Hour 18 Moment of Joy Mary Pecaut
Our Rooftop Garden in Panama at Sunrise
Colibri comes to greet
me. The hum of OM.
Her wings bat infinity.
And I say, thank you,
more, please.
24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
I live in Panama City, Panama (originally from Iowa, USA). Writing poems is my way to make sense of the world. I've worked/lived in Africa, Asia, Europe and Central America. I'm an avid bird watcher (even before the pandemic). Im also a dog lover - without a dog. Married 31 years with 3 adult children and many wonderful friends from around the world.
Hour 18 Moment of Joy Mary Pecaut
Our Rooftop Garden in Panama at Sunrise
Colibri comes to greet
me. The hum of OM.
Her wings bat infinity.
And I say, thank you,
more, please.
Hour 17 Apartment Living Mary Pecaut
My disgruntled neighbor lives under
the stairs. He might as well be
a basilisk ready to kill
with a single glare.
Or maybe he’s a sea serpent
eager for war
his scaly-skin like a kraken
from maritime lore.
I want to be a friendly tenant
and figure we should meet.
So, I bring him a plate of papayes
Not knowing what a monster will eat.
Hour 16 Forced Childbirth Mary Pecaut
Forced Childbirth
Fifty years of precedent
tossed to the wind women
left to the whim
of the states.
Not legal history no.
Fundamental constitutional
rights denied. A woman’s body
now the courts decide.
Oh, for ease, Alito please
leave us alone with our ovaries.
What has changed today?
Hour Fifteen – Clarity Mary Pecaut
Inspired by
Photo by Filipp Romanovski on Unsplash
Clarity
Late autumn leaves thin
as lace reveal what might
otherwise be concealed.
Veins branching and rebranching
like city roads carry loads
of water and sugar through
xylem and phloem cells.
The leaf is able to be leaf.
Fully itself.
The hummingbird is content
as itself.
The path is the path
in conversation with its surroundings.
You too can be yourself.
Hour Fourteen – Sleepless Nights Mary Pecaut
Every night before bed,
My mom and I snuggled and read
fairytales from other lands.
The lessons learned
I didn’t immediately
understand.
I couldn’t sleep
when Jack and Jill
tumbled down the hill
or even less when Hansel and Gretel
were lost in the woods only to be enslaved by a witch
in a gingerbread house who popped them in the oven.
Such were the ways of Grimm tales of my childhood.
At 62, the stories are clear, the world is a tale of child
abandonment, attempted cannibalism, enslavement and murder.
And Little Red Riding Hood who skipped through the forest –
her basket full of muffins, a fine treat for beloved Grandma
only to find her grandmother eaten by a wolf –
One can only conclude to be wary of predators who
want to take the most valuable things in life away
to feed their own selfish reasons.
Be careful of those disguised as someone we love.
And what the F–k was Goldilocks doing in the Three Bears Home?
It was never about ‘getting things just right’. For God’s sake,
respect the privacy of others! Rest assured, If the Bears owned
guns, it would have been
a very different story.
I dreamed that I might be Scheherazade
famed storyteller of The One Thousand and One Nights
who taught me to tell a story well
just might save your life.
Hour Thirteen – Life is Mary Pecaut
Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. John Lennon
No judgment
Neither good nor bad – life happens.
Like when my niece, Fatima was 17 and diagnosed
with Severe Aplastic Anemia.
Her bone marrow stopped producing blood cells.
No red cells, no white cells, no platelets.
There was no treatment in Mauritania.
Her home, a geographical death sentence.
We traveled the world in search of a cure.
Her first passport, first time on an airplane –
The woman seated next to her
touched the bald man’s head in front
in order to perform ablutions?
First prayer in the skies.
In Tunis, another bone marrow biopsy.
I bribed armed guards at the blood hospital
for packets of liquid gold to transfuse.
Cradling platelet packets, I rocked and sang
Gratitude prayers for donors we’d never meet.
I added your name to the four year wait list
for a stem cell transplant. Of course – Libyans had fled
their war. We rocked platelet packets and sang
gratitude prayers for donors we would never know.
Could your brother be a match?
In Malaysia, ATG shock and awe –
An attempt to zap her body into production.
It didn’t work but she embraced the
Muslim nurses’ fashion – colorful Head scarves with pins.
Fatima wrote her first English words in mashed potatoes
on the hospital tray, ‘thank you’.
Vietnam platelets were the best – lasted the longest.
She mastered chopsticks, designed modest clothes,
sewed and learned to bow and say, ‘Xin chao’.
By the time she reached the NIH, in the US
she was a transfusion pro
The world had kept her alive.
Her brother was the match!
The medical team, cleaning staff
proposed ‘‘Songs of the Day’ for her intensive
care stay. The transplant recovery kids
from Childrens’ Inn danced the halls at night,
as she shuffled, her partner the IV pole.
A three year odyssey of healing
Fatima experienced a lifetime of learning.
Hour Twelve – A Biafran Prayer Mary Pecaut
In a circle we gather next to the Qua Iboe River.
Our sandaled feet stand firm
upon Akwa Ibom soil. Swaddled
in colorful cloth, the Paramount
Chief pours libations
inviting Annang ancestors and all
that is Sacred to soften the ground
of our being, carve out a space within us
where a Holy presence may abide.
Like fishing nets hand-knotted
not handled with proper care
our entanglement is of our own making.
Untie the tangled ropes of destiny
that bind us. Repair the net. Mend the ties. Release
others from the entanglement of past mistakes.
All that is gathered is made whole again.
Hour Eleven – A Sunday Evening in 1970 Mary Pecaut
We lay on the gold shag carpet
in our living room like a jigsaw
puzzle. Mother is lying on her back
next to the piano. Sister rests her head
upon my mother’s belly. And I, in turn, lie
down pillowing my head upon
my sister’s tummy. Brother follows suit, plopping
his head upon my stomach.
It doesn’t take much.
Mother starts it all –
‘Ha.
ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA!
Hour Ten – MAGPIE Mary Pecaut
I’m the bringer of all that sparkles,
harbinger of luck – good or bad
you decide.
My cackle is a siren’s call
A matriarchal cry
Save Our Mother Gaia
My metallic green and purple sheen
gleam glossy
yet all is not
what it seems.
Rising waters engulf
the earth, the future
is grim. Here we are –
Out on a limb
HOUR NINE – Against Isolation Mary Pecaut
Ekphrastic poem based on Photo by Dylan Shaw unsplash
Against Isolation
Just because the sky is
blue Is not enough.
It is not enough the peach
on the horizon nor the carefree streak
of clouds stitched half-hazardly.
It is not nearly enough
when you are enveloped
in a treeless mountain tract
of Arctic tundra.
So unwelcome is the cold.
Invite raw beauty
to be your stilted home.
Lift it well above the ice.
Criss cross tracks in the snow
no matter if they come or go
as if to decry I’m here or
Here, am I.