Two stories high, a crumbling house. One gray caliber above a shack.
Curtains through half-boarded windows, medals boxed
In ivory yellow, all those dust years.
A small town evening, quiet as country.
There outside,
A worn man in a sweatshirt, one of those 2 for $10 deals
Working, a meticulous workhorse, trowel gripped, detailed as if
Life depended on him. His lawn, impeccably ironed. A plastic
Potted plant, just one, full red petunia moons.
The staked flag, covering ears bowing to winds from east canons.
Both hands remember seeping blackness
Aound his paint peeled post, the silence of burnt light,
Eyes from the ground
Off and abandoned for years.
Just something, the whole memory, really.
Through dusk's window, I saw, one million grass blades marching
To each exactly, his wood ruler and sergeant's razor.
His heart-breaking pride.
How stunning, I breathed in slowly.
To see it.
Up close on a fifteen mile an hour drive on Route 60.
Cost of life, and
America, living within her means.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
His Surprise
I remember thinking that Monday afternoon: "This time 'round, I'm going to enjoy every stage." In labor, I didn't know if this was Joey or Chloe, but even without proof I was positive - Addy was getting a sister.
The emergency c-section was a painful blur until I received the spinal. Exhaling in relief, I studied the lights above me. They told me: "Life is going to change forever."
It's amazing how it happens. We know that a moment of change is coming, but we aren't privy to know how life will grow from that single point in our lives. It's that unknowing that is the great miracle of day. The suprise of life. The wonder of a moment. I look at Joey now in amazement, baffled: "How have I become so blessed?" I had no idea what being a mom to my little Joey would do for my soul. What will come of our intertwined destinies? And, who else will be surprised and changed forever by his little blooming life?
At about 5:15pm, I laid down on my first-ever surgical bed, anxious, and heard my doctor's confidence. "This should take less than 15 minutes." At 5:21pm, after a little wriggling, life was completely born. Our lives, completely changed.
Danny stood up, nervously excited. "It's a girl? Right?"
The nurse casually corrected him. "Nope."
Neither Danny or I could believe Chloe was actually Joey. And so it was. God gave us a son. And not just any son. He gave us Joseph Casimir Grant. All 6 pounds and 21 inches of him. Tiny perfection, created and given to us that day to keep. But now, I know better. We get to keep him; for only a while. He belongs, first, to God, and then to all others who, for however long or short, get to intertwine their own destinies with his.
As his parents, we're blessed to so closely nurture his spirit, listen intently as his heart forms words and sings songs never in this world sung before. We're there, sometimes standing aside, or over him as he sleeps, watching as his wings grow between blinks. We get to be surprised by each of these snuggling and tantrum and side-splitting moments he gives us, each one blossoming like blooms, altogether stemming from his miracle moment two years ago, that, I was blessed enough, amidst total suprise and awe, to bear and witness.
The emergency c-section was a painful blur until I received the spinal. Exhaling in relief, I studied the lights above me. They told me: "Life is going to change forever."
It's amazing how it happens. We know that a moment of change is coming, but we aren't privy to know how life will grow from that single point in our lives. It's that unknowing that is the great miracle of day. The suprise of life. The wonder of a moment. I look at Joey now in amazement, baffled: "How have I become so blessed?" I had no idea what being a mom to my little Joey would do for my soul. What will come of our intertwined destinies? And, who else will be surprised and changed forever by his little blooming life?
At about 5:15pm, I laid down on my first-ever surgical bed, anxious, and heard my doctor's confidence. "This should take less than 15 minutes." At 5:21pm, after a little wriggling, life was completely born. Our lives, completely changed.
Danny stood up, nervously excited. "It's a girl? Right?"
The nurse casually corrected him. "Nope."
Neither Danny or I could believe Chloe was actually Joey. And so it was. God gave us a son. And not just any son. He gave us Joseph Casimir Grant. All 6 pounds and 21 inches of him. Tiny perfection, created and given to us that day to keep. But now, I know better. We get to keep him; for only a while. He belongs, first, to God, and then to all others who, for however long or short, get to intertwine their own destinies with his.
As his parents, we're blessed to so closely nurture his spirit, listen intently as his heart forms words and sings songs never in this world sung before. We're there, sometimes standing aside, or over him as he sleeps, watching as his wings grow between blinks. We get to be surprised by each of these snuggling and tantrum and side-splitting moments he gives us, each one blossoming like blooms, altogether stemming from his miracle moment two years ago, that, I was blessed enough, amidst total suprise and awe, to bear and witness.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Cherokee Drives East
life is driving east.
Atlantic tides
untouched.
so fast to rise
and slow to reach.
we'll figure it out, somehow.
jet plane rides
in moonlight
crossroad nights
and for sale signs.
not our life
or family.
we own who we are.
we are what we keep.
the rest is stuff
in cardboard homes
waiting curbside
or given away
existing only
in picture dreams and
memories, good ones I'd say
however temporary
from here, our first house
on Cherokee.
Atlantic tides
untouched.
so fast to rise
and slow to reach.
we'll figure it out, somehow.
jet plane rides
in moonlight
crossroad nights
and for sale signs.
not our life
or family.
we own who we are.
we are what we keep.
the rest is stuff
in cardboard homes
waiting curbside
or given away
existing only
in picture dreams and
memories, good ones I'd say
however temporary
from here, our first house
on Cherokee.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
What's Rattling Around
I am leaving words unwritten. I feel unsettled. A rattling pot covered on the stove. A slow decay of regret to not do something I must do. Writing keeps me up at night, but not writing keeps me awake all the longer.
There's magic transferring life within to words; similarly, in different instances, there's magic lost in trying, when something impossible within wants out but has no way of finding its delicate form outside of itself. Words sometimes are enough, and sometimes, they are far short of enough. But these things, these words, this act of watching magic create itself or lamenting its diminishment; it is a strange fuel that speaks to me; what rain on glass feels like, or the movement of people in cars, or listening to life at play, souls at rest, standing statues still to eyes passing over them for busier exterior noise.
It is difficult to be steadfast in harsh judgment, to critique honestly, when the judgment is written in the language of your own words. There is ownership in the endeavor, to be dishonest is to disown it completely, to walk away from the passage as if someone else spelled out what you could not.
Write to know what is the honest side of your soul, the compassion within your judgment, the joy which belies the pain. We search so far and yet so shallowly into all that lies out there in the world wrapped in complexity but know so little of how to chisel the simple courage of words within. A small voice, waiting for a written echo. It rattles deep beneath the lid, full of our own private mysteries.
There's magic transferring life within to words; similarly, in different instances, there's magic lost in trying, when something impossible within wants out but has no way of finding its delicate form outside of itself. Words sometimes are enough, and sometimes, they are far short of enough. But these things, these words, this act of watching magic create itself or lamenting its diminishment; it is a strange fuel that speaks to me; what rain on glass feels like, or the movement of people in cars, or listening to life at play, souls at rest, standing statues still to eyes passing over them for busier exterior noise.
It is difficult to be steadfast in harsh judgment, to critique honestly, when the judgment is written in the language of your own words. There is ownership in the endeavor, to be dishonest is to disown it completely, to walk away from the passage as if someone else spelled out what you could not.
Write to know what is the honest side of your soul, the compassion within your judgment, the joy which belies the pain. We search so far and yet so shallowly into all that lies out there in the world wrapped in complexity but know so little of how to chisel the simple courage of words within. A small voice, waiting for a written echo. It rattles deep beneath the lid, full of our own private mysteries.
You May be Right
I read a story about bin Laden getting shot in the head.
Millions of Americans rejoiced it said.
He was the start, or the end, but somehow I didn't feel either.
Which side am I on, I wonder when my gut spins round to thinking
About temporal victory and blowback. I almost cried.
Not for bin Laden. For the repetitiousness of killing that
Makes me stop dead long enough to think.
Stop and think before you act. That's what I'm trying
To teach my 4 year old. Not how to pronounce
Consequences but how to learn to live with them.
10 years ago a man jumped 98 stories plummeting into
A choice of cement over burning alive.
I think about the long smashing moment
Of him loving his family never more than he did during that
Descent. A plane plot to destroy him to prove a point.
But I'm not just the pacifist armchair writer you make me out to be.
Skin-ripping years that have followed from all sides of torment.
Terrorism eating the word holy as if they belonged to the samed breath.
I cried American too. I was one of those yellow ribbons who understood the
Magnitude of goodbye. Who didn't wear pain on my car but lived it.
A year later, I watched them come back different soldiers. To us wives.
To families.
10 years later bin Laden is dead and I wonder why
Anguish for that jumping man, a father, hasn't boiled into
Wild celebration.
You point at me indignant to me sitting, writing.
Where's the patriotism, you idiot.
Where's the hate for the man behind the terror.
Utterly useless, you there, to be typing nonsense of peace.
Get a grip. Grab a flag. Dance for the dead.
You've got four letter words for me I just can't
Bring myself to use anymore.
You know for the last 13 years I've plunged
1000 hours probably way more reading, writing, debating
Scholarly seas of
International politics, human motivation,
Group dynamics, political psychology, democratization,
Economic development, near east studies,
Conflict and peace research.
The whole gammet of individual to community to social to
comparative global culture wars.
And from all that intellectual jazz
I've got 2 bachelor degrees to match my 2 masters degrees
Boxed in my basement.
In each I've got something related to this article I read.
And you know I've got a heart like yours.
I can feel emotion. And patriotism.
I'm not a dead poet.
Last Saturday I gave away 50 textbooks and required readings to
The Salvation Army. Six of them were about international terrorism.
But I am not going to pretend to pontificate
Or celebrate.
Extreme religiously rooted ideological revolutionary aims
Coalescing like scattered armed chameleons
Thinly interdependent and rogue like dandelions.
Counterattack, might and force. Fight for what you believe in.
You don't have to beat me up to prove your point, I mean,
Don't you think I get it.
I'm just not joining the ranks anymore.
Never forgetting about that jumping man
And the ensuing counterattack against
The next inevitable attack and all of us
Cave to house gasping "if only there was another way."
I just won't do it anymore no matter what personal bully pulpit
You're condemning me from.
To make me feel like I'm doing less by doing this than
What you do, which is, whatever it is you feel you
Need to do. We're not so different, eh.
So you may be right about the whole thing.
About me writing nonsense. The peace fluff and
The idiot part too. Since now,
I refuse to be so stupid to act so smart.
Millions of Americans rejoiced it said.
He was the start, or the end, but somehow I didn't feel either.
Which side am I on, I wonder when my gut spins round to thinking
About temporal victory and blowback. I almost cried.
Not for bin Laden. For the repetitiousness of killing that
Makes me stop dead long enough to think.
Stop and think before you act. That's what I'm trying
To teach my 4 year old. Not how to pronounce
Consequences but how to learn to live with them.
10 years ago a man jumped 98 stories plummeting into
A choice of cement over burning alive.
I think about the long smashing moment
Of him loving his family never more than he did during that
Descent. A plane plot to destroy him to prove a point.
But I'm not just the pacifist armchair writer you make me out to be.
Skin-ripping years that have followed from all sides of torment.
Terrorism eating the word holy as if they belonged to the samed breath.
I cried American too. I was one of those yellow ribbons who understood the
Magnitude of goodbye. Who didn't wear pain on my car but lived it.
A year later, I watched them come back different soldiers. To us wives.
To families.
10 years later bin Laden is dead and I wonder why
Anguish for that jumping man, a father, hasn't boiled into
Wild celebration.
You point at me indignant to me sitting, writing.
Where's the patriotism, you idiot.
Where's the hate for the man behind the terror.
Utterly useless, you there, to be typing nonsense of peace.
Get a grip. Grab a flag. Dance for the dead.
You've got four letter words for me I just can't
Bring myself to use anymore.
You know for the last 13 years I've plunged
1000 hours probably way more reading, writing, debating
Scholarly seas of
International politics, human motivation,
Group dynamics, political psychology, democratization,
Economic development, near east studies,
Conflict and peace research.
The whole gammet of individual to community to social to
comparative global culture wars.
And from all that intellectual jazz
I've got 2 bachelor degrees to match my 2 masters degrees
Boxed in my basement.
In each I've got something related to this article I read.
And you know I've got a heart like yours.
I can feel emotion. And patriotism.
I'm not a dead poet.
Last Saturday I gave away 50 textbooks and required readings to
The Salvation Army. Six of them were about international terrorism.
But I am not going to pretend to pontificate
Or celebrate.
Extreme religiously rooted ideological revolutionary aims
Coalescing like scattered armed chameleons
Thinly interdependent and rogue like dandelions.
Counterattack, might and force. Fight for what you believe in.
You don't have to beat me up to prove your point, I mean,
Don't you think I get it.
I'm just not joining the ranks anymore.
Never forgetting about that jumping man
And the ensuing counterattack against
The next inevitable attack and all of us
Cave to house gasping "if only there was another way."
I just won't do it anymore no matter what personal bully pulpit
You're condemning me from.
To make me feel like I'm doing less by doing this than
What you do, which is, whatever it is you feel you
Need to do. We're not so different, eh.
So you may be right about the whole thing.
About me writing nonsense. The peace fluff and
The idiot part too. Since now,
I refuse to be so stupid to act so smart.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Soul Well
I awoke in the middle of the night to my daughter, barely awake herself, rubbing so gently with such unknowing tenderness, her sleeping brother's hand who beside her lay. My dreaming heart grew alive to something extraordinary; for over two hours I laid contemplating this; that, inside our heart is a well, and through that well, our soul, and therein still a deeper well to springs of God, an infinite fountain of unteachable love so pure and simple, so barely visible to the naked eye that it is grasped by faith and faith alone. This, I thought over before the sun rose, one long misty moondrop moment when I saw love I cannot explain, a love I did not by my faculty create but instead have been graced to carry like a messenger who bears a fragile gift, one that bursts open with humble eyes and a soul awake.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
3 for $1 Cookies
Originally it was a drive thru quickie just 3 for $1 cookies and a free ice water with tax equals $1.06 McDonald's run. We were only 68 miles or 51 minutes from the nearest refrigerator. At $0.39 per cookie I anticipated satisfaction and pride. We're talking an 11 cent savings.
Then like mini crazy fast food ninja junkies they convinced me we needed two grilled chicken wraps plain, a small fry, apple dippers hold the carmel (quite unhealthy don't you agree?), two small vanilla cones please make them seriously small wow they're like monsterously towering over these sadly weak cones and THEN basically forced me/convinced me I needed a crispy honey mustard chicken wrap okay and a hamburger extra pickles and onions. And an ice water. Please.
After shucking $12.83 on absolute crap I watched my 11 cents go out the pick-up window and wondered if good intentions burn calories.
Then like mini crazy fast food ninja junkies they convinced me we needed two grilled chicken wraps plain, a small fry, apple dippers hold the carmel (quite unhealthy don't you agree?), two small vanilla cones please make them seriously small wow they're like monsterously towering over these sadly weak cones and THEN basically forced me/convinced me I needed a crispy honey mustard chicken wrap okay and a hamburger extra pickles and onions. And an ice water. Please.
After shucking $12.83 on absolute crap I watched my 11 cents go out the pick-up window and wondered if good intentions burn calories.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
My Mother's Day 2011
Breakfast and coffee before
I could open both eyes.
A homemade card. Handwritten words.
Just for me.
Sunday worship as a family.
Songs and prayer.
God's love. A real faith.
Understanding what it means
to be a mother.
Understanding that I do not know what it means
to lose a mother.
Or to be a mother who cannot
beyond her control
become one.
Or to be a mother
without her child near or even,
alive.
Lunch sitting down.
Using real utensils instead of
my own ten.
Eating the last bite
without guilt.
Splurging on a sweet mocha cappuccino.
Meandering through a bookstore.
Remembering what it's like
to meander through a bookstore.
Listening with delight to others speak
on white paper.
Take out in a clean house.
Two kids chasing nothing but
space in a basement.
Who say "I love you" because
I taught them how.
God, giving me those two reasons
to celebrate today. To remember:
celebrate them everyday.
A husband who loves me as
his wife. As their mother.
Who loves me enough to tell me.
I could open both eyes.
A homemade card. Handwritten words.
Just for me.
Sunday worship as a family.
Songs and prayer.
God's love. A real faith.
Understanding what it means
to be a mother.
Understanding that I do not know what it means
to lose a mother.
Or to be a mother who cannot
beyond her control
become one.
Or to be a mother
without her child near or even,
alive.
Lunch sitting down.
Using real utensils instead of
my own ten.
Eating the last bite
without guilt.
Splurging on a sweet mocha cappuccino.
Meandering through a bookstore.
Remembering what it's like
to meander through a bookstore.
Listening with delight to others speak
on white paper.
Take out in a clean house.
Two kids chasing nothing but
space in a basement.
Who say "I love you" because
I taught them how.
God, giving me those two reasons
to celebrate today. To remember:
celebrate them everyday.
A husband who loves me as
his wife. As their mother.
Who loves me enough to tell me.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Ode to Springfield
In Springfield, Illinois there is somewhere, a patch of grass
no bigger than me.
Across the road, a low field beyond a glancing reach.
To anyone, its worth is wind. Memorable as traveling sand.
A midwest grain, no bigger than one ordinary city.
Yet beneath lies remarkable dirt.
Beautiful as Lauterbrunnen. Rich as Ettelbruck.
Container of life and passing shadows.
Entire destinies asked to come and lay and rest awhile.
In two years that small patch gave its all to me.
A soft place to fall. To stand.
To grow its own life and mine by rains of hard tears and by night,
a quiet voice saying home and pointing me exactly where I was.
Saying go and pointing me exactly where I am going.
Inside I'll keep its grain, just one
to remember God's sand and all that I left.
My traveling footprint beneath.
And behind, so much held and spoken
between that small patch and me.
no bigger than me.
Across the road, a low field beyond a glancing reach.
To anyone, its worth is wind. Memorable as traveling sand.
A midwest grain, no bigger than one ordinary city.
Yet beneath lies remarkable dirt.
Beautiful as Lauterbrunnen. Rich as Ettelbruck.
Container of life and passing shadows.
Entire destinies asked to come and lay and rest awhile.
In two years that small patch gave its all to me.
A soft place to fall. To stand.
To grow its own life and mine by rains of hard tears and by night,
a quiet voice saying home and pointing me exactly where I was.
Saying go and pointing me exactly where I am going.
Inside I'll keep its grain, just one
to remember God's sand and all that I left.
My traveling footprint beneath.
And behind, so much held and spoken
between that small patch and me.
it all depends
Inside that photograph
Earth in lights
North Korea black.
A total death.
But in other parts
Stares to stars, and romance
Light from above
And night below.
Earth in lights
North Korea black.
A total death.
But in other parts
Stares to stars, and romance
Light from above
And night below.
Monday, May 2, 2011
After Dinner Family Room
Two thousand battery operated scattered plastic dollars
Every shape and function
Bats and nets and balls of all sizes yet
Daddy's back, his broad warmth
Horsecollar tugs to keep him
Filled to stars and silly laughter
Deep from toes singing
Magic of an after dinner family room
Heavy on Superman spinning
Four funny wheels like he'd last forever except
Drawing down
Her waiting lap
Mesmerized by sight and anxious
Close and not long but just right
Amidst mess to rest
Tired and twinkling, all of them
Sleepy, full as night.
Every shape and function
Bats and nets and balls of all sizes yet
Daddy's back, his broad warmth
Horsecollar tugs to keep him
Filled to stars and silly laughter
Deep from toes singing
Magic of an after dinner family room
Heavy on Superman spinning
Four funny wheels like he'd last forever except
Drawing down
Her waiting lap
Mesmerized by sight and anxious
Close and not long but just right
Amidst mess to rest
Tired and twinkling, all of them
Sleepy, full as night.
Rewriting Through the Pinhole
She said, Your writing is getting better. And I thought, Dang. Why'd you have to go and say that.
I chewed it on Saturday
Not like a compliment presently stated but as a question hurdling me back to that question I've always wondered and now
I'm questioning everything.
It's not her fault that I'm made of glass that I crumple into a ball
By one earnest attempt of -
Look at how far you've come!
From that writing genesis,
My first trembling paperthin skin poem.
I'm too fond of her to rip her up completely.
It's been 30 years for crying out loud.
But in the beginning I shredded her
In newborn ink and have been thinking all this time:
Whoa-ey, wow, That's powerful stuff!
But. Am I really?
My friend's passing comment gave me permission to reconsider
What I've already questioned:
Should I certainly, yes, certainly
Reshred that shredded poem and throw myself a quick
Confetti night celebration of quiet failure to
Rewrite and rewrite, again?
The meaning's there beyond the words.
If only I had someone to invite.
You see, I don't know where to begin to unearth
My buried self, faltering backward back to
A pinhole in the ground where I hid
And laid an unsure girl down low to rest. Shall I find
those painful bones and break them again to tell her that she must
Try again?
Meanwhile on Friday,
I followed a minivan mother literally a soccer mom, her daughter on
My daughter's soccer team following the game.
That is, before I was running behind
Very late and holding everyone down with
An apology stuck to my eyes.
I just made sure not to let my honesty stare straight into theirs,
That painful three word confessional speech of
I'm so sorry.
Instead, I stood in one neutral spot on the sidelines and her,
Standing on my same sideline
Safely thinking we were all the same kind of same sided people.
Yes we are! I cheered for us all, myself included, a rare
Mental exclamation! To be part of something bigger than me.
I was feeling pretty good right where I stood
Pretending I could win by watching.
But after the game she burned rubber ahead, and me,
Trying to catch up to her
Illinois license plate, that one she earned after she
Decided with a bright feather pen upon DMV lines
To wear a moving proclamation on her frontside
And on her backside
To protuberantly e-nun-ci-a-te
Who she is. POETS 4
She states in bold everywhere she goes.
One intimidating minivan eyebrow raised
Better than I, and leaving me to cower behind her whoa-ey wow ability to
Shout herself with an alphabetical combination followed by
4 times something I could never ink blot on my "Hello My Name Is" tag
That I have a tendency to stick to the bottom of my shirt sleeve
So no one can read what I've written.
I'm just the simple mark questioning her statement even though
I wish sometimes I wouldn't
Ask so many questions.
But there in front, Chrysler Town and Country shook her finger
A thousand beautiful miles long.
Say yourself out loud! Yes! Say yourself out loud!
I say why
When I am safer hitched behind a person who can drive exactly what
I cannot.
But I let her go.
Pressed down on my heart and broke.
Rolled to a slow stop and lost her. She, writing through her green, green light.
And me, red to still.
Through my 6th Street glass road
I looked to the side where I no longer stood
To try and find my poem, the girl through the pinhole
Who needs me to pry open my car door
And cheer her back up. Her silence rising from
Way down there. But I was feeling sick.
Not from the motion.
But from stillness.
I fixed my eyes ahead.
And beyond the words I read a sign of courage
To dash my instinct to climb out of me and crawl away from the scene
Because
I am carrying precious cargo I need to get somewhere
And though I don't know what's inside I know that I must remain
To play this game and to cry when I lose
And even if I win.
If you can imagine that.
And maybe I am better now than who I was and
That's what my friend was cheering in my ear
From the sideline of my life.
Go, she pointed, not with her finger but with her heart
Not permitting me but prohibiting me
From vanishing into that paperthin skin side of me
That side of me that says I need to say I'm sorry every time I sputter
Inch by nervous inch ahead toward the next red light up there
My pinhole poem growing smaller from
Flickering green light intersections where I can either
Keep apologizing for every last word I've written
Or just grow a pair and write the next word.
The one that kicks me in the gut and pulls my soul by a string.
And, I meant soccer balls, by the way.
Maybe I'm not a minivan
but okay, I'll do it. State without a mark of question
Okay maybe still with doubt
That I might actually be on the field and no longer on the sideline.
My daughter is my daughter and her daughter is her daughter and there's
Enough poets 4 all of us to love.
She said, Your writing is getting better
To tell me
Regardless if I am POETS 5 or POETS 5 hundred thousand and 5
I can live with my own alpha-numeric combination of uncertainty
To say what I need to say beneath my unsure plate of armor
This one here that I wear without vanity
Not on the frontside of me
Or the backside of me
But italicized with humility
On the 6 point font inside of me
That I must certainly, yes, certainly
Rip her up and
try again.
I chewed it on Saturday
Not like a compliment presently stated but as a question hurdling me back to that question I've always wondered and now
I'm questioning everything.
It's not her fault that I'm made of glass that I crumple into a ball
By one earnest attempt of -
Look at how far you've come!
From that writing genesis,
My first trembling paperthin skin poem.
I'm too fond of her to rip her up completely.
It's been 30 years for crying out loud.
But in the beginning I shredded her
In newborn ink and have been thinking all this time:
Whoa-ey, wow, That's powerful stuff!
But. Am I really?
My friend's passing comment gave me permission to reconsider
What I've already questioned:
Should I certainly, yes, certainly
Reshred that shredded poem and throw myself a quick
Confetti night celebration of quiet failure to
Rewrite and rewrite, again?
The meaning's there beyond the words.
If only I had someone to invite.
You see, I don't know where to begin to unearth
My buried self, faltering backward back to
A pinhole in the ground where I hid
And laid an unsure girl down low to rest. Shall I find
those painful bones and break them again to tell her that she must
Try again?
Meanwhile on Friday,
I followed a minivan mother literally a soccer mom, her daughter on
My daughter's soccer team following the game.
That is, before I was running behind
Very late and holding everyone down with
An apology stuck to my eyes.
I just made sure not to let my honesty stare straight into theirs,
That painful three word confessional speech of
I'm so sorry.
Instead, I stood in one neutral spot on the sidelines and her,
Standing on my same sideline
Safely thinking we were all the same kind of same sided people.
Yes we are! I cheered for us all, myself included, a rare
Mental exclamation! To be part of something bigger than me.
I was feeling pretty good right where I stood
Pretending I could win by watching.
But after the game she burned rubber ahead, and me,
Trying to catch up to her
Illinois license plate, that one she earned after she
Decided with a bright feather pen upon DMV lines
To wear a moving proclamation on her frontside
And on her backside
To protuberantly e-nun-ci-a-te
Who she is. POETS 4
She states in bold everywhere she goes.
One intimidating minivan eyebrow raised
Better than I, and leaving me to cower behind her whoa-ey wow ability to
Shout herself with an alphabetical combination followed by
4 times something I could never ink blot on my "Hello My Name Is" tag
That I have a tendency to stick to the bottom of my shirt sleeve
So no one can read what I've written.
I'm just the simple mark questioning her statement even though
I wish sometimes I wouldn't
Ask so many questions.
But there in front, Chrysler Town and Country shook her finger
A thousand beautiful miles long.
Say yourself out loud! Yes! Say yourself out loud!
I say why
When I am safer hitched behind a person who can drive exactly what
I cannot.
But I let her go.
Pressed down on my heart and broke.
Rolled to a slow stop and lost her. She, writing through her green, green light.
And me, red to still.
Through my 6th Street glass road
I looked to the side where I no longer stood
To try and find my poem, the girl through the pinhole
Who needs me to pry open my car door
And cheer her back up. Her silence rising from
Way down there. But I was feeling sick.
Not from the motion.
But from stillness.
I fixed my eyes ahead.
And beyond the words I read a sign of courage
To dash my instinct to climb out of me and crawl away from the scene
Because
I am carrying precious cargo I need to get somewhere
And though I don't know what's inside I know that I must remain
To play this game and to cry when I lose
And even if I win.
If you can imagine that.
And maybe I am better now than who I was and
That's what my friend was cheering in my ear
From the sideline of my life.
Go, she pointed, not with her finger but with her heart
Not permitting me but prohibiting me
From vanishing into that paperthin skin side of me
That side of me that says I need to say I'm sorry every time I sputter
Inch by nervous inch ahead toward the next red light up there
My pinhole poem growing smaller from
Flickering green light intersections where I can either
Keep apologizing for every last word I've written
Or just grow a pair and write the next word.
The one that kicks me in the gut and pulls my soul by a string.
And, I meant soccer balls, by the way.
Maybe I'm not a minivan
but okay, I'll do it. State without a mark of question
Okay maybe still with doubt
That I might actually be on the field and no longer on the sideline.
My daughter is my daughter and her daughter is her daughter and there's
Enough poets 4 all of us to love.
She said, Your writing is getting better
To tell me
Regardless if I am POETS 5 or POETS 5 hundred thousand and 5
I can live with my own alpha-numeric combination of uncertainty
To say what I need to say beneath my unsure plate of armor
This one here that I wear without vanity
Not on the frontside of me
Or the backside of me
But italicized with humility
On the 6 point font inside of me
That I must certainly, yes, certainly
Rip her up and
try again.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
dry river
Rocks effacing through riverbed sand.
Weaving down a desert stretch.
Dry as 10,000 miles of land.
Parched, waiting for prayer to fall
A memory of water cupped inside hands
That centuries before baptized them.
Weaving down a desert stretch.
Dry as 10,000 miles of land.
Parched, waiting for prayer to fall
A memory of water cupped inside hands
That centuries before baptized them.
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