Snow Day

The fireflies came out tonight.

The fireflies came out.

One by the fence

and one by the tree

and one going all about.

I tried to catch them carefully

without a squash or shake,

and when one blinked inside my hand

my whole hand looked awake.

I showed my sister.

Then I let it go.

It floated up, then dipped down low.

Then all at once

there seemed to be

a hundred lights

all over the dark

like tiny green thoughts

the yard was thinking.

The fireflies came out tonight.

I wish they would stay late.

Grandma kept a button box

Up on the shelf beside the clock.

She’d bring it down on rainy days

And lift the lid in careful ways.

Then all the buttons shined and stared,

Mixed all up and never paired.

Big white ones from winter coats,

Tiny ones from baby throats

No, not throats

From baby shirts

I wrote that wrong

That line still works.

There were pearl ones, brass ones, red ones, blue,

One shaped almost like a drop of dew,

One with a crack, one made of wood,

One that looked too grand for common good.

I liked to dig down with my hand

And let them slide like little sand,

Cold and smooth and hard and small,

Like pocket treasure for dolls.

Grandma said each one came off

Some Sunday coat or apron cloth,

Some school dress, mitten, hat, or vest,

And now they all just stayed to rest.

I liked that thought.

A box could keep

The quiet things

That people leave.

My mask hung on the bedroom chair

With yellow teeth and stringy hair.

By day it looked like painted trash.

By night it made my sister dash.

The rubber smell was hot and strange.

My voice came out all dull and changed.

I liked the way one piece could hide

My plain old face and all inside.

The road was dark, the leaves were dry,

The moon looked stuck up in the sky.

Porch lights made little islands glow

Where witches, ghosts, and cowboys go.

A man down two houses from ours

Had fake graves stuck among the flowers.

A wind-up cat with red bulb eyes

Kept jerking when the cord would rise.

Near ten o’clock I took it off

And heard my real breath, small and soft.

My face was mine again, near warm,

Yet part of me still wore the form.

Last day of school

everybody acts wrong.

Teachers smile too much.

Kids are louder.

Nobody cares about chapter five.

Half the room is already outside

in their minds.

Books get stacked.

Desks get cleaned out.

You find old papers

you thought were gone

and one pencil

chewed almost to nothing.

Then the bell rings

and all of it breaks open.

The running.

The yelling.

The buses.

The heat.

You’d think the big part

is what stays with you,

but what I remember most

is dust in the sunlight

by the windows

and how strange it felt

to leave a room

that had been nearly every day

for a whole year.

Tonight I saw the moon twice.

One moon way up

where it belonged

and one moon down

in a puddle

by the curb

shaking each time

the wind moved through.

I stood there long enough

for my feet to get cold.

I knew the puddle moon

was not the real one,

yet it was real too,

in its own poor way,

bent and broken,

still bright.

I nearly stepped in it

just to see

what would happen,

then did not.

Some things look easy to ruin.

My grandpa had a radio

That sat beside his chair,

A brown one with a cloth front part

And knobs worn smooth with care.

Ball games came out of that old box.

Preachers came out too.

Late at night the voices changed

And songs came low and blue.

He’d turn the knob real slow sometimes

Like fishing in the dark,

Trying to catch one far-off voice

Before it slipped apart.

There was a hiss between the words,

A snow made out of sound,

And every now and then a song

From some lost little town.

I liked to sit and hear it fade

Then come in strong once more.

It made the whole night feel more wide

Than just our living room floor.

I think I loved that radio

For what it let me hear.

A house can stay a house and still

Hold places not quite here.

My pencil is a pointy thing

It writes of birds that fly and sing

It writes of kings and queens and snow

And lots of things I do not know

It gets so small from all I write

It almost disappears at night

Its yellow coat gets chewed and scarred

My homework makes its whole life hard

My eraser rubs things out too fast

Like all my mistakes cannot last

I like my pencil best of all

Though it is thin and not too tall

A sword might look a little grand

But pencils fit inside your hand

And though they do not shine or glow

They make up worlds, and that is so

When the clothes came in still warm,

Patches always knew.

He’d come from nowhere, quick as rain,

Like sneaky old cats do.

He’d jump right in the basket then

On socks and shirts and things,

Turn around and stamp it down

Like he was making springs.

My mother said, “That cat has nerve.”

I said, “He’s got good taste.”

He never washed one single thing

Yet liked the washing best.

We’d lift a towel

there he’d be.

We’d move a shirt

he’d stare.

As if the whole big heap of clothes

Had only been put there for him

and we just did not know it.

Patches did not come that night.

His dish sat full by the back step

and the porch light made the boards look bare

in a way I did not like.

I called for him by the hedge,

behind the shed,

near the road,

down past the place where the ground dipped

after rain.

Nothing.

I shook the food box.

Nothing.

It is odd how large a yard can get

when one small thing is not in it.

Every dark place becomes a thought.

Every sound becomes maybe.

He came back late, muddy and calm,

like he had just been out

on cat business

and did not care that I had nearly gone sick

thinking of ditches and dogs and wheels.

I picked him up.

He hated that.

I held him anyway.

Patches on the porch again,

Curled up like a ball,

One eye shut and one eye half

Open at us all.

If I tiptoed very soft

He would raise his head,

Blink at me and tuck it down

Like he’d rather stay in bed.

He was white and brown in spots,

Soft along his side.

If you picked him up too much,

He wriggled free with pride.

But if the day was slow and warm

And nobody made noise,

He’d let me sit beside him there

As quiet as my toys.

Rain on the bus window

made the whole world run.

Trees ran.

Mailboxes ran.

Telephone poles ran one by one.

Cows got wiggly.

Houses bent.

A stop sign melted red.

Everything the bus went past

looked half-alive and half-unsaid.

I drew one line with my finger

through the fog on the glass

and watched one drop

meet another drop

and both of them go past.

Some mornings felt longer in rain.

Not bad.

Just strange.

Like school was farther off

and the day had not decided yet

what kind it meant to be.

The rain came tapping on the glass

Like little feet that wished to pass

It slid in crooked silver lines

And made the yard look full of shines

The trees all shook their dripping heads

The drops bounced off the flower beds

The porch steps turned a darker brown

The clouds hung low above the town

I like the sound that rain can make

On roofs and puddles, pond and lake

It makes the day feel close and small

Like someone pulled a blanket all

I sat and watched it for a while

And drew wet rivers on each tile

Then when the rain was finally through

The whole world looked washed clean and new

The card rode home inside my book

Like bad news trying not to show.

Just folded paper, red ink marks,

A few short words lined in a row

And still it felt much heavier

Than books or coat or lunch or shoes.

It felt like someone took a ruler

To things a person ought not lose.

Conduct, effort, reading, spelling,

Math I did well, penmanship not.

Talks too much in class written plainly.

That stung more than the grades I got.

I knew I talked. I knew I laughed.

I knew my mind ran off its track.

It still felt strange to see myself

Reduced and handed home like that.

Mother read the whole thing through.

She did not frown the way I feared.

She tapped the paper with one finger

Then said, “A person’s not this weird

little card. Do better where you can.

Quit talking some. Keep reading more.”

That helped me more than any grade

Or all the teacher comments for sure.

I tucked the card back in the drawer

With old school pictures, notes, and junk.

I think some papers try too hard

To tell you what you are in one chunk.

Saturday is best of all.

No one yells out down the hall.

No one says to comb my hair.

No one says to get up there.

I can stay in bed and hear

Cartoons crackle bright and clear.

Bowls can clink and cereal spill.

Time can sit and keep quite still.

The whole house feels warm and wide.

Sun comes slanting from the side.

Pajamas beat school clothes by far.

They fit me better than my shoes are.

By noon the day feels slow and kind.

Nothing hard is on my mind.

If the week were mine to run,

There would be three Saturdays and one sun.

I woke and heard the grownups say
The roads were bad from snow today
I jumped right up and ran to see
White frosting on the hedge and tree

The yard was bright, the porch was deep
The cars looked half-buried in sleep
The sky hung low and soft and gray
Like winter did not want to stray

No school, no books, no spelling test
Just boots and hats and all the rest
Red hands, wet socks, a sliding hill
And cheeks that stung the finest chill

At night I stood beside the pane
And hoped it all would snow again
For school days end and melt away
But none are grand like snow day

The attic smelled like dust and boards

And summers shut behind old doors.

A baby bed, a picture frame,

A trunk with no one’s written name.

A hat with netting, one old shoe,

A lamp with one thing broken through,

A rocking horse with one bad eye,

A stack of magazines gone dry.

The sun came in a narrow way

And made the dust look full of play.

It danced up there in stripes of gold

On every crate and quilt and fold.

I always felt when I climbed high

The room had kept a piece of time.

Not dead, not gone, not put away,

Just waiting out another day.

And if I stood and did not talk,

And tried to hush my feet and walk,

It seemed the attic might begin

To tell me who had once been in.

The closet door at night can seem

Like something from a spooky dream

By day it’s full of shirts and shoes

And games with one or two parts loose

By night it is a darker place

A silent door, a black flat face

I stare at it from where I lie

And make up reasons, how and why

A pirate there, a ghost, a thief

A bat, a witch, a monster chief

Then I pull blankets to my chin

And hope that nothing will come in

But when the morning sun comes through

The closet is the same old view

Just coats and boxes, socks and string

And not one scary magic thing

Past the fence and past the field,

Down where roots begin to build

Little halls beneath the ground,

There runs my creek with talking sound.

It is not grand. It is not wide.

You cannot sail a boat inside.

No one would point and call it great.

It never hurries, never waits.

Yet when the sun falls in that place

And lights the water in the shade,

The stones look older than the town,

Like little moons all broken down.

I go there when my head feels loud.

The creek does not ask much out loud.

It keeps on moving, thin and brown,

Past every stick and leaf and stone.

I think that’s what I like the best.

It never claims to know the rest.

It only goes where it must go

And keeps a little silver flow.

After school

when everybody had gone home

I saw one swing still moving.

Not much.

Just enough to keep moving.

The chains made that little sound

they make

when no one is laughing

and no one is waiting a turn

and the blacktop is going gray.

I do not know why I stood there.

It was only a swing.

It was only wind.

But the whole playground looked different

without us in it.

Smaller maybe.

Or sadder.

Or maybe more honest.

I went home before dark.

The house down the road stayed empty

for two whole years, maybe three.

No dog, no car, no washing hung,

no smoke from any chimney.

The porch leaned left.

One shutter banged.

Tall weeds climbed up the steps.

A window on the top right side

caught sunset and looked wet.

Kids said a man had died in there.

One said he heard a chain.

One swore he saw a woman dressed

in white go past the pane.

I never saw a ghost myself.

I only saw the place

and felt that strange tight little pull

you get from an empty space.

One day they came with boards and tools

and trucks that backed and beeped.

By fall a family lived inside.

Their baby cried. Their old dog slept.

The porch got fixed. The grass got cut.

Blue curtains took the room.

And all the ghost talk dried right up

like rain on a hot noon.

Still, part of me was sorry then.

Not sad, just sort of strange.

I think I liked that there had been

one house the world forgot to claim.

For once there was a leprechaun wherever he may roam

For once there was a leprechaun that didn’t have a home

Once there was a pot of gold

Shiny, bright, and very old

Hidden by a willow tree behind a little stone

He wore a coat of leafy green

And patched up little shoes

He walked along the muddy roads

Still wet with morning dews

He talked to birds and bumblebees

And slept where he could hide

Beneath a cart, beside a fence,

Or near the riverside

He found the gold one afternoon

And thought his luck had grown

He laughed and danced around the tree

And claimed it for his own

He bought a loaf, a woolen scarf,

A blanket for the cold

But still the night felt dark and wide

In spite of all the gold

One evening as he sat alone

A girl came skipping by

She saw him there beside the road

And heard his little sigh

She said, “You look like you could use

A fire and something warm.

My mother’s soup is on the stove.

Come in out of the storm.”

He followed to the little house

And stood there by the door

They gave him bread, they gave him stew,

Then gave a little more

They listened to his funny tales

Till all the candles shone

And though he had no house before,

That night he had a home

So if you find a pot of gold

All shining in the sun

Remember gold can warm your hands

But not a lonely one

For coins can ring and coins can shine

And buy a coat or comb

But better than a pot of gold

Is finding you a home

The piano at church was darker than the pews

and had old yellow keys,

and when the lady played on Sunday

the whole room changed to me.

It was still the same white walls and coats

and mothers with their hats,

same stiff collars, same hard shoes,

same little girls with bows in back.

Still, music made it all seem wider.

I do not know how else to say it.

Like if a room was only a room,

then a song came in and made a place inside it.

I watched her hands more than I listened,

which sounds backward, but it’s true.

I liked how something I could not hold

could still move through a person

right into you.

I liked the seat beside the glass.

I watched the whole wide morning pass.

The yards, the dogs, the dripping line,

The little store with crooked sign,

The man who swept his porch each day,

The girl whose cat would run away,

The field behind the Baptist church,

The crows that lined the fence and perch.

The bus would rattle, jump, and groan.

It never felt quite still as home.

My lunch box bumped against my knee.

The world went rolling by to me.

I always thought when houses slid

Past fogged-up glass and sleepy kids

That every door we rattled by

Had stories tucked up there inside.

I still think that was likely true.

I found a penny in the grass
A little dull, a little worn
It looked as if it might have slept
Out in the rain since I was born

I picked it up and rubbed it clean
And watched it catch a bit of light
A tiny copper-colored moon
That somehow made the day feel bright

They say a penny brings you luck
If you are lucky when it’s found
I do not know if that is true
Or just a thing that gets passed round

But still I kept it in my hand
And made a wish before I knew
A quiet wish, a secret one,
The kind you never say out through

I put the penny in my drawer
Beside some notes and odds and ends
And thought that maybe luck is just
The hope a small lost thing can send