Category: Change

Some Things I Remember

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There are things you tell me before you die. Hurricane fears, the way rain scares you, bad dreams. You regret giving up your apartment. You miss seeing dolphins from your window on the bay. The view in assisted living is more limited.

But you have memories. Paris, London, Istanbul, Beijing. You toured the Galapagos. A birthday treat from Richard. Doesn’t he need you in the apartment? Sadly no, I say.

Some things survive. You remember a sweet sixteen necklace from your father. The jewelry that was your mother’s. Richard’s mobiles and guitars. Mexican crockery. Still, some things you don’t recall.

Quince Blossoms on Bare Wood

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Quince flowers on a bare stick of a tree,
blooming in the dead of winter.
Coral colored buds against brown bark,
two elements, earth and water.

The blue aired sky, the fire orange sun. 
Air and sky and weft and warp.
The dogs sense a reckoning.
They raise their ears in a unified front with the four elements.

They yowl into song like actors in a musical.
At times like these, when winter seems eternal, when spirits flag,
when fear threatens to extinguish the elements of life,
we need a rousing score. A yellow brick road. A little dog, too.

Dinosaurs

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The ankylosaurus strapped on his helmet and hopped on his bike. His tail swung from side to side, balancing him. He was about to become a fossil, though he had no idea that the asteroid would strike that afternoon. No one did. They were all worried about T-Rex. Terrified, in fact. Fear, uncertainty and doubt ruled.

Before Rex, it was something else. And something else. Something else to distract them. They reacted. They dodged to the left, to the right. They ducked and wove. Eventually, distractions took their toll.

Ankylosaurus felt himself wobble. He steered hard to the center. 

Trees Weeping On a Gray Day

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Swirling specters scatter 
cinnamon maple leaves,
whirling dervishes, they dance in autumn 
snow. Wind breathes
life, then stops.

I would stop but
the dogs pull through
slick pools of layered leaf litter, 
a spill of wet red
color seeps into wine dark puddles left from 
last night’s rain.

Just hours ago,
a gray day 
a hint of sun at ten, and blue.
But now it’s settled into quiet light,
an end of year contemplative light.

A wise light that gives 
the year a voice,
gives the day a meaning,
illuminates falling leaves;
a soft blanket over bright, cold truth.

They Carry the Burden

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Let’s hear it for a different kind of war hero. Tim O’Brien tells war like it is through characters like Rat Kiley, who saves a buddy one day and another day shoots himself a ticket home through the foot. You know that book, The Things They Carried. The hero carries many things into and out of war. A photo to inspire, to torture, to raise false hopes. A first aid kit for when a grenade blows a buddy sky high. An army manual to list the protocols that caution against feeling. Read that book, or reread it. For the heroes.

Doomsday Clock

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Sun and rain ravage her wind tossed hair,
jet black strands smooth as onyx glass.
Silken threads like kitten's fur, 
new as morning dew on grass. 

A child, yet grown, eyes intent, 
round with wonder, bright with fire. 
Her night brings monsters, malcontents 
wreaking havoc in dreamland's mire.

Ruled by demons dangerous dark,
audacious lies we can do without.
Perdition's putrid stench arises 
ignoring famine, flood and drought.

An omen for tomorrow? 
Resist the slippery slope. 
Stand together against oblivion, 
build barricades of hope.

The future waits. We can save one another.
Honor the Earth for she is our mother.

Labyrinth

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A locked away monster,
bloody
quiet,
has escaped from the king's central labyrinth.

In the palace drawing room, the cultured crowd,
unaware,
exclaims learnedly regarding a jacket's weave, a jeweled neckline, a nice progression on the piano.

Hoi polloi sneak a peek,
stand in awe, in silence,
until their outside skins harden; turn to pale, plastic cellophane.
They wear tight smiles like lady's spandex girdles.

In voices that strain to be heard
they shriek,
“Let me in; let me be.”

Guards secure
the entrance to the drawing room. Posted on the door: 
Screaming, Crying, Pounding Prohibited.
Inside stand painted silk screens, embroidered room dividers, all crafted at the finest,
most secretive institutions.

Screens to sublimate,
to destroy the mundane and make it sublime,
An industry to craft silk purses from sow's ears.
The sows left bleeding, scatter
pieces of themselves along the path;
find a way away from the maze.

A Mother’s Quandary

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My only daughter, a kind one her. Didn’t she bake a cake, ripe with almond scent, to bring her grandmother? To visit my mother is arduous, more than one day’s journey. Should I caution her? Could my daughter understand if I warned her about the treacherous nature of the beast we women become by the light of the moon? And as fate would have it, the moon is full tonight. 

I must trust my precious girl. I tell her, “Stay on the path, avoid strangers, clean yourself in the river along the way if you must. My love to Grandma.”

A Baby is More Than a Symbol

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Pinky cheeks, a rooting mouth against Hester’s full breast, the newborn was greedy. Driven by her wants, she took what she needed. She was utterly satisfied.

Her twin brother squirmed in their father’s arms. “He’s strong, look at those little fists.” Eric passed him to his mother.

Eric gazed at his suckling son, then at his daughter.

Hester’s eyes teared up.

“We’re ready now,” Eric said. Thirty, not the nineteen they’d been when God had spared them and took away their sin. 

The mother’s emotions were more complicated. While he had gone to war, she had made her own peace.

Into Thin Air

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“Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down.” Kobi Yamada.

You took flight to a new way of being. You leapt without a thought. The results were inspirational: synchronicity and an amazing feeling of destiny fulfilled.

You’d felt an itch for months, a seven year itch that couldn’t be scratched. The journey of self discovery was a circuitous odyssey spanning time, traveling the world. You invited friends and family to witness you and your partner land in a flutter of brightly colored butterfly wings, each of you wearing your mother’s wedding dress.