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.
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