26 Tuesday Jun 2018
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Voy a fingir que eres tú en una playa de Puerto Rico, aunque solo fue tomada no hace mucho, aquí mismo. Puerto Rico, tu amor. Fotografiando el atardecer. Tu perro te está molestanda. Tu nuevo viaje comienza hoy. Adiós mi amiga, nuestra Reina Azafrán.
17 Thursday May 2018
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The Saffron Queen is a dream of blood now. She is garnet and green veins, though she wishes they were blue, strong and heroic like Princess Diana. She is needles and nose mucous, pretty in that blouse she bought for her trip to Puerto Rico, pink lace, denim and sandals she waits for the drip to be done so she can vape her troubles away.
The Garnet Queen’s hands are talons now, gripping, grasping, seeking prey to tear apart on the rocks of her teeth. This lady is no raptor seeking meat, she wants to kill the heart of you with her cruel, crushing words. And now she curls up like a baby and weeps, begging for love, sipping from her “Kwanzaa” cup, lost in a place she did not ask to be. She drifts off and the fear and the hate and the sorrow melt away.
She is Changeling, someone replaced her in the night with someone else, there is no other explanation for why she has gone. She is lost and believes she is alone, no one cares, even though her man strokes her hair and I press dressings to stop the bleed where she pulled out the IV. She is Changeling, wondering why her children haven’t come, hating them and laying curses on them forever.
A cold front moves in over the ocean, rising thunderheads captured in steel gray and mango moments before the rain, a dramatic photograph she took that sits on the floor of her room instead of hanging proudly on someone’s wall. I like to remember my fierce potted plant friend as photographer lady, the unfinished woman wondering why her children never call, her man working so hard to please her. May her Kwanzaa cup brim with love tomorrow, may the grace of the Universe find her man and fill him with patience and strength, and I’ll not fail to remember the dachshund pillows next time.
23 Monday Apr 2018
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Tags
death, friends, life, Mary Oliver, poetry, real, Saffron Queen, stone
For me, the very best poems are the simple ones. I enjoy a simple table in a sunlit room with friends I love and foods that satisfy all my emotions. I am relaxed, at ease, a bit of sauce on my sleeve, a light touch on my thigh, a certain sadness upon parting: I will miss you all but take comfort in knowing I will see you again. The very best poems are the simple ones.
I sat on the bed of the Saffron Queen and we exchanged many things until her daughter came in. It was awkward because I know both of them, so I went downstairs to fill my fancy water glass to give them time to talk. Suddenly there were three dogs in her room and it was more than she could manage, and suddenly it was just the two of us again. The queen spoke and I laughed and she said I was beautiful just then, my smile, something she’d never seen before. I became self-aware, knowing why I rarely smile in her presence, guilty for that, suddenly looking for ways to be more relaxed and real on her bed where she lives now.
The very best poems are the simple ones. Life is real and death is real and friends are real and poems are real and sometimes I just can’t handle it all.
04 Wednesday Apr 2018
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“They left me. The dogs. The afternoon!” I cobbled together what she meant. I heard the panic in her voice, but that didn’t stop me from brushing my teeth and buying her a Slushie before I pulled into her empty driveway.
I entered the house, de-pursed and -jacketed myself onto her sofa. I took note of the state of her home. It wasn’t until I reached the second stairway that the dogs decided to make a fuss, but the herd did not murder me as she always fears. The dachshunds are a noisy lot but they know I’m not afraid of their “yeah just you try it” eyes and ivory teeth. They flop over and let me love them like the pussies they are.
She needed someone to take the dogs outside for their afternoon walks because everyone left her. I did my best in shifts and had some success as they relieved their bowels and barked at the breeze inside a plastic white fence. She asked me to stay and of course I did, willing to stay until midnight.
I brought the queen a blue Slurpie because I know it’s what she likes. I walked her dogs because it’s what she needed. I listened to the queen whose house has been on fire since I’ve known her, Judge Judy playing in the background.
The queen sipped and nipped at food which I found encouraging, her dogs circling her wagon, allowing me on her bed. I complimented the lady on her bedroom curtains not because I felt I had to but because it was sincere. It seemed to make her happy. I understand now why she says her bedroom is cold: the north wall is one big window that faces the Chesapeake Bay, and it’s hard to keep out the north/northeast wind from your eyelashes this way. The view is beautiful, if only one is okay sleeping under a pile of covers.
The queen was strong enough to ask for help in getting her dogs outside to relieve themselves, yet she wouldn’t allow anyone to delve into why her body is wasting away. I find it hard to ask and receive help, and her cold fingers remind me that I am a fool. She apologized for the current state of her home where she served everyone homemade meals and tried to save everyone from themselves because it was her job. I held her cold hand and noted the “watch it, punk” look in Izzy’s eyes: I told them both, “No worries.” I left them resting in a nest of clean saffron sheets and a gray throw.
We all let each other down when we do not talk, when we do not speak the real. When we do not truly listen to each other. My prayer for today is wrapped in saffron and dandelion, tiny pollens stuck to my fingers and nose, that we stop and we listen, and we grant ourselves peace.
26 Monday Mar 2018
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Tags
acceptance, death, friend, life, love, Mary Oliver, patience, strength, wild and precious life
Some might say we make our appointment with Death on the day we are born. There are few promises we are given in life and death is one. So is life and temptation and choice. Dance, song, rain. Drought, snow, and wind that changes direction three times in the space of a day.
We come from imperfect, fragile seeds that force our way up, out, from the dark and into the cold light. We are imperfect, fragile humans told we must go “that way,” and we go with hands that are empty or hands that carry unnecessary burdens. Success is a word with little meaning, like failure. What matters is Life. What will we do with this one wild and precious life* we are given, that we don’t even know exists? What will we do with what remains of this one wild and precious life when we know we are at its end?
My friend is in transition and she knows but doesn’t know. She reclines, weak and full of effit on a broken branch, afraid it will fall, certain she did not cause its withering, fighting all of us and our outreached hands, begging her to come in, come back in, you will fall, please come in, but she knows best. We are watching the branch breaking beneath her. She pushed us away and we turned away and now we are watching her wither at the end of a branch that needn’t be.
My friend’s greatest treasures are her memories of her childhood family and of taking care of her children. We never talk at length about this life, today, or the future. In her best days and today at her withering branch, she’s only ever wanted to talk about her children, how she took care of them and knows what their favored foods are. I have listened to her heart breaking, and the hardest part for me is that she will not allow me to suggest she could try and make a change. It’s hard for me to watch a woman consign herself to misery and pain, who refuses to believe that she can be Herself and let go of everything else.
My friend’s body has been dying for a long time and she refused to respond to herself or anyone else’s push to seek wellness. I listen to a woman whose brain has so little function she can’t speak coherently, and I refuse to give up on her. She has no one else who will be patient with her. I watched her branch wither, I stand on it and I struggle today to not fall to my death with her. I will give what I can to her and her family, but my greatest wish is that she believed enough in herself to stay alive.
13 Monday Nov 2017
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The neighbors are less suspicious now as I drive down the narrow street and turn into the graveyard. They see my black Jeep a lot nowadays, and once I had to tell the cops I’m just here to see my dad. You know how it is with small town cops. I think they’ve gotten used to me now and I still don’t give a shit.
His grave is between the elementary school and the “middle” school. I can’t help reliving some of those days every time I drive past them to make the turn into the narrow street, or road because it’s small town. There’s a large, green lawn and a big playground down back. My 18-year-old friends liked to play back there in the middle of the night, big kids having fun with their girlfriends, except that one night when he jumped down off the monkey-bars and his boot knife drove into his ankle. That was kind of messed up. These are the woods I hid inside when I played hooky and maybe some other things. I relive those times every time I drive down this backstreet and turn onto a smaller street not meant for two cars passing, neighbors wondering who’s this kid in a tricked out Jeep hanging out in the graveyard?
I wouldn’t come back here for any reason except that you are here. I took my beatings in this neighborhood, not far from the cool place where the under-aged were served at the tavern. We don’t all need to be the king and queen of the prom, but it would’ve been nice not to get beaten because I was a minding-my-own-business Head and you were a Jock serving your term as eradicator of supposed filth. I wouldn’t come back here for any reason, but this was the best place I could find for you, and I know you’d be okay with it. I wouldn’t come back here for any reason except for you. The neighbors are less suspicious now when I pull in between the low and narrow chain link fence. I pull off the gravel road into the grass, my Jeep leans steeply but at least people can pass by if they need to, but they never do because no one comes here except me, day or night.
I’m not thrilled about the headstone the Army provided at no charge. I wish it could be more. I wish it gave me space to tell the world who you have been and who you are.
I come here when I want, no reason or rhyme. Sometimes I just sit and listen to Concrete Blonde and watch the night go by. Other times I get out of the Jeep and greet your stone. I stand beside the dimple in the ground and I just start talking. I tell you everything. I tell you things I didn’t know I needed to say, words I can’t believe I’m saying. Sometimes it’s just the most random bullshit. I can hear what you’d probably say. Or maybe you might surprise me, I don’t know, but this silent ground gives me a place to tell, instead of lifelong silence when I needed you most. Now I tell you all, a silent post.
Should I stay here so I can keep speaking with you, telling you my heart that I will never give another? If I drive my Jeep into desert discomfort, will you still be with me and hear me? I need to go, but I don’t know how to leave you, Dad. How will I find your listening or not listening anywhere else? I flick my cigarette out the window and drive on. Traffic is heavy like it never was before when we were kids. I light another cig and change the song on the machine. I’m looking for something to lift the ribs that crush my heart and help me breathe free.
*Thank you, Kevin, for letting me have this one.
02 Monday Oct 2017
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The underground building and garage is labyrinthine, sharing arteries, paths, walkways like conjoined twins. Some shortcut paths we (the workers) weren’t allowed to take, those were designated for certain people only (perhaps the kind that wear heels instead black, tarry workboots.) The building is brand new, the cement floors painted clean gray and bright yellow. It is loud and echoey in here. I’m the only woman in here, and the men aren’t nice to work with. At my right shoulder is a man I used to work with. He stuffed five pages of faxed copies of his records in my hand, and he’s appointed me the task to help him with pointing, grunting, and broken English. He is Asian, his name hard to pronounce. (Mister H?) No one wants to help him. He follows me through the long halls that seem to lead nowhere, through bright tunnels where workers are laughing, smoking, fooling around, and definitely not helping. He points to a name and phone number and wants me to call this man (the top man, the boss) and get Mister H help. Most of the dream is me on a cellphone making a series of phone calls until I can get as high as “they” will let me to demand medical care for Mister H who was hurt on the job. He is out of work, no one will help him, it says he’s eligible right here on the forms, YOU signed it, what’s the problem, then?
It’s past sunrise and I awakened to a messy room. I stand up, wobbly, because my right hip grumbles at me when my body is still for too long. I drink a cup of cold water from a Starbucks Seattle mug a friend gave me. I wonder how her night went, knowing, but still hopeful. And then I read the news that comes from Las Vegas.
I can’t believe my eyes, and my heart cycles through broken, angry, sad, who cares, looking for fault, finding a reason, then starts all over again. I light a sage-scented candle, something strong and clean to try and purge the sickness from my two little rooms. I’m too warm but my bare feet are cold, and it’s an October morning for sure. Another day I don’t understand and I know I’m not asking the right questions or speaking the right words. For now. Someone posted a terrible verse from Isaiah on Twitter to the effect that god don’t care for your thoughts and prayers because your hands have blood on them. Well okay, then. While I wash the blood and shit and dirt from my hands, I will look for ways to be a vessel of peace, an instrument of giving, a la St. Francis.
If I close my heart, I’ve already failed.
04 Thursday May 2017
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She was walking alone, but perhaps not a long way. She was dressed in a sari, her long hair lightly covered, her sari the color of poppies. There is nothing in the dream but her, walking. She stops walking and she knows at last it is time. She lies down and leans up against something, but I do not know what, it’s not shown in the dream. I only see this woman in poppy red, reclining, her knees are up and she is ready to give birth now. The rest happens so quickly and silently. They all spill out of her body, five small babies and so much blood pours out of her onto the ground like fish falling from the fisherman’s net onto the deck, but they are all dead.
The dream changes dramatically. This is black ink on white paper, she is artistically rendered into a soft, curving line drawing. The woman opens her sari, her abdomen is one wide open womb, and she gathers all five of the babies into her arms and pulls them back into her body. She closes her legs, straightens her sari. She reclines on the ground on her right side, closes her eyes, and she smiles the most peaceful sleeping smile.
She smiles. It was the only expression she ever showed throughout the entire dream.
This was a tough one for me to write, and I’m not sure why.
24 Monday Apr 2017
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The dream begins.
I was walking towards a large campus of low buildings, crowded with many people inside and out. These are schools, elementary, junior, and senior buildings all in one place. The weather is neutral. Some folks are sitting on a low hill in the grass. All of the bathrooms were empty. No one wanted to use them because every room, every stall was polluted and broken. I walked among throngs of people outside; no idea what the gathering was for. A young woman approached me, her mother sat on the grass watching impassively. The young woman was shorter than me, her face round and young, her blonde hair long, very long, down to her coccyx, natural and wavy, recently unkempt. She said she needed help, she needed to get back home. She was calmly distraught, if that can be a thing. A great deal of the dream was me asking for her name, what is wrong, where are you from, but she wouldn’t answer. We kept walking through the crowds. Finally, she brought out a picture from her pocket, a printed piece of paper and showed me an infant in a high chair, head and face bloody, a knife through the top of his head. She said she needed to get back to him and see if he’s okay. Instead of recoiling and hating her, I could only feel a low, deep sense of need. She was in trouble and needed help. I put my hand on the small of her back and guided her towards one of the buildings to see if we could find “somebody” which I assume to mean “authority” to help us. On the way I asked where she’s from, no answer. Every teacher I asked for help said, “She’s not in this school, sorry.” In between jostling through crowds in the halls, looking for someone to ask for help, she confessed that she hit him before, the law knows about her, and she can’t ask anyone for help because of all the trouble she’ll be in. She just needed to get home, please help me. No tears. I stayed with her. Finally I came to a tall person in a white-shirted uniform. Seems he knew the situation with her from what through rumor and threadbare facts. And then nothing. The dream ends without me knowing what happens to the girl.
What strikes me most about this dream is that I can see her clearly, her mother stayed behind while I led her away, that I feel empathy towards someone who apparently murdered a child, and that she showed me a picture she (or someone) took, and printed on a piece of paper. I woke in the middle of the night recalling this dream, thinking, “are you kidding me? really? did this really just happen?” I spent some time with the dream before returning to sleep, soaking in details and I knew (somehow) I’d remember it in the morning. What does it mean for me now?
19 Wednesday Apr 2017
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Do you remember where you were on that day?
What day. There have been so many days. It’s hard to keep track of that day.
Was it a traffic stop day? Tornado day? Something that happened over there, overseas, some place we will never see? What is that day all those people were killed? Or that day that all those kids were killed, and what does it matter? It’s all just people. It’s all just another day.
He killed himself in prison, convicted.
She killed herself in prison, not even tried.
They overdosed in Ohio and West Virginia. Maybe it’s because they were sad about all those kids who were imported for house cleaning. Or sex. Illegals. Criminals of victimless crimes. Or maybe they just wanted to get high.
I remember where I was on that day when that stuff happened. I was either at school or working, flirting with a man-child. Tragedy took my eyes off him and thrust me into a world that was so much bigger than me. Than us. That kiss. That failing grade, those catty remarks, my fist, my failure to launch.
Where am I, on this day?
