As of Yet Untitled
Part 1
So pleasantly surprised to find outside darkened skies a steadily cool breeze the Red or possibly Shumard Oak erupting in applause
The Pin Oak sounding like sand as it curls down a spiral wooden slide
Tiger Lilies biting the borders of 442- looking down Cotton’s drive I see- what used to be the home of two Great Horned Owls in a massive tree trunk stopped mid fall and lopped- like Pisa for sure, now likely a Racoon family’s respite from the storm drain when comes the rain
Sipping the air that changes rapidly to a stab with the sun, a dampened dandelion tea of grand trees, Honey Locust, Ginko, Cedar, Holly, Maple, Cherry
House Sparrows and Robins and ambulance singing, I cling to the dark with my toes hunkered beneath a shock of hair and a brown hat brim decorated with Mexican embroidery
A couple walks by with their dogs
as the breeze moves again, carrying them upstream-a touch like cold river water
He is repeating “An hour…” “An hour…” “An hour…” “An hour…” and she is answering “Yeah” “Yeah” “Yeah” “Yeah”
My next inhale contains the flavor of my honeyed coffee mingled through the nose of distant flowers-
The great concrete slab step Galumps as I shift my feet and the passing cars answer with a similar Galump, a more metal and rubber Galump, the tires shifting the manhole cover
In the wire stream everyone’s trauma seems to have unsettled something
but so far I’m not feeling mine
albeit a bit more obsessive worry, tight neck, as I think about planning a trip to L.A.
knowing that I will see my brother, or try to, if I can find him, if he’s still alive. I feel that he is though he has hinted that it shouldn’t surprise me. That I should carry on, that he doesn’t want me to care. I haven’t seen my Father for over a year-he keeps posting signs in the stream
Good Riddance Immigrants that I feel come from a deep sense of unacknowledged racism. The same coiled poison which alienated and perhaps killed my mother -though they may tell me cancer doesn’t work like that I’m not too sure that they know how cancer works-
and here I am the same skin color, the same brown eyes, the same thick dark eyebrows, the same nose, only a horse broke hers
and when the doctor went to fix it, everyone was relieved they fixed it not to how it was, but how they all wanted it to be
my mother included
Yes, she was tired of being called a witch she said, even though that was probably, at least some of the time, more due to her eerie clairvoyance. But yes, she did look like Elphaba and since our dreams and ideas seem to me to be as freely shared as the wind on the trees, perhaps Gregory McGuire felt his story whispered in the existence of my Mother, for she was as hated, feared and disrespected-a trifecta of an old ancient hatred in the hearts of society’s moors -A woman who wouldn’t stay in her place, a witch, a Spanish beauty who defied gender in these United States
The couple walks by again, carrying coffee this time. “Five Hours” she’s saying, “Five Hours”
The rain stick Pin Oak sweeps them gracefully from the stage
