Posts for June 21, 2021 (page 9)

(Some minutes left in a day to call to mind the stories I’ve not yet written.) 

This man in the photograph, reading to me from The Child’s World
The nursery rhymes over and over. The book’s pages were frayed
With the retelling. I passed it on in October when it and its companions
Were too much to move cross-country. Another family will find
Our stories, our frayed edges of delight.                                                                 
                                                                          And he will still be reading
To me, this man younger than I am now.

When I’m wounded out of my own stupidity,
I eventually heal,
When I’m injured because of another,
That too heals with time,
When I get a new scar,
It slowly fades as it heals,
Soon it is forgotten,
As is the wounds and injuries of the past,
But the words spoken,
The lies told,
And the experiences lived through,
Never heal,
And are never forgotten

Tomorrow’s dinner simmers
on this day, that I both don’t any longer
– and do –
celebrate. A semi-homemade
cherry cake still needs assembly;
there’s a want to mix my
ethnic metaphors & bake it
in a Dala-horse shaped pan; cross
my father’s food with my
mother’s almost-land.
Cherries
for the Solstice, sunshine from
the freezer. I’ve spent this year
leaning into family long-lost, savouring
each new kitchen delight. There are
so many
cookbook pages yet to come. Am I
still trying to sing
my father’s and grandmother’s souls
home? Traditions
have a starting point, a place where they are
not yet, but being born. This labor
is delicious. Yes. Paprikash tomorrow;
cherry-cake for the Solstice.

provoking aggression
the face of a dead horse
an epinephrine induced sword 
fear Crucial to survival
The dragon held gold
it means nothing
Indignation covers the battered
Distain, immaterial, paralyzed, jilted
Keep your tongue steady
and mouth closed
Breath filled with guilt has no place here
It’s a symptom of not being heard
Direct the sound elsewhere
There is no guilt in this au courant affection
Absent and still you turn to dust
Brother do you see the pacific unstirring?