the Golden Gate bridge.

These visuals resound through my cells, humming and rising flesh in a surprising and tingling resonance.  Just to see this place on the 13 inch monitor of my laptop screen satiates some unknown need.

Perhaps my body somehow knows the source of its existence.  That my parent’s love was seeded in the inlets of Sausalito.  Maybe it’s the escape – from the summery heat of the San Joaquin Valley to my aunt and uncle’s on the other side of Mt. Tamalpais – that still evokes reprieve.

Where the tides lap against the land from Mt. Tam to Santa Lucia, therein rests a piece of my heart.

Somewhere in last night’s movie was a quote from a Robert Hass poem I had never heard before.

This morning I wake with snippets.

“…dusks smelling of Madrone…lupine grows thick in the rockface…self-heal at creekside…”

I’m left with mysteries.

How a landscape can root its essence deep inside my body.  How a string of words can sing, even if I don’t know why.

“…What I want happens
not when the deer freezes in the shade
and looks at you and you hold very still
and meet her gaze but in the moment after
when she flicks her ears & starts to feed again.”

– from “Santa Lucia” by Robert Hass

courtesy of Frans Lanting