The Poetry Marathon

From George’s Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl: “For a few brief moments he had touched with the very tips of his fingers the edge of a magic world.”

Traveling to the end of the world 
to touch waves lapping onto the shore, 
she trusted there was magic in holding
soil, sand, and sea foam in hands which 
could shape, manipulate, connive, and create
something useful and beneficial. 
An alchemist? Far from it despite people's 
obstinate demand to cast healing as magical. 
A witch? Far from it despite the cruel and again 
obstinate demand to cast others as demonic. 
Her remedies would come from those handfuls of 
soil, sand, and sea foam gathered, formed, and 
massaged into salves to bind others' pain.

Scrawled in the yearbook are forever promises of people I've now forgotten. 
Which exact Mary informed me I was "sweet" then drew a flower?
I can't recall the "fun times in Spanish Club" over forty years later. 

Scrawled in the yearbook are forever promises of people I've now forgotten. 
Which football player did I admire from afar? I remember the feeling but not the face. 
Why did I overlook those next to me in theater and debate? 

Scrawled in the yearbook are forever promises of people I've now forgotten.
Afternoons of painting scenery, running laps, learning poems now echo in my memory. 
We shyly interacted then hurried home to essays, multiplication tables, and notecards.

Boisterous and buoyant or timid and tender, we learned about first jobs and first loves.
We idealize those days, yet we remain those growing teens even now.  
Quarterbacks now teach immigrants and refugees; beauty queens have become grandmothers. 
We set stages and memorize roles for work as accountants, custodians, engineers, or counselors. 
Yet some do not continue.

Gunshots, depression, sudden illness, or freak accidents claimed some of us, 
now forever remembered as thirteen to eighteen, young and full of the life we others 
remember and reach back to hold and reclaim and live in spirit. 
Captured in the yearbooks are timeless moments of those whom we can never forget. 

Oh, dear, this enormous dog
keeps barking at me.
It’s quarter to four, and
I’ll be late for my tea.

With snarls then ruffs
circles and puffs,
we stare eye to eye
this canine and I.

Dog, you silly dog,
STOP barking at me.
Four o’clock is here, and
I am late for my tea.

Wags and paces
Darting into safe spaces,
Our contest is hurried
as we both scurry.

A dash here, a plea there
hops and sidesteps
we prance this strange dance
amidst yowls and yips.

The dog, sweet dog,
purrs contentedly.
At now quarter past four, 
we’re sharing crumpets and tea.

Hour One of 2021 Marathon

In January 2021 I began the journey
hundreds of miles trekking in pilgrimage
to a virtual Santiago amid the small houses
of my safe community where invisible threats
came into the very air we breathed.

An e-route with guideposts and imagined sunflowers
along with hundreds of miles opened before me
as I walked darkest mornings
when the owl perched in my front yard
harmonized with the train whistle miles away.

The road continued
as I walked tired in the afternoons
following students’ queries and fears and hopes
their zoomed voices echoing odd harmonies
with birds and barks of surrounding houses.

A few evenings I walked a few more steps
as the sun shone upon iced winter roads,
muddy spring parks, and now summer’s opening fields.
Today no harmonies come from increasing traffic,
crowded stores, drowned out animals’ cries, my heart.

One hundred final on this pilgrimage
now open before me, and the ultimate arrival
will take me back to my classrooms, into the chaos,
buildings and streets busier and filled with people
clamoring with unsettled nerves and angst.

My journey has been sad.
Steps upon steps were designed for intentional peace.
Discovering stillness full of painful, tender unknowns,
I’m older and wizened from the pivots and strains.
Miles remain as I finish this journey.

Greetings from Kansas City, Missouri. Ready to write?  I am!

Ah, 

Smiles emerge when I think of you standing there: 
tall, kind, soft-spoken - the first gentleman I've known. 
We waited for car rides and balanced books that bright afternoon. 
Your wit and insight shone through and broke your shyness.
13 at the time, little did we realize a final goodbye would 
come not even ten years later. 
13 at the time, our dreams were all possible.
Our world was still hopeful, open to all we'd do, 
ready for our shaping hands and youthful souls. 

You studied at Cornell, you were changing the world already. 
A car accident off a bridge ended your contributions. 
We had seen each other only briefly at a college party. 
You remained among the finest gentlemen I'd know. 
You still are, crystallized in my mind's eye these decades past. 

We've all grown older: wrinkles, addictions, children who gave us grandchildren.
You should be with us. Fatigue is here, yes, but life is still worth the struggles. 
Others from our class died, too. I imagine you there on a bright afternoon, welcoming them 
A haunting, silent summer has closed in; we look to our past. 

I think of you and your promise. Our tired world grow brighter in those moments. 
I remember you.

I prepared for the school dance
the dress pressed
a boudinair for his lapel
dancing to songs in advance
all the dreams of youth
bursting forward and coming soon. 

Twirling and swirling, over and again. 

Yet Dad grew sick early that morning.
A fever first caught our attention. 
His quiet mornings had been clues
as he cradled his aching head in folded arms. 
These were the days before the actual
tumor was first detected, the pain present
but the malady silent and lurking. 
To the hospital we went and waited. 

Twirling and swirling, over and again. 

We sat next to him, playing the television, 
laughing nervously, and watching for doctors.
A rerun of Lawrence Welk began, and so did memories. 
My sisters and I danced to long-forgotten songs 
floating like flowers in lapels at school dances
Dad our handsome beau, slowly smiling then gently singing.

Twirling and swirling, over and again.

Take one morning, sift lightly

and walk past silent houses, glistening dew, and twittering birds.

Add one glass of orange juice, accompanied by a dandelion

Gulp and think of next hours.

Open the windows and doors while the sun fills the sky.

Add the chores of childhood, refreshing and earnest.

Mix in one salad or sandwich or soup at midday,

the same ingredients contributing to each all week.

Add an hour of reading encyclopedias, cookbooks, long-kept magazines

and lower to a simmer, leading to a nap.

Gently check after 45 minutes, and slowly remove to a windowsill.

Check the breezes, watch the passing clouds, listen for dogs.

Finish the salad or sandwich or soup from earlier.

Let the evening sun quietly set.

Summer Vacation: 2020

A new vision of self within her,
she claimed her place among men.
Examinations, boards, clinics,
always serving women and children.
Ongoing ailments and illnesses with
roots in misinformation and ignorance
spurred her to find new solutions.
Education for a world of those underserved.
Traveling the world to help others.
Her vision for self led to possibilities for others
a new way of thinking, learning, and living.

connoisseur, listen to it all

close friends

smarter eyes

rare Latinx writers

drug war or violence

reinforce stereotypes.

the rejection felt

cut down

Do I have a moral obligation to do anything as a writer?

clickbait-y talking point

stereotypical drug lords, maids, gangbangers,

pushback against this new Trump administration

built on stereotypes about Latinx people

informing very real US policy today

Have we boxed ourselves into stories only about good brown people and better brown people?

by looking away from those

stereoptypes does that make us complicit

weaponizing stereotypes against us?

James Baldwin taught us

respectability politics will not save us

look it in the eye

explore the complexity

of that stereotype

reclaim it.

those stories

are ours

basic truth

we feel cheated by portrayals

as told through the white gaze

It is significant

Look these impolite realities in the eye

Why/ How?

Demand complex stories

You don’t know the lives you’re deporting

You don’t want to know

If we ignore the complexities of our world

we make literature dumber not smarter

we should tell those stories.

Why Latinx Writers Should Decenter the Narratives That Have Been Weaponized Against Us