We are here
reaching out to one another
we care for our young and elders
bring sugar and water
when danger lurks
we signal distress
send scents through the air or electrical pulses
crackle cry out
to protect our kind
we fight the leaf eating deer
with chemicals
yet as human hands touch
we bring medicine with care
we are shelter shade giving
life living
oxygen making
listen to us
Trees
I see a tall ship inside a ropy anchor in navy blue on Daddy’s right arm. Outside, he wears only a white tee shirt and factory gray work pants, so I can get a good look of his bare arms with the sleeves rolled up. His skin is fair, freckled like mine, turns pink then red in the scorching, Kentucky summer sun. The ship is dark, dark blue, sailing to the West when I face him. I ask about why and where it came from. It’s fully-rigged with three masts, square sails fully deployed. I don’t understand the words, but I feel the waves. Means the sailor had been around Cape Horn, rough, stormy waters at the southern tip of South America. I didn’t know where on the globe he had been. I fret about pain when he says they used a needle in Singapore. Lots of guys in the Navy did it. He seems shy when I stare. It won’t wash off he warns. I touch it, rub, see if it smears like a fountain pen’s ink on paper. It’s one of those stupid things you do when you’re young and don’t know better I didn’t believe him. I lick my finger and try to erase the mast, the sails, but they won’t budge. “Make it float, Daddy!” He grins, raises his arm, slim but firm from playing softball on weekends for the Velvet Milk company with work buddies. His bicep bulges, relaxes, bulges, and I watch the ship rise and fall, the skin ocean tugging the hull to the right, lifting the bow to the left. I picture Daddy on its tiny deck, racing past the White Cliffs of Dover. He tells me stories about slicing through the Straits of Gibraltar, in love with the Seven Wonders of the World, my 1950’s amalgam of Errol Flynn movies and Popeye. Daddy, the sailor, will never be a fading black and white photo tucked neatly into black triangles glued in his crumbling scrapbook for me, but forever a grinning sixteen-year-old in Navy whites, third of ten children, who lied about his age to join, floating to see the world, his stiff, blond crew cut standing straight up, saluting the wind, his gold-capped tooth glinting promise in the afternoon sun of some mysterious land.
contrary to popular belief
i do not have the final say
i am not all-knowing
simply because i am in the room
i refuse to be the voice of many
because you’re too lazy to do your homework
i too am sick and tired
of being sick and tired
Listening to his favorite song,
he liked the lyrics, and always sang
along. Afterwards he’d ask
the most insightful questions.
“Why would anyone name
a magic dragon Pup?”
and, “Don’t you think it’s silly
to put wax on the ceiling?
Where is Honah Lee anyway?”
Then he said. “I’d like to go there
some day.” As I listened again,
a single line struck me hard:
“A dragon lives forever,
but not so little boys.”
I broke down at the prophetic
reality of it all. If magic dragons
were real, I’d ask for a single
wish.
I don’t remember heat from my childhood.
I grew up in the mountains where trees
were plentiful, and the creek was cool.
Window screens that buzzed with insects
when you turned on the bathroom light.
A porch swing to create a breeze, the screen
door slamming behind me as I sought refuge
from the stillness of the air inside.
I don’t remember heat being uncomfortable
enough to interfere with daily activities until
I moved to a place that had air conditioning
when I was a sophomore in college.
Now as I find myself gravitating to in door
projects to avoid the humidity, I am acutely
aware of my white ancestral entitlement,
thinking of millions of enslaved Africans
toiling under the unrelenting rays of southern
sun with no hope of a cool resting shade or
a refreshing splash of quenching well water.
I am at once immersed in my weakness.
KW
6/15/2022
