Perpetual Hearts (Inspired by Tony Hoagland’s poem “Migration”)

My writing coach sent me three poems in the mail a few weeks ago. She sent me this awesome package, with a letter, and print outs of four of my poems with handwritten feedback on them. She also introduced me to Tony Hoagland – amazing poet. Funny, piercing, uplifting writing. She asked me to venture into the same exercise of using another writer’s poem as a launch pad for something new for you. I didn’t use much of the poem for this piece – just one line – and it is the very first line in this piece: “The future ours for awhile to hold, with its heaviness -”

The future ours for awhile to hold, with its heaviness –
it’s endless projections
of who I am now
mapped onto a nameless terrain
with all my little hopes
contained in perfect glass structures
warming in the light
of my perpetual heart’s desires.

Meanwhile, there seems to be a miracle happening
in my home town
of smoke stacks and union workers
border crossings and strip bars –
a humble statue of the blessed virgin mary
sits on an average front lawn
in an average neighborhood
weeping at night
with oily tears,
and although she is smiling in daytime
people are talking
about her sadness
her weathered love;
people are praying and praying
at her feet, on the front lawn
a smokey stack on the horizon
feeling touched, being seen
by a presence wished for so mightily
that they too are weeping
and looking, loving and opening.

I don’t believe that Mary
has leaky tear ducks of canola oil,
but I think I do believe
that this is beautiful
this reaching and yearning
an exposed need so raw
human nature so willing;
I want to be there too
standing side by side
vibrating with the miraculous notion
of believing in a miracle.

~~~~~~~~~now Hoagland’s “Migration”

Migration

This year Marie drives back and forth
from the hospital room of her dying friend
to the office of the adoption agency.

I bet sometimes she doesn’t know
What threshold she is waiting at—

the hand of her sick friend, hot with fever;
the theoretical baby just a lot of paperwork so far.

But next year she might be standing by a grave,
wearing black with a splash of
banana vomit on it,

the little girl just starting to say Sesame Street
and Cappuccino latte grand Mommy.
The future ours for a while to hold, with its heaviness—

and hope moving from one location to another
like the holy ghost that it is.

~ Tony Hoagland