ALL RESPONSES |
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Shakedown
She keeps looking
for the place she comes from.
Searching each moment
while she pretends
she is at home here
in this green house
on this shaded avenue
on the path to market
on her way to the church by the woods
on the tarred road she strolls
to a green field past the old folks’ home
in this night peopled with stars.
She shakes them all down
turns them on end
empties all the pockets
spreads them out.
searches the crevices
till, not looking at all, hardly trying, she sees
this moment
turn on its edge.
There it is, her first place,
a flash of lightning
in the corner of her eye.
For an instant
Home finds her.
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probably not far off,
an unhurried child
under an empty maple
spaces out
the white pickets of past's
l
e
a
n
in
g
fence
what is home anymore; am
I living there?
it seems held between
searching
limbs in sleep,
an incubus
like shadows
cast by the crossed arms
of mute darkness
it is as if
the gap between
mother's front teeth
or sister's black hair
at birth
made those silhouetted
appearances
to trouble a child's
doppelganger
trapped in memories
of home.
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Delores, deprived of four decades, entered the house,
proceeded up the wide oak staircase
curved like a crescent moon
to the second floor where five bedrooms remained locked.
Certainly straight ahead was the bathroom. She turned
the handle and the door opened revealing a tub of ice. On the floor
were clothes of a girl child, faded, frayed, familiar. Delores
glanced in the mirror at her marred face, or was it the lack of acid
behind the glass that made her look permanently scarred?
Either way she reached into the comfort of her two coat pockets
and pulled them out one by one, juggling all eight chihauhaus
within the confines of the long narrow bathroom left unlocked.
One little life for each of them if they would only unlock
their bedrooms, grab their dusty skates off the wide oak staircase
and hurry, yes hurry, to this narrow spot eager to carve paths into the ice.
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the late sun fires
down on the slate brown
tiles of my Altoona home
overhead clouds cough
like dragons in the flicker
beat after the thunder
i drink a beer on the front porch
share peanuts with a black squirrel
a small boy’s pranks are over
another life is over a big river
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I never met my grandfather, Fred,
or his brother Otto Schwalb,
but can visit their remains,
buried near Johnny Mercer,
singing Moon River in his sleep,
and Conrad Aiken bids me sit
for martinis beneath the oaks,
wrinkled gods whose faces
frown behind gray beards.
So much within a few paces,
more than bones and dust,
more than angels carved of stone,
of oyster-shell lanes lined
with palmettos and azaleas.
This is where the seeds
of dreams are sown.
It is here I come to life.
Photos of Bonaventure Cemetery |
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Across the south of England goes
a footpath from Dover to Cornwall
that has been there since God was a kid.
At Land's End, one could melt into the sea.
In the United States, walking on any
but business streets upsets the population.
We hold a collective memory of Europe, after
the Plague. Foot-gangers threaten our terrified minds.
Where villages once stood--miles of dumps
and graveyards, Army barracks, National Guard,
storage lockers, for warped albums and sports gear--
while we walk the lakes for show, yappping at a cell phone.
Walking into downtown from any major
airport is against the law. If your heart and feet
are strong enough to cross an eight-lane freeway,
you will lift your eyes to towers of ascending glass,
tramp through an overgrown cemetery--
sit for a spell, chanting with the ancestors.
Make more headway than stalled cars, while
someone in a brand new Lexus alerts the police.
The sense, the feel of ground is not reserved
for those we drove away. We'll tread an earthen
trail from the airport--leave behind excess baggage.
Walk ourselves back home, letting go the culture shock.
Knit up the no-difference between the ground and the sky.
(Will Self, British writer, walked to Manhattan from JFK airport on Long Island, NY 2007) |
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Thin air and mountains block out the sky.
In the valley it rains everyday
but you can’t see it coming.
The honey bees are back.
They sip on clover,
make out with desert rose.
The Yellowstone has not time to wave goodbye.
Its brown body is thick from a mudslide
and carries soil to the stars.
We stood too close.
He told me, “It’s wasteful to worry about the sins of the past.”
My heart’s not here.
The West is wrong.
It is dust
Sweat
Blood
White-wash.
My heart is in the marsh, the lowlands, the pine trees, and the prairie.
The chill is in my bones
and I cover up our violent past.
My heart’s not here
and I think of home.
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Last night my grandfather came back,
I glimpsed him in Bing Crosby’s hat.
The hairless head, and Swedish eyes;
Papa reborn in my mind.
At the Heights Theater, Kathryn Crosby
sings of different days, her green dress
sparkles, her face shines.
Home is the memory, the clips of time.
Nana would show me the album,
Papa on American sand, a dog tag
strung around his neck—
his Jersey girl on the beach with friends.
He would carve Kermit the Frog
into our bananas, request Rice Krispi bars
as a Christmas present, remember bringing
his Italian bride back—how we would laugh!
Last night I saw my grandfather again,
it was in the tilt of Bing’s cap.
To think of the times and places he breathed,
to hear him say “my little dolly,” just for me.
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The police didn’t know what to do with his large hands and deep angers
So they gave him a boat and the river to patrol, uncharted territory,
Nude swimmers, drunken boaters, rope swings to cut down every night.
They weren’t prepared for his zeal or for the parade of nude boys
Each day’s catch shivering in blankets because he hid their clothes.
My mother had to take the bus downtown to the station to claim my brothers.
The Mississippi cut its way through the sandstone cliffs, wild
bottoms of old St. Paul. The river cop’s boat, a moving target,
as he chugged up and down waving his gun and threatening to shoot
dogs, swimmers and hunters - down every day to check their traps.
From the shelter of the river caves my brothers and their friends
threw rocks and bottles at the boat. Jerry and Tom shot holes in it.
When they saw the river cop who couldn’t swim, floundering
in the water they rescued him.
One summer night Bill dragged a small civil war cannon from an attic
to the caves. He loaded it with metal nuts and bolts. Soon hollow clangs
of metal hitting the river cop’s boat echoed down the river chamber,
shook the glasses in West Seventh Street bars.
Sirens filled the streets, but the police would never follow kids into caves
where in the dark with the bats they toasted a new street legend.
This was the late fifties. The boys who would die in Vietnam
broke out of tiny yards. They never named the violence that cut
thick, murky and sweet as the river through their street lives.
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I.
In the beginning,
the sky was heady with flurry.
Home was a place for wandering ghosts--
stark with stinging beauty
as the wings of winter darkness
closed on white earth.
Yet even in bellowed wind burning with cold
trees cradled snow safe in barked arms.
ii.
Then the smell of melting snow,
hope puddled on sidewalks,
the blood of rain warmed soil,
thunder, a heartbeat, woke
lightning,
and out of this,
your rooted fists, your greening,
a flower rising
hungry for winds to roam.
iii.
The ocean moved, a rocking-horse,
salt on tongue, of skin, of breath,
and life floated through
the veins of fresh breezes.
Yet even though
the sweet sun broke the horizon
still
the glorious moon drowned in stars.
iv.
Now without you, my child,
time is vacant,
shadows age with the year,
sky is merely a place for flight
and while trees of color winnow,
the hearted leaves fall
in a body of unlived dreams.
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Tonight the moon’s half full, circled by a silver haze.
As I circle the ice, as black as the
night sky, I see stars beneath my blades.
This is the sound stars make. This
is what a planet feels, orbiting.
Distance and time fade, mean
nothing at all when
you’re moving in
the right
direction.
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Sun breaks through tangled branches of
elms and maples, roads turn silver, snow,
blue. Beauty lays brilliant in shadows.
I wait for a cardinal to come in view, covet
a flash of crimson, yearn for a golden sun.
I pray, like the branch outside my window,
for something to land. It is December, nearly
the solstice. Light is waning. I crave splendor,
flare. Sing to me, fill my body with song.
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after closing the tavern on the top of Madison Street Hill,
after washing the beer glasses and stacking them
like drunken ideas,
i smell the thick next door bakery odor of morning bread rising
against a hot night oven wafting through open summer windows
it is 3:00 am
there is a word for this, a simple word and the word goes
round and round, curving through my brain like a staircase
leading to the top of a lighthouse
and i the keeper
everything is wonderful then,
it is a most real time, 1978 --
i have yet to make all the mistakes i will make
and be passionate about them
i have yet to understand the people i have
yet to meet, to understand there is nothing
to do but realize self-silence is flawed
and learn to write my own careful language |
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I am a pilgrim on a holy road
to the temple, I am a princess locked
in an ivory tower, I am veiled
in the dance of the seven virgins.
I am ravished by one look from
the blaze of your sweet eyes,
I am milked by the sorrow
of mother-mourning, I am
spiced in the trail of incense
to enlightenment. I am as whole
and as broken as a limb in the fire.
I am the blaze that consumes all.
I am the cobbled road to the center,
I am the dross left in the field,
I am the dew on the rose, I am
the blood the thorn has drawn.
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a haunting loon's call
in early morning mist
over cool waters
my world cast in predawn blue
water lazily splashing
against the sides of the canoe
my paddle gently slicing
the surface
middle of the lake
i lie down
watch the lemon sun rise
as morning mist dissolves |
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you empty a gas tank each weekend, mostly
because you know your mother’s age--she
is getting on in years, and time spiders along
in minutes that can only be described
as treasures; you are stuck on the idea
that she will be passing soon--like
an autumn leaf--blown away. and
each hour at her house becomes
an observance built on morbidity--have her
eyes sunken a bit more (she
is so thin), is she more frail--is
there a thing such as god, such as nature?
you walk in on her straightening
the pictures that hang in the hallway; she
tenderly lets her hand fall
alongside the frames, and
you realize that it still shows--that
sheloves you; and there
is the smell of fresh cut flowers that she has
brought in from the garden, and you smile, and
there is no casket--there will never be--because
you speak her name, and she turns to you and
holds you near to her heart forever.
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Home for the holidays:
here, in my mother’s kitchen
is where I can rest a while
while she stirs and whips
and the smell of “roast beast”
fills the pink-glazed air.
I never wanted to stay there.
Home for the holidays:
my tribe scattered to the four
corners, we send out meager
emails salutations, no one
has time for the nostalgia of
so many presents under the
tree, it took us all day to distribute
them. “Santa” died ten years ago
of a broken heart when his dream of
living for free ended with us elves
carting away what memories we might salvage.
Home for the holidays:
pumpkin-corn bread muffins
and posole for a New Mexican feast
and eggnog laced with brandy
hoping to entice my man out of
bed out from the black cloud
of defeat, presents to unwrap and
miles to go before I sleep
Home for the holidays:
the year my son called the police
because we feared the poison of her
intoxication might kill her.
He spent the night with his child, phone
cradled to his ear, drive to jail to pick her up
in time for pancakes and sausages.
Home for the holidays:
my husband bought me a red
sweater with beads and sequins,
I bought him a tie and a ticket to my heart
forever. No one is more home than
when we fight and shimmer,
when we call each other to the
carpet for past and future
sins, when we gaze into
each other and are blinded by
light and mistletoe.
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I.
Living like robins do, from branch to branch
and always southwards, to keep from cold.
Stopping by cafes, frequenting
the corner convenience store with its deadbeats.
This new house like a stage set. The empty, open boxes.
Meeting friends—how strange to see them in their old lives!
I write—there’s simply nothing else to do.
I have a new gold key. And odd things I brought—
an antique whiskey bottle, a cuckoo clock.
The old nights, the new mornings. One day’s living...
II.
But then this giddiness
like squirrels running over the roof shingles
or sirens down the street.
An exile has no home, lives everywhere.
It is a comfort, some ways ... having so little.
I think of Tolstoy’s Prince Andrew
wounded in a field, staring up into the blue
that sky...
III.
Still, love is love. What is closest to us
is always invisible, the color of soul.
When I stop by the old house it seems dimmer,
filled with shadows I don’t remember.
Only you there now and I can’t quite see you.
Miss you like death though. How funny, and almost cruel
it’s at this moment I feel most alive—
the moment of stepping out the door
into the pedestrian sidewalks, the empty cars. |
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HOME IS IN MY HEART
A December afternoon of many years ago in a city called Torino,
I walked the darkening streets of my hometown
embraced by the cold humid air and the light glow of street lights.
I walked to the apartment building I used to live in,
walk the short distance to the staircase
and ran up the steps to the apartment I used to call home.
I opened the door and inhaled the scent of my mom's home cooking,
hung up my coat, and went to the kitchen to kiss her.
In that home one night, I lay semi asleep under the blankets
watching the street light glow outside my window,
and in the quietness of my room I felt something strong and gentle
fill my whole being at once.
I felt secure.
Secure because no matter what I'd find in life,
In that moment I knew that nothing could take away
all that I would live and store in my heart.
This snowy December afternoon in my house in Minneapolis
I felt restless, as if split in two halves between two places
worried, sad, and longing to belong.
In days like this one, I know I need to go and linger
at the edge of consciousness as if standing in a doorway
between here and there and from it,
watch my family, their daily routine, feel their presence
even though they are not aware of mine.
To calm down, I walk the streets of my city,
feel the familiar cold humid air around me,
inhale the scent of roasted chestnuts,
see the glow of the street lights become brighter in the evening...
In my heart the past comes together with my present
and both worlds live alongside one another, and only there, at once,
and in them both,
I find home.
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When Christmas Comes
Dedicated to the FreeWriters of EP
(Shared this year with Northography,
With Best Holiday Wishes to you all)
It’s not enough to sing the carols
Or decorate the tree.
It’s not enough to wrap the gifts
For Christmas to come to me.
The festivities, their fun and noise,
Are exciting but have their limit.
I await the season silently
To know when I am in it.
I wait to see kids’ faces shine
When I play Santa Claus.
Or to see a person tear up
In church, …. just because.
Christmas, to me, must let itself in
So that I awake and find it around me
Having come back again like an old friend
Who knows where I keep the key.
Then, knowing the promise of peace and love
Has endured to revisit again
I humbly, in private, greet Christmas
Allowing its gift to be opened within.
Christmas presents the same gift each year,
A soul’s peace for a warm moment or two.
It is precious and breathless and perfect.
May it be yours this Christmas, too.
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REFLECTIONS OF CHRISTMAS
Children's laughter echo in my memories
while I hang another golden globe
on my Christmas tree.
It is almost time.
The crystal stars reflect the gentle glow
of Christmas' spirit.
In a flash I'm back to when, a little girl,
I was enchanted by intermittent Christmas lights
and colorful tinfoil of chocolate decorations.
I awaken from my memories
and hang bells of frosted glass,
silver, red and gold filigree ornaments,
more in sequins and soft velvet.
A glass globe reflects the image of the child I hold within,
shining moments revisited in the silence of the evening
while I hang the memories of Christmas' past.
In a flash I am back to when, a little girl,
ran to see if baby Jesus rested in the manger,
and looked for ribbons curled and bowed,
under the tree on Christmas morning.
I ask myself if I had,
through my eyes of child,
lived the true spirit of Christmas.
Once again, here comes the birth of innocence
that year after year finds us dreaming, remembering,
smiling at the magical reflection of a snow flake,
and in that reflection our inner eyes of children,
in the most important night ever,
have yet to grow old.
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Holidazed
Time to admit it neither
nature pristine nor holiday cheer
inspire in me the required
appropriate emotions
this holiday peaked for me at age four
with a visit from Santa and a Barbie
I have finally outted myself
far from the madding crowds
of holiday shopper frenzied consumerism
in the hypocritical name of the overbearing
culturalized religion that I do not share
no longer caught in the web of expected obligatory
gifting and returning
sending out Grandma’s Christmas cards
overspending impossible expectations
“Secret Santa” silliness
Inevitable disappointment
elaborate cooking rituals
digging out from the attic antiquated dusty ornaments
egregious electrical hazard sparkly lights
I am allergic to pine trees
not Christian
dislike carols
loathe malls
sentimental claptrap
several years ago
my mother in law
died at our house the day before Christmas
which blew the last
vestige of seasonal glad tidings right
up the chimney enough
but it took years scaling back
reduced to an exchange
of Target gift cards
before I could finally
convince my family
that my intentions were serious
Call me Grinch spoilsport cheap or lazy
oh me of little faith
this decision
makes me truly joyful
calm tranquil
I’ll take an extra helping of
peace on earth
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for Carol Bly, b. April 16, 1931, d. December 21, 2007.
She taught us to see, even red.
On the shelf, a string of twinklers twine with red berries in a glass decanter.
Highbush cranberries overhang the neighbor’s garage.
Two cardinals flit between boulevard maples.
From the oak, a downy woodpecker flaunts the red spot on his head.
Red is good in Minnesota winter.
Sweaters knit in red wool bring more warmth than other colors.
A red scarf tied around the waist is nurture for cold kidneys.
and always, always, red hat and mittens for out of doors.
Red is good.
The church potluck salad, romaine and spinach,
is bright with sliced strawberries.
A Christmas card’s sharp edge cuts the skin;
drops of blood form.
She runs her finger under cold water at the kitchen sink,
sees a red bug with black spots crawling across the window,
the insect image superimposed on three black crows
lined up on the garage roof.
Red pounds her temples,
brings red spots before closed eyes,
brings anger, sadness, at the evening news--
the death of a teacher, someone she counted on.
A weather mogul warns, “Dress warmly, move quickly.”
The snow comes.
She counts the red letter days.
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i.
Oh, someone just offered me tickets to a guilt trip.
Kitchen counters piled high with cookies, candy,
and chocolate covered pretzels say -- eat me.
Christmas day: Eight hours of total boredom.
Ritual unwrapping of gifts, thank you.
Huge platefuls of meat and potatoes,
a few dozen pies (the main course),
all to eat again three hours later.
There is no escape, only release
at the end of the sentence.
ii.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day,
annual family reunions, mandatory events all.
Community centers smelling of old mothballs,
hair spray and hot dish, with yellow walls.
Some laugh loudly at their own bad jokes.
Motor homes, casinos, latest fad diets.
Politics? Leave the room, mentally.
The gospel according to the press
and nightly news. More pie?
iii.
If there were a way to return to being single, lost,
lonely overseas, strolling streets and vineyards,
perhaps pain of losing something I never knew
might return, and end my morbid discontent.
I forget what life was like without enough.
The cookies on my plate are very good.
So, tonight my stomach will be full,
but still, I'll dream again of Hessen,
and mold that grew on grapes
above the foggy Rhein. |
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Far too much work
this Christmas
business
Three hours spent
rolling and hand-dipping
buckeyes, a traditional gift
that neighbors, the postal carrier,
and kids, now grown
(and not even mine)
have all come to expect.
Won’t let them down.
Less perishable gifts
made weeks before
the solstice
a crowning holiday highlight
but the wrapping
and ribboning
and schmaltzing up
with colored tissues
and Xmas cheer
leaves me with little
myself.
And, for that next
row of kids cropping up,
too young to want
homegrown goodies,
the greatest seasonal
dread of all – shopping
-- now, thankfully, done.
But the buckeyes want packaging
and salad for 15 insists on assembly,
while I pause just a moment to rest
from all this laborious joy-bringing
so ineptly called a holiday.
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A new layer of snow coats every branch
bough, limb and twig—even the full
moon is draped in white. Silence
is the language of snow. The wind’s
sweeping hand buried a rake, a shovel,
two mums, a leash and a ball, countless
things of fall. Let them be, let spring rain
uncover old wounds, let mud and rust
have their way.
I have no desire to make things right
to put things back where they belong
in boxes, on hooks, in sheds. Instead,
I’ll put on another sweater, sit here
by this window edged in frost, let
the moon shine, let the snow fall,
let the silence between us sweep
all thoughts away.
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December. Wisconsin. 1968. I write
the words on my white paper and snow
filled streets of Altoona appear in the margins:
a barber shop, three taverns, steel
rails leading to a railroad roundhouse,
its engines idling, waiting to travel
distances I am not yet allowed to go.
Daylight falls on Christmas Eve
and under the mistletoe mother asks
father for a story with a happy ending.
He smiles and promises and kisses her
gently on the back of her neck.
Later he tells me loving her is as simple
as rising each morning, as buttoning
a cotton shirt or making coffee
on our gas stove.
*
This is how we lived for my first
twenty-two Christmases, time
a white bearded magician:
birch trees in the front yard,
one massive oak over the side porch,
guarding our lives with its branches.
I believed in Christmas, the tinsel
and wrapped presents, the anticipation.
Time, my little brother, took me
by my hand and led me through the streets,
led me through my days, led me
through my years like pigeons, each one
fighting for its crumbs.
We don’t really know what life is
all about or who makes it: reality
comes and goes like each passing Christmas
morning. We throw it away
like cardboard boxes.
Whenever I think about Christmas,
I see my mother nodding her head
to father’s promises, her eyes full of light
against the blinking colored bulbs
of our boughed tree, unknown presents,
wrapped in colored paper and waiting
to be opened. |
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To the Angels
Painters can’t get you out of their minds.
It’s your wings, some done heavy as marble,
others, the weight of feathers or dogs’ tails,
linings of ruffs and pink clouds. They band
like an eagle’s. They splay like fountains.
Who knows how they work, beating
what seems like a mortal’s weight
over earth and its gravities, whatever
looks for a moment sublime, whatever
transfixes the hour and jars the hovel.
You’re unafraid of the universe’s cloth,
having sewn its fabric from end to end.
You have everything if you can fly
on your own two wings. That crowd,
Lochner’s cherubs, standing straight, still,
own wings twice as tall as they are,
the color of deep blue delphiniums.
As for you, the robes you wear are bright.
You sweat in summer, you have your imps
among you. Like us, you fade from sight.
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the tree was piled under gifts at first.
literally waist high.
too many presents,
yeah; we are a large family, but this?
it took an hour and a half to open them all.
chaos.
little kids shooting Nerf dart guns across the living room,
and tossing miniature Frisbees
while the rest of us tried to keep our dignity--
what is dignity?
everything had to be brand name
or it wasn’t any good.
embarrassment
should not find a home here
but it does.
a year later
the gift-givers all remember
how tragic it was to blunder
under and through last year’s load of tissue paper.
we recall
that half of those gifts broke--
plastic--
irrelevant and tossed away,
creating gaps in sincerity.
and we resolve to give less this year--
one or two gifts instead of twelve or twenty.
I got a watch. one that I really wanted.
I will remember
this as one of our best Christmases
ever.
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While there are many reasons
to be angry and sorry,
there are many more
for which to be grateful.
The eyes of a child,
the beauty of a dance,
the softness of a kiss,
the power of an embrace,
the memory of a song.
While we keep count of the tears,
we need not to forget
about the smiles and moments
that warmed our hearts.
Because there is
no assurance for more,
no guarantee that anything
can last our lifetime,
like the hand we hold
or are held by,
like the laughter
of the ones we love.
We need
to count the blessings we have,
instead of the ones
we don’t.
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these are the days when the sun hides
and we follow out of selfish purpose
we know it will be there, we know
its path, its warming bead across
our sky
these are the days
even though we can’t believe how lucky
we are, we follow each other
i want to tell you today how much i love
you, how the coming days aren’t new
some days i am empty
today the sun’s angles do not meet
the clouds demand my attention
these are the days
when i hold you and think of the old days
before i had nothing |
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Friends sicken, a tumor spreads,
pain intense and chronic, a death.
What winters here chills the air
like the cold damp of the humidifier
filled daily to loosen cough. More sickness.
I threaten to leave the house unless
we get a Christmas tree fast. We do.
Up she goes bedecked with shine and light.
Grandchildren gather and play tricks,
write messages on post-its which we find
in the medicine cabinet right next to symptoms
of heart attack: “HI.” Bless them.
And bless the choir that leads the singing
of the old carols by Handel and Mendelsohn,
the sound so full that my body vibrates
in the pew, singing alto to my friend’s soprano.
Winter goes on, but every day the light is stronger.
Bless the light.
Norita Dittberner-Jax
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Coleslaw Banjo (link)
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Awaiting winter’s darkest hour
we light the flame of mankind’s hope
and ring the bells of every tower.
Then, facing winter’s coldest night,
we pin our hopes on ancient star
and look for God’s rekindled light.
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You feel it in every movement
along the crust of snow.
It’s sugar in sunlight,
an iced confection
in the blanched mounds,
punctuated by branched
shadows paced to belong
deeply here. The deep
place within yourself is where
you go on skis that make
sounds like zippers on plastic.
Fantastic ghosting ends
the day into sunset
when tentacles blacken
your home. You feel
the heat of your heart.
There is no escape.
Not through the brambles,
not through the frozen swamp.
You follow yourself always.
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my family was split
fourteen winters ago
and I wonder where time
slumped off to moan
because I have not heard him
for many years
while marching through seasons
of causes and reasons
shy motions for why
us children can’t all see
the same Christmas tree
but I do not miss
a dad most days
my mother has taken
up both of their places
and raised her five sons
with grace
and tender advice
sometimes hard to take
but most days she is right
and corrects our missteps
still, here, in the family
that I have left
and I challenge
any word that diminishes
the Herculanean task
that she took up
and daily finishes
by deciding to keep us safe
warm and well fed
she went to school for four years
and changed how we all
led each new day--she helped settle
us into fitting places
in a new family
that does not lack
any faces, because it
is what we have
built on caring and giving
and taking when needed
to continue living
together--we are together
and make up a whole
minus father and sister
but no less complete.
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| Happy New Year to all. Such a wonderful and exciting group of writers. It's been a pleasure to be part of this. Hope the year is good to everyone. |
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