that strange
woman
staring at
marigolds
and the big
sky
still as stone… or a
river
mindless… must be
….me
…down the
street
homes Jack ….mumbling to
himself…
wanders the
morning
I’m dressed in the demeanor of
black robes
noon sun blinds
warms
people are dots, float
up from chairs, swarm somewhere
parents step aside
in a green field
my heart, a roadmap
In the dark shade of an early day
the silhouette of the rusty windmill stands tall
its lonely creaking song clanking lazily
and the thirsty barbed wire fence stands sentinel nearby
A shade rich tower of former glory
cast in shades of early dawn darkness
the rusty tangle of barbed wire hungry for its kiss
camouflaged by the back drop of tranquility
Here the dawn is layers of purple
and the old farm leans with age
one owl sings its last lullaby to the night
all its old ghosts settling in for the day
It is a tired place, made of cobwebs and whispers
the windmill sings its rusty song
its ghosts sigh across its forgotten fields
in the rich darkness of an early dawn
Today is the last day of June,
but I don’t know if it’s the end of
summer’s beginning.
I, like many others, divide my time between
beginnings and ends,
firsts and lasts.
I anticipate the start
and I can dread, long for, or hardly notice the end.
What signals an ordinary end, I wonder?
Why do I miss endless endings?
Why do I yearn for beginnings?
What lasting impression do I seek when I catalog
my “firsts” and “lasts”?
Why do I (we) place such significance on these two experiences?
We celebrate births.
We mourn deaths.
We throw a few celebrations in the middle.
What is it about the ends (firsts and lasts) that mark the highlights of our lives?
We chart courses.
We meet ends.
We fold one into the other and repeat the process.
How much longer will this last?
My guess is eternity.
I am a creature of habit.
I can only begin to consider how this will end.
“SEÑOR MANUEL!”
with a Matador’s flourish,
relished
in gleeful, alcoholic amusement,
JACK
sitting
in a 20 year old rusting hover-round—
yellow, SCREAMING Hawaiian shirt,
muttering about his FORD MUSTANG.
He was drinking gin and tonic
minus
the flavor of the pineapple juice—
which I would entitle:
An Improper Tonic For A Gentleman
Of A Most Diligent Method.
Namely…..
T
H
I
I
I
I
I
I
S
S
S
S much GIN, and
(that) much TONIC, and
We were always about a there-ness in
our conversations about HOME, and
WHAT WE’D KNOWN.
He kept confusing my parents’ city for
The Costa del Sol.
It wasn’t the first time, but he’d clearly
BEEN THERE.
MRS. VICUNA has stage IV, coming
through the door carrying
a tumbler of KY straight, WONDERING
aloud to me how
a pain pill could work
so well, and last 10 hours, and numb her
face.
Like a SOUTHERN GIRL, she says,
“The doctor is so young,
GOOD LOOKING,
KIND,
I KNOW I’ll be
alright
in
his
hands—“
(all is calm, all is bright, the crisp
memory
of snowy blessings
are hers tonight.)
Slow motion, MY shattered china reassembles in
a slow tracking, backwards cinema shot—
refusing to persist and scatter.
I see nothing but injury caught stepping into time.
God save my neighbors, they’re just like me.
“In a small shed at the top of a 100-foot-tall steel tower deep in the New Mexico desert, Donald Hornig sat next to the world’s first atomic bomb in the late evening of July 15, 1945, reading a book of humorous essays.”
From Hornig’s obituary: New York Times, Jan. 26 2012
One: Donald Hornig
In Alamogordo, they say, the sun came up twice that day. So much like a God
who threatens glory and punishment. It was the most beautiful show
I’d ever seen. The hot start of a star, then a white bloom. The sand
broke into tiny blades of light green radioactive glass. Some
believed the monster spark would ignite the stratosphere,
but the promise was so much stronger than our fear.
The explosion was like a birth, everything
with the click of a button. Instead,
in lightning, I baby-sat
the plutonium. I read
aloud, while it slept,
and, then, I put
down my book
and connected
the switches.
Two: Lili Hornig
Working in secret in Los Alamos
I, too, was a plutonium
scientist. Brilliant
& cocky, the men’s schemes
were considered first & desire
to end the war
was overwhelming. Like a campfire
in the wilderness my conscience
flickered; with others I
recommended a live spectacle
of the bomb, leaders
of nations would watch
& surely lay down
weapons after witnessing
such power, destruction,
military dominance. It
was never under serious
consideration. We all carry
some guilt but big boys
like big toys.
Three: Annie Hawkes
In 1950, Annie Hawkes, a seven-year-old in Alamogordo, would gather up green glass pebbles formed by nuclear tests and take them home in boxes to hide under her bed because they glowed in the dark. She and two of her sisters developed numerous cancers, as well as bone and thyroid diseases. Hawkes says 95 percent of the girls she went to school with in Alamogordo eventually contracted some form of cancer or thyroid disease.
in New Mexico
radioactive grasses
food for cows in spring
During online school shopping
with my youngest of three daughters
the “great divide” between trendy
and seriously, Mom? debuts
Of style she knows everything
I know nothing
She likes nothing
I like and vice versa
Merriam-Webster defines a “great divide”
as “a significant point of division”
I’ll say!
The big G and D, Great Divide
aka Continental Divide occurring
largely through the Rockies with
several adjacent basins separates
watersheds in the United States running
in opposite directions–Pacific and Atlantic
It’s seriously cool to relate
our mother / daughter relationship
to geology, geography, & hydrology
Right?
I mean, I agree with Merriam-Webster
During prep for middle school
our “significant point of division” is like
stage curtains concluding a scene or act
I bite nails and watch which mood
shall burst forth in the next act
as transitioning develops and
her rite of passage through which we
traverse peaks and depressions
trying to go with the flow though
running to opposite ends of the house
It’s okay
(a gentle reminder to my mom self)
It’s a natural course
After all we are
the end of one side of the divide and
the beginning of the other
(a contranym, no?)
mom and daughter knitting sides twain
As dawn approaches the birds sing their songs,
Their beautiful hymns sounding through every forest,
Every suburb,
As dawn approaches woodland creatures awaken to face a new day,
While others prepare to sleep out the light,
As dawn approaches the sky becomes a canvas of violet and scarlet,
Before sinking to a familiar blue,
As dawn approaches dreams are cut short by the sounds of cars and trucks,
Or by the ear shattering sounds of a rooster,
As dawn approaches we all experience the world in out own way,
We think of days past and the future ahead,
We hold on tight to our mementoes,
For the memories of loved ones give us strength,
They give us the strength to carve a future we are proud of,
Strength to make the impossible seem meaningless,
They give us the strength to weather any storm,
And the strength to endure,
Until the next dawn approaches
I spent the beginning of my 30’s watching my mother
Dispense nervous energy like the crude oil of her mid 50’s.
I crow over her, mesmerized.
A blank child watching my favorite wind up toy tire itself.
I am careful with what’s left of her.
I am her personal cheerleader.
My team shirt says, “Sit down and let me help you.”
I watch her green beans sweat and her desserts set up.
Then I ask, “What else? What now? See shirt.”
Something behind her eyes crumbles
When she hears the news that her sisters aren’t coming.
She fingers the fake flower bouquets resevered for the grave cleaning,
Readjusts, adds more color, and tilts her head for my approval.
I know this game as soon as she creates it.
It’s called, ‘If we add the right flowers then it will be okay
for a minute that everything is different
and no one is showing up for Memorial day.’
We’re like the blown up photo of a family that used to exist,
Made into cardboard cutouts and propped up like scarecrows.
I don’t know when the set up became my mother’s reluctant duty.
Her job, on top of all others,
to set the scene of ‘family’ with such scarce resources.
She sits down for less than an hour at 11:30 p.m.
I hear the clink of her coffee spoon jingling “good morning” at 4:45 a.m.
Five hours is not enough sleep to rest.
But enough, she says, for a tired nurse,
still a full decade away from retirement.
I don’t get up.
5 a.m. is the closest thing to peace I watch her give herself.
Instead, I sit in the dark and write this poem,
and listen to her spoon ring against her cup like a secret bird song
only I can decipher.
Like a bell it sings to me:
“Hurry, time is precious and we’ve run out of all that was left to waste.”
Your fragile body hovers
weightless
sucking nectar
from the lily bloom
bursting
pregnant pollen
With your type A personality
no none sense, no stops
on a mission to distribute
sustenance
Pressed
by time
you race to finish
ere your metabolism
empties you
Torpor becomes
tool for survival
Delicate
and tenacious
migrating forward.
