[Yellow iris]
Yellow iris,
bearded lady
sticking out her tongue—
Her voice, her walk, her gaze,
her whole way of being for chrissake,
is wrapped in velvet.
Every movement, every word,
soft and rich.
So alluring is her presence
that you almost can’t stop yourself
from reaching out to touch it.
How do you touch someone’s presence?
The physics of it aren’t clear,
but if you were to accomplish it,
you would come into contact
with the texture of grace
and it would be all you could do
to not sink your soft body
into her depths and roll around.
It would be embarrassing, of course.
You would do it anyway.
Feel free to suggest a title!
Some days it is like a circus
without the swirl of a carousel
as I listen to the news. Other days
it is a funeral tears spilling onto the ground
wiping away the blood covering city streets.
I try to understand the hate and inequity
that permeates the pores of the nation.
It is if they forget the flight of the swallow
migrating south in autumn,
the bloom of the mayapple in early spring.
Don’t they remember wild horses
walking the sands along the ocean’s edge,
the way a mother cuddles and warms her newborn baby
in the middle of the night.
When it overwhelms,
turn off the news.
Be the artist spilling paint across the canvas with gentle strokes
to tell the story.
Be the writer blowing words to corners of the earth creating peace
with the language of sacred space.
Dance across the clouds dripping grace like freshwater pearls,
a pirouette waving a wand of lavender.
* This a tanka prose form.
A prose section is followed by a five-line tanka.
Traditionally the tanka is in a 5-7-5-7-7 sequence
and the two parts need to refer to each other.
Spurred by a young boy’s reckless curiosity,
my son — as in a nightmare — rushed toward danger.
I leapt, struck dumb with fear, and without a word,
I slapped him — straight across his smile.
My palm sank softly
into still-wet clay.
And every holy child,
inside each expecting woman,
flinched like a startled fish
and stood still.
Translated by Rosalia Ignatova
Red-checkered cloth flappin’
in the gust waves the family over
as surely as Gaga’s calls for Will-ard.
Papa was a Church of God minister,
but Gaga was his Archangel.
His guardian at the gate during his sweet
hour of prayer, his darling bride,
and his comforter in times of need.
Even through times of desperation
her food was her love.
She would be cooking before church,
after church, and sometimes during
(although we weren’t far from the house.)
Her aprons were functional rather than fashion,
her hair– permed, practical, and short–
never in the food!
She seldom wrote down her recipes,
or if she did, there was just a little something missing
not maliciously but naturally–
it’s not like she needed to measure
anything.
She alone prepared the feast
and she could turn this meal out in her sleep.
Her cookin was a dance I loved to watch–
at least until I was expelled by
that oven of a kitchen in August.
Today’s picnics are brought by
KFC or gas station chicken strips.
Gaga would never approve of the Apple
Market usurping her reign.
Nobody ate until Papa said grace
though, but then the picnic began.
Our reverence never waivered for the food.
The scald on her heaping piles of fried chicken
with extra drumsticks. The rivers of Land o’ lakes
butter pooling in the valleys of tall mashed potato
mountains– two bowls– one for us and one for my dad
(although sometimes his were fried
and served in the cast iron.)
Two kinds of tomatoes also: fried green that everyone
had already sampled- despite Gaga’s fussin
and thick sliced Heirloom. Corn on the cob,
green beans, watermelon, and cucumbers
straight from the garden– the last brinin’
in vinegar and sugar to cut the richness of the food–
and, finally, corn bread muffins.
At the “Amen,” nothing went to waste,
and, for Gaga, we are eternally thankful.
A summer’s day in 1957
Our backyard where it grew
The mint, too, which we chewed
The wall supporting the yard and street behind
The garage and the space behind where we climbed
The fence next to Joe’s yard
Nonna picking the basil for cooking
Tomato plants struggling while Joe’s flourished
The swing set until we grew too tall
The peach tree with no fruit
Wasps’ nest on the garage gutters
Half the yard in concrete and the little fence to separate the garden
Whiffleball games in the yard
A scoreboard I made on the garage wall
Brian as catcher with his hat turned backwards
The whole yard in concrete and the chalked batter’s box
Pretending the upstairs porch was the broadcast booth
The upstairs porch with always threatens to fall in dreams
The zinnias Mom planted, leaves grainy to the touch
Nonno listening to the ballgame, transistor to his ear
The picnic table which became a boat a spaceship or anything we wanted.
Emptying the garage with all the stuff to play with
Nonna yelling in Italian to put all the stuff back
The back porch my Uncle Dewey redid in concrete
Nonna’s two back door, one which never locks in dreams
The night-blooming cirrus which came indoors to bloom
The swimming pool too small to swim in
Me on a tricycle in a black-and-white photo
Me 70 years on
remembering.
