Amid this winter’s grey mist grip
our April mocks her Spring impression.
Rush hour red lights stop and start,
frustrated and my happened glance at
a waif like girl no more than nine,
she’s mouthing words of imagined rhyme.
I watch her whispering monologues
as she tiptoes boulders in the park.
Pure innocence her soft protection
from cruel worlds I suffer much too well.
I mouthed my thank you to the waif
and she tiptoed boulders until dark.
Children cut out little red hearts.
I come to fill up your big one.
After I had my son there was no reason for me to stay in the hospital. He was healthy and beautiful and nurses, bless them, kept bringing him in only to say OOPS, sorry, do you want to hold him? I asked the doctor if I could get discharged, he understood and said it would be OK, good thing as I was going anyway.
Albums from my shelf stare at me-
Don’t take them down, my heart screams.
My hand reaches up, my soul wanting to see
the sweet face of my baby, the glimmer of the tree.
Presents piled high-touching the limbs.
Pictures of lots of kids, lots of different trees.
The tears I knew would come, fall down my cheek,
In a quiet house, my oldest ones all grown,
Families of their own, their houses now with those
glimmering trees, those piles of presents.
And my baby, the baby from those days, gone.
I visit his grave, decorate it like a table in the den.
I cry there, with his younger brother with me.
Not even born when those pictures were made.
I made the cookies, wrapped a few gifts, got cards.
I went on the church outing, held my tears, my breath.
Christmas, it was so wonderful, hope, peace, love.
I knew better than to believe it would last for me.
I need to get a new album, this one is falling apart.
Like my life did. Tears fall as I replace it on the shelf.
I am rarely at a loss for words. But now? Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary School, the perfectly-innocent little children, the teachers who teach and care, a town overturned by senselessness — this leaves me at a loss.
It is not a merry Christmas in Sandy Hook. I think of those parents who sit in their living rooms in front of decorated Christmas trees, possibly with gifts already-wrapped underneath. I feel hurt thinking about dolls that will not be hugged or slept with, bikes that will not be ridden, Legos that will not be put together with daddies, puzzles that will not be assembled, books that will not be read, movies that won’t be watched, new winter jackets that won’t be worn. Cookies and milk set out for Santa will be nearly-impossible to do if there are other children in the families.
Last night at our family Christmas gathering I watched my grandchildren with different eyes — my 14 year-old grandson, his voice now deep, his hair a little longer, looking, smiling, involved with his iPhone, being his polite and loving self, my 13 year-old step-granddaughter (my son’s stepdaughter), who is having great difficulty since the shootings, unable to sleep, this sweet young girl afraid to go back to school, my 11 year-old granddaughter, surprised and thrilled at receiving an American Girl doll for Christmas, her sweet countenance filling the room, my 2 1/2 year-old granddaughter, dancing through the excitement of the evening, the lights, the Christmas tree, the beautifully-wrapped presents, her joy infectious.
I watched my children, too. My daughter is 39, and she works in an elementary school where visitors have to be buzzed in. She works helping to increase children’s reading skills, and they love her. She is creative and task-oriented. My son is a police officer, and I shudder to think that it might have been him to have come upon such a scene as Sandy Hook if, God forbid, this had happened in our small town. I am proud of their contributions, but more importantly, I am grateful that they are safe.
But it did happen in Sandy Hook, and it has happened in other places. We need to step up and do whatever we can to make absolute certain that it will never happen again, anywhere.
I cannot even come close to imagining how the parents of Charlotte and Daniel and Olivia and Josephine and Ana and Dylan and Madeleine and Catherine and Chase and Jesse and James and Grace and Emilie and Jack and Noah and Caroline and Jessica and Avielle and Benjamin and Allison are agonizing.
As a former teacher, I understand the natural desire to protect our students. And that is precisely what Victoria and Mary and Lauren and Anne Marie and Dawn and Rachel were doing.
There are no words.
There are no answers.
There is only pain of the deepest kind. I join my prayers with all the others around the world for the souls of those who have been so cruelly and senselessly taken, and I will join my efforts, whatever they might be, in doing something to stop this. I live near Chicago, where children are killed every day simply because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time or because they get caught in the cross hairs of gang violence or because of a drive-by shooting. This horrific constellation of crimes and evils has grown to epidemic proportions.
Something must be done. Let us not simply give this lip service. Let us remember what six and seven year-old children look like, how they talk, what they like to play with, how they learn to read. Let us make it personal. Let us boldly walk into our school systems and demand meetings with police and other organizations that can help us in our communities.
Let us remember.
Mass murder? I don’t understand.
I don’t suppose I am alone.
But -
Role play enables learning in many situations.
Why not through computer games and television?
Can children really differentiate between the death they cause with a button and real killings?
Have we hardened their hearts and anaesthetised their minds through role play?
Someone, where are you? Your daughter needs your attention.
The recreation department in our town held their Third Annual PUMPKIN STROLL
The children came in beautiful costumes
They brought Carved Pumpkins for the contest
Vendors set up tables with items for sale but they all had candy to pass out to the children who also were Trick or Treating(dress rehearsal for the 31st)
We had a table with lots of candy as well and our raffle items for the Garden Club fundraising effort.
We’re going to an open house this afternoon for our friend Isabel, who is turning 80. I hope this little poem, tucked into her card, will make her smile.
And here you come, octogenarian,
swift-sliding into first with ease and grace,
arriving “Safe,” the umpire calls, on base.
We’re honored to reflect your friendship sun.
Through marriage, children, music, writing, art
you let the others in, allow a peek
at all the depths of you and what you seek.
As friends we’re thrilled that we’ve become a part
of your especial universe. What fun
to write with you. Remember when we pressed
those flowers onto a poem page? They blessed
my father in his grief. You have outdone
yourself in many ways, expressed the blaze
of sunrise, tenderness of hands, a smile
or laugh that turns a sadness or a trial
into an individual turn of phrase.
To tell the truth, I think my day might bore
you. What, you’d ask, do you get done, what chore
have you accomplished? Yes, the dishes wait
sometimes, and dust balls gather. Yet, I state
that writing wakes me with a push or shove.
I jump from bed in wonder of the love
this new day’s words will show me. Rituals
of morning now complete, I hear the lulls
and rhythms of the day and seek to find
my place. Perhaps piano calls. My mind
shifts into Beethoven or Mozart mode
and music emanates from my abode.
Then hours of writing consummate my time,
with background sound of antique clock’s sweet chime.
The soccer games and cross meets of our dear
ones fill the evenings, weekend mornings. Here
we go to watch them once again and cheer
their fine accomplishments. We pack up gear
to sit on sidelines, see the runners slide,
so effortless, it seems as if they glide.
On every Monday evening I attend
a Bible study group where women blend
their thoughts and prayers. At this I’m always filled,
as angst and worries of the day are stilled.
Once monthly I attend a writing group
where eight of us critique the others’ work.
Another writing group I joined of late,
and we host festivals, participate
in local readings, book sales, arts events.
My college friends plan gatherings. No fence
could separate us. O, how we’ve been blessed
to stay in touch. Who would have ever guessed
that nine and forty years after we left
our university we’d still be deft
in making sure our tight-knit friendships last?
And then, pièce de résistance: the blast
we have in being grandparents, this joy
so tall we can’t love more our girls and boy.
Because of Skype I teach my brother. He
now plays piano, Für Elise the key
unlocking satisfaction he’s not known.
Yes, both of us are older now, are grown,
but students we will always be. Life’s songs,
a goal, a race, a friend, a word rights wrongs.
Sometimes I simply need to take a nap.
How I resist, but know that it’s the cap
to a day that brimmed with lots to do or less.
Each element of day I cherish, press
as wildflowers in a scrapbook. O, the pines
that stand straight on the hillside are like mines
of gold that I unearth by looking. Give
me nature all around…and I can live.
“Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person feels a strong sense of emptiness and solitude resulting from inadequate social relationships.”
Sisters hardened by an ugly man,
who escaped his wrath
by running into the night.
They left home, scars lacing their bodies.
They left home, with nary a bag.
They left home with nary an idea of who they were.
Life became their man,
their things, their perception of self.
Their men died. They unwound.
They never did know which face was theirs.
They hid amongst their stuff.
Loneliness took hold, they’d had enough.
Such vile evil is a hand raised to a child.
You only want the simple things
a field of grass in summer green,
a flower blowing in the wind,
a kitten for your favorite friend.
You only want to see the rain
spatter on the windowpane,
or feel the rays of golden sun,
for after all you’re only one.
In loving memory of my son Andrew who would have been 21 on 9-8-12
Wonderment. My grandson was at a sports event. All eyes save his, and mine, were on a bunch of young girls struggling to make sense of soccer. He caught the glint of something silver, high in the sky. He stared in wonderment and muttered ‘PaPa look’. I turned and saw a jet very high above. His eyes, to me, were filled with such joy and someday, I’m sure, the questions of how, why, who and maybe.
There are three days each week
at week’s end, that I am running my hands
over the still surface of a wall
or a rippling bed sheet,
standing knee deep in puddles of cotton
or holding paint chips like playing cards.
Music, my companion in the empty house,
laughs along with me, asking
ain’t that a kick in the head
while I wipe up the drops of jupiter
and find new perspective.
The walls sing the echoes
of an inside summertime campout,
storms past now and leaves in the trees
tremble, and sigh, wait for their return,
the house waiting, waiting,
becoming a home again,
vessel for our voices,
lives, happiness
to fill to overspilling.
Three of us-one old, two young
jump in the car driving
to where ever we land.
First a historical site
from the civil war era,
we sneak into a field
that says “no trespassing”.
Go up a back road,
taking photos of old houses and barns.
Skip the Blue Ridge Parkway for
Hwy 694-Buzzard Rock,
a graffiti filled outcropping
that was gorgeous in my day.
Looking over the valley far below
our home, our lives, our graves.
Tired and thirsty, hurry home.
Time seems so precious
with autumn approaching.
