My Dog Reaches In
-a haiku
My dog reaches in
for pets and I oblige him.
It comforts us both.
after Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis
to create better
lives and communities
to build a world
together we need
courage to imagine
humans and planet
as sacred
goodness and abundance
what if you and I
are the ones
we have been waiting for
all along?
Staring at Sunflowers, notice the thick brushstrokes, animated yellow some sagging, decaying, the puffiness of the florets I’m soaking in every detail, trying to understand trying to put myself in his shoes look through his eyes
A woman steps in front of me.
She pulls out her phone snaps a picture glances at the photo on her phone walks away.
The yellow I was staring at is replaced by red.
I seethe, looking around the throng of people gathered at every painting snapping pictures on their phone living by phone picture photos they’re never going to look at again y’all can literally google these paintings you don’t need a picture!
I feel a hand grasp my hand I’m still standing in front of Sunflowers my partner smiles at me, knowingly
I inhale slow embrace the gratitude Van Gogh wanted me to feel move onto the next painting
I walk outside, curl toes in grass,
wait for my muse. Right away, a rooster
cock-a-doodle-doos. A rooster?
So many have chickens these days—
Yesterday, a chicken pecked at
my grandchild’s cinnamon crumpet
from our tiny table in an English garden
tea room. He clung to me: I’m scared!
But this morning, from far away,
these sounds are not too frightful—
and, like the news, I’ll keep all
at bay again today. Although
those cock-a-doodle-doos do grow
closer. Soon we will all not be tall
enough or our ancestors not birthrighted
enough, and, oh dear us—
us with all our rainbows of zinnias.
The Blue Sweater by Marianne Peel
Two days before her birthday
I make my annual pilgrimage to Sears Department Store.
There I will find a cardigan for my grandmother, for my Nana.
A soft pastel of a garment. Cable-stitched. Pearl buttons.
I reject the coffee brown, the navy blue,
the show-no-stains black.
A hard-scrapple Lithuanian, she pressed
a heavy iron to men’s button-down shirts
in the alley factory in Shanandoah.
An Appalachian sweat shop
where she stripped down
to a narrow-strapped sundress
blooming with Sweet Williams.
But in the evening, she sought
the comfort of a sweater. Something
to keep the December parlor warmer.
Hydrangea blue.
Like her eyes.
The sweater unraveled
between her ninety-fifth and ninety-six birthday.
Each thread un-darnable.
She could always repair anything.
Said crocheting helped her hands.
Kept her arthritis over there, across the room.
That constant, uninvited guest.
The unraveling began at the cuff,
where butter from the pierogies and onions
had dribbled down her wrist. That butter ‘
had oozed in between the mile-a-minute stitch, ‘
her personal trademark.
The shoulder, too, came unspooled.
That spot where her great-granddaughter
snuggled in and spit up the last of the milk.
The yarn on her shoulder still pressed flat
from the baby’s nuzzle.
The sweater molted in spring.
‘The spaces between the stitches
filled with powdered sugar from the kolachi.
She reminded me she could always satisfy her sweet tooth
by just licking the dust of sugar off her collar.
On the forearms of the sweater,
the grease from Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips.
Mind you, she never ordered a piece of fish, or even fries.
She’d whisper to the pimply-faced boys
scooping cod out of the fryer
that all she really wanted was the batter
that crumpled from the cod.
He’d shovel a whole plate of fish batter crumbs
onto a platter, hand it to her saying,
No charge, Ma’am.
And he would wink at her.
On her left side, where her breast used to be,
a splotch of Estee Lauder White Linen perfume.
Just for fancy occasions, she’d say. Not for
going down to the auction in Frackville.
Not for playing cards for pennies.
But for church, yes indeed.
The fragrance co-mingled with her rosary.
She told me the Virgin Mary herself ‘
came to her once, in a dream. Told her
she never fancied the musty aroma of incense.
That she wanted to borrow my Nana’s White Linen
to blot out the stench of the holy incense.
And on the collar of her sweater, ‘
Geranium Red Royal lipstick. A kiss of a color.
Always applied in the kitchen,
in a mirror etched with pansies.
When she no longer remembered my name,
I unraveled that whole sweater.
Wound the yarn into a sturdy ball.
Crocheted a blanket that holds her warmth
on my lap, around my shoulders.
An immortal, infinite embrace.
It sobers me to think
about how we in the present are still
closer in history
to the Civil Rights Movement
than the Civil Rights Movement is
to the Civil War;
how echoes of the problems
we nearly tore the nation apart over
keep clawing back into today,
how racial issues
are just one of the many arenas
we have to revisit
over and over in the battle
for basic human dignity.
But there are
a lot of people in this nation and they
accrue impossible amounts of inertia;
the world
is an incredibly difficult thing to change,
especially for the better,
and that’s why
I try to prioritize the spheres of influence
I’m gifted to touch.
I hope
after all work done on myself
that the people I meet
can always come away thinking,
That’s what a good man should be.
That’s who a good Christian is supposed to be,
because people need to see these things.
We need to prove
and prove again
that we do still exist.
Beyond that,
change needs time,
which is not the easiest answer to offer
after so much time has already passed.
Don’t despair, though,
because the polarities have been shifting in me
and if one person can start getting better
about lasting positive change,
so can another
or even a million.
it was exhausting.
overwhelming heat and crowds.
would do it again.
the river, not so blue yet comforting
seemed to call my name
I drove to investigate
curious as to what the Universe would share
or not divulge
maybe I simply needed the walk
a grassy path, shared with butterflies
bees
my mind, flustered due to an early morning
news I cannot control, the world and its quaking
I disdain my incessant need to research, explore the darkness
what is beyond my control
listening
I settled upon a message
a realization
what I most likely already knew
but similar to church, I had to go to receive
Now That the End Is Near
The once bare walls, now adorned with signs of my spirit,
Will be bare once again
Four years held here, and now the end is near.
Every laundry pile, every stack of books,
Each crystal placed with care
Will fall into silence.
Now the end is near.
Delicate altars built to honor and hold
Will dissolve,
Making room for a new season’s bloom.
Now the end is near.
The dim-lit living room,
Where Matt Maeson’s verses danced
And Taylor Swift’s voice filled the air,
Where we twirled around to TV Girl
Will stiffen into stillness.
Now the end is near.
The bedroom, where we once worshipped each other,
Where life was created
Now folds inward
With each box packed full of memory.
A soul remembered,
A self once shattered.
But here I healed.
Here, I was reborn.
Now the end is near.
And yet
My new sunroom, a 70s fever dream,
Breathes the colors of beginning.
Here, gratitude floods in
For the space that once cradled me
When I could barely hold myself.
Now the beginning is here.
s t i c k a n d s t o n e p a i n t e d o l i v e l a v e n d e r a n d
e g
n o
o l
b d
outlasting horizon outliving all who gaze upon the bones of the earth from below or above
but you know this
and you smile anyways
sitting with feet touching cliff’s edge
a story, or is it a map?
held in your lap
as you press into clay
practised and firm lines
a design that unfolds
as the sun sets
Artwork: “Cliff painting”. Robert Arnold. Limited Edition Serigraph print 131/600.
