The Poetry Marathon

Dear Jan,

You're on the plane to Madrid right now.
It's the best decision you've made so far,
and you've tended towards good decisions. 
But, well, you've been cautious and safe. 

Just know: 
Take more chances.
Stroll those magnificent streets and alleys.
Learn old people's names and all their stories.
Master the cooking. Imitate the regional dances.
Make Madrid your playground. Remember: parks every day.
Sleep under the stars more on your tiny little balcony.
Flirt with the men when you dance, and walk home with 
your best girfriends, one at each house in those streets 
you'll grow to love. 
Spend more time with families who embrace you as one of their own.

You'll do these, I assure you, but do more. 
Dive in and keep taking those chances. 
You'll look back on this with great love. 
So beautiful and strong and independent already, 
be so - just more. 

Rolling over on her pillow as the moonbeam floated in the hushed morning, she smiled her not so usual smile. A new day, she realized and felt strangely free of all the worry of late. No fog greeted her, no wretching stomach, no worries Stretching up and out of bed, she reached for her clothes.”Funny,” she thought, “I don’t recall this dress. It’s perfect vintage, though. Note to self: Call Gran and thank her for this incredible find.” Which grandmother, though, sent this to her? Juana or Stella? Or was it Isadora and Agneta? She always just called them Gran anyway.

Twisting her hair “just so” to match the retro flair, she caught a glimpse of herself in the vintage mirror. “Damn fine, if I say so myself! Looking good . . . .”  Funny, her name didn’t quite fit this look, so why not just pretend for the day?

Pretend is certainly what she had to do, for she discovered a perfectly tidy kitchenette, waiting just for her (or so it seemed).  “Coffee,” she said aloud while searching each shelf in the cupboard.”The perfect latte or cappuc –,” she was surprised at what she didn’t find as her typical morning perk. “Hmm, just regular coffee. Already ground. Plain old flavor. Well, it’s part of a joke, I suppose. I can play with it; it may just be fun.”

To her surprise, in came a man who walked right up to her and kissed her long and hard. “The regular breakfast for me, Sweetheart,” he called out, and she immediately knew it was scrapple and eggs over medium with dark coffee, which she had somehow brewed in this percolating old-fashioned coffee pot. Oddly, she instinctively reached for his lunch pail and canteen, discovering that they were already filled with lunch and iced tea for the day. He laughed when she looked at him a bit puzzled. “Ready for a full day at the dock! Today we’re pouring concrete all day,” and finished eating the meal she had placed before him sometime earlier. She kissed him back and assured him, “The children and I will be trimming the little fir for the holiday party”

It was while she was saying this that she realized that now she had children. Children upstairs sleeping in beds down the hall from her bedroom, with lunches she now needed to make and homework bundles to prepare for school. When did she go back in time? Where did the husband and children and fir tree come from? Who was she anymore? What games had her friends been playing? Who were they anyway? If only, if only, if only. . . . Who was she anyway? She could no longer remember.

Till We Have Faces

Till we have faces which others recognize,
we'll struggle 
for the genuine compliment of competence
not a measure about how we make others feel, 
for promotions and invitations
without expectations of contributing our best,
for our voices to be heard
without our need to call out louder ever lounder.

Till we have faces we recognize in each other,
we'll struggle
to accept each other whether or not we have children
an education, a stable home, a successful health care plan, 
a clean record, a proper background, a promising future,
the right husband or children or pantsuit or political platform.

Till we have faces for ourselves
we'll struggle to wake in the morning and sleep throughout the night.
Till we have faces for ourselves
we'll look in mirrors with doubtful eyes and pounding hearts.
Till we have faces for ourselves
we'll teach our daughters and nieces and students this similar fear.

Till we have faces
we must rise to see, value, and affirm our being.
Our uprising starts now
and continues until we all know our worth
because they'll finally see our faces.

Dreams were easy to achieve: 
travel to foreign lands, falling in love,
changing the world in my career. 

My brain exploded: 
safety within four walls, humbled love for my Steve,
grateful to just return to work. 

At 49 I became old.

She'll return to Spain's mountains along the sacred path to Santiago 
yet transform a half a world away to guard her childhood crib
now rocking, gently rocking, rocking rocking a new little one. 
Pilgrams and infants alike will hear soft chimes and glance, 
looking for the music maker, the one who hints of the good to come.

She'll rustle the fallen leaves on autumn nights when the very last of the 
warm winds blow, and families will take walks -- long walks to faraway lands
in search of warm homes, food, safe sleep for their gray-haired ones, education
for the youngest, and the chance to dream yet again for what they want and love.
She'll walk beside and whisper, "I'll protect you with all I am. Keep on." 

She'll enter schoolrooms and playgrounds and again teach, trading ponderous 
lessons for life skills to keep best friends, new loves, and honored guides. 
Students will look back on saved notebooks but remember the days so glorious 
with deep meaning and new dreaming. She'll sigh as she journeys with them,  
growing older but -- so she'll hope -- not old. Never old. 

She'll return to Spain's mountains along the sacred path to Santiago,
to Syria to Sudan to Guatemala and reservations, to your home and mine
and walk beside those Pilgrams seeking a meaning for life, their yearning
for wholeness and worth. She'll watch them grow and whisper in the evening winds, 
"Laugh for Life will fly. Protect each other. Have strength. Keep on." 

Locked out, I've returned with hopes of homecoming, 
but have found I've been erased, blocked out. 

Empty spaces where once I played have been transformed
by frocked business people with stern, gray faces

which seem to ridicule and mock those childhood dreams.
These are the same friends from my youth, their hearts

have hardened in the cruelest rock formations. Days of 
strife and distrust have locked their innocence away.  

Hitting a wall with this but trying to unblock

Just going to rhyme. Think of some rhymes as well? Add them . . . .

From there, I’m going to try to figure out a poem. I seem to be writing more prose poems, and the lists aren’t coming today, either.

Locked out      Blocked out    Knocked out   Rocked out

Tocked  Stocked  Frocked  Smocked   Mocked  Crocked (?)  Flocked  Rocked  Shocked

You left me here
closed from the world
from my family
from any sort of a friend.
My world grows small
smaller
smallest each passing hour
each passing minute
into moment
as I feel my head
grow small around my 
brain
tight, 
tighter, 
tightest
as I struggle to breathe
while my chest clenches my heart
harsh, 
harsher, 
harshest. 
You left me here
closed from the world
from my family
any hope for a friend.
You have grown cruel,
crueler, 
cruelest.  

. . . and I look down to realize I am rowing a boat.
My arms create waves that loop white on blue-purple water.
With each stroke, I come closer to the shore where the castle stands.
Three more heaves, two more, and this final one come
before I step onto the crag. 

Doors immediately open to me, and I look up high as I enter
this castle. Treading upon the floor of a chess board, I note 
billowing clouds through the windows above opening to the sky.
One step speeds into hundreds, and I stand in the center of 
hallways, but which to walk?

Down one hallway I come upon self-portraits: two years old, then
fifteen, then twenty, thirty five, fifty into ages beyond me now.
Am I seeing my future? I wonder, for on the wall opposite I find 
the memories for those years. Memories yes - but I don't recall until 
just now, this walk, this moment.

The hallway ends, and I stand on yet another crag, this a 
mountain with a path back down the hill to where I've been or 
a new boat with billowing sails, positioned towards the now setting sun.
The day has passed. Which choice do I make?

Pure and lovely like the little rosebuds
peeking through the dark red roses of gratitude
next to pink ones of grace,
he stood ready for his wedding.

The zinnias of yellow, magenta, and white
reminded him of those many who had died over the years.
"First generation" who had passed before the cure came,
who should have been celebrating today, yet they were somehow.

White violets flirted with blue violets, 
reminding him to keep a sense of romantic fun in coming days.
The resplendent passion-flower? Well, that spoke for itself, 
and he blushed and buried his face in the tulips for a moment.

Today, this hour, each moment, 
he had longed for and imagined and replayed. 
His wedding,
his beaming groom,
his bridal bouquet.