Questions with Wrong Answers

notes from a middle school field trip

How many people are you going to fit in that tent?
Was it a good idea to buy yourself a hot chocolate
     and a Red Bull at 7pm?
Did you actually leave food in your tent after two others
     got torn open by foxes?
Did you stop to think that you might not like to walk around
     in wet sneakers and jeans all day before you waded into the ocean?
Are you still hungry?
Do you know any other words besides “thingy” and “hi-yah”?
Do you really want to hike six miles of mountain in flip flops?
     Is it because your shoes are wet?
Were you going to tell a teacher that our shuttle to the ferry
     had arrived? Or just let it drive off again?
Are you still awake?

Fully Named

“Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to.”
—J.R.R. Tolkien

My name is written on pages and pages, turning and turning, being read as they are written
My name is a secret that I tell to everyone I meet
My name is a temporary permanence, always the same and ever-changing
My name is brother, son, uncle, friend, lover, student, teacher, gurubhai
My name is artist, writer, musician, dancer, singer, yogi
My name is monk, and not a monk, and perhaps both, or neither
My name is inscribed on the side of a mysterious tollbooth
My name is the drips and blooms and splashes of a watercolor in D major
My name is a jig with brown hair and blue eyes
My name is a mandolin calling to a fiddle singing to a guitar
My name is a G9 suspended chord, capo three
My name is the ubiquitous underlying hum of a harmonium
My name is a silly saga of sibling Christmas letters
My name is I don’t dance becoming May I have the next waltz?
My name is I love you, and As you wish, and Don’t panic
My name is the sound of Muppets dancing the Big Apple on Erin’s Shore
My name is the sound of Shiva’s footfalls pirouetting across galaxies
My name is Anachoron, Nataraja, Lord of the Dance
My name is two miles long in waltz time, 160 beats per minute
My name is Expecto Patronum and Felix Felicis
My name is employee number eight hundred and thirty one
My name is scattered across nine translations of Cyrano de Bergerac
My name is the complete works of Shakespeare as adapted by Gilbert & Sullivan
My name is the steps of a clandestine polka ringing through an empty church
My name is a serious parody of a silly song
My name is chocolate chip cookies and chai ice cream
My name is a rhyme for silver, ninth, purple, month, and wolf
My name is alternating feasts and famines of poetry
My name is Aum Namo Bhagavate and Aum Namah Shivaya
My name is Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me
My name is a pilgrimage through holy lands, within and without
My name is a tiny bubble of laughter joining the sea of mirth
My name is an inhalation, and an exhalation
My name is a mantra repeated exactly once, forever

Things to Do If You Are a Cup of Tea

Say good morning.
Be warm and comforting.
Share cookies.
Cool down when you need to.
Exalt yourself in ceremonies.
Tell a fortune.
Energize, and relax.
Bring out the best in whatever you are given.
Say good afternoon.
Mix in a little something sweet.
Be at home in a fine china cup or a clay pot.
Say good night.

Anticipation

Tokyo 2020, to compete in the discus.
Unidentifiable sounds on the roof, the night before Christmas.
The perennial lottery: boy or girl?
The last nut on a tree nervously eyeing a squirrel.
Teenagers turning into adults.
A lugubrious doctor stalling before giving you your test results.
Using only a rope bridge and a blindfold to cross a gaping abyss.
Your first kiss.
Guards on city walls, tracking the approach of oncoming crusaders.
Substitute directing for a choir of 4th-through-8th graders.
A midnight trip to Uruguay.
Tomorrow’s lecture to 500 people on a subject you were introduced to yesterday.

Whether it lead to bright or dreary ends,
Anticipation itself can be quite an experience.

What to Do When in Doubt

1. Get your passport stamped. It always comes out a little blurry, but most of your friends back home will probably believe that you were there.
2. Breathe in and count to ten. Write the numbers down to make sure you don’t skip any. (Seven is notoriously slippery, even on the first day.)
3. Hire a guide. It should be easy to find someone who speaks your language, but you may have some trouble convincing him to show you around. Tell him you don’t mind if he’s new at this.
4. See the sights. Your guide will be unable to tell you what any of them are called. At one building, he will gather together a small group of passersby and ask them if they know what it is. None can name it, but they each describe the interior in great detail. Each description is completely different, to which the others all say “yes, that is right.”
5. Dismiss your guide with thanks. You will find lodgings inside this building, but you must enter alone.
6. Make yourself comfortable. There is no staff, so you will have to make your own bed and keep the bathroom clean. You will find everything you need waiting for you.
7. Look through your luggage. If you find a photograph of a person, a dog, or a guitar, put it out on the nightstand. It is probably someone you love. Dust it every day.
8. Take long walks through the city. Occasionally someone will stop you and ask the name of a building. It’s alright if you don’t know. Enjoy the freedom of not knowing.
9. If someone asks you to be their guide, welcome them, and do your best.
10. One day, you will come to a bustling terminal, surrounded by people looking slightly disoriented and trying to count to ten. You can no longer get any farther than three, but when someone asks for your passport, you’re surprised to note that you had put it in your pocket that morning. Do not go back for your luggage, not even the photograph.

Sisterly Things

National Siblings Day, 2019

18-petaled sunflowers.
Chocolate chip cookie dough, one spoonful set aside.
A PVC didgeridoo colored with Sharpies.
Christmas letters drenched in eggnog and laughter.
Mosquito bites.
Bells, ribbons, sticks and swords.
California-specific hiccups.
Spiced peach jam and sandWallaWallawiches.
Long hair. Also short hair.
Guitar string dreamcatchers.
Unevenly staggered toes.
Poetry like an elephant, a fish, and a bear.