for Dina Tagliabue

SUNNY SISTER

                                 for Dina Tagliabue

I never made it to the Mimbres Ranch,

Dina – though Alex & Phoebe did,

& brother Jim did, too – up

in them hardscrabble cactus hills, with a bunch

of hippies.  You chugged out there back when

in your VW bus, dragging along

stray hitches from Michigan –

getting the farm going, the pottery kiln...

Bob was there early, I guess, plying

the seasonal pickers’ fields

& his carpentry (& sprout yields

from the bathtub hydroponic mung-bean

enterprises).  Early & late he was –

composting with you to Sicily,

your garlic plot of earthy

transplants (care of kind Erica, & Grace).

It wasn’t my life, it was yours –

tied close to soil

by musing love-wrung toil

until this planet glazes bronze, & grows...

your joy, your blazing smile, Dina!

You were the sunny sister

to my moon’s iris – her

Inca-mauve Sheep’s Clothing (Francesca);

& now I see you foot the potter’s wheel

& knead your human clay

into a memory of joy...

molding earth to sunlight, in a laughing reel.

1.26.20