The Poetry Marathon

Hour Fourteen –          Sleepless Nights          Mary Pecaut

Every night before bed,

Mom and I snuggled and read

fairytales from other lands.

Lessons learned

I didn’t readily

understand.

I couldn’t sleep

when Jack and Jill 

tumbled down the hill

or even less when Gretel and Hansel 

lost their way in the forest, trusted a stranger who treated 

them well. The Witch! She caged them, enslaved them

and shoved ’em in the oven.

Such were the Grimm tales of my childhood.

As an adult, the stories are clear. The world is a tale of child

abandonment, enslavement, cannibalism, and murder.

Little Red Riding Hood skips through the woods –

her basket full of muffins – a fine treat for Grandma

who she discovers in bed

devoured by a wolf.

What have we concluded? Grandma shouldn’t live alone secluded

or 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,

your story is blown. 

Respect the privacy of others!

We’re to believe that all is hunky dory?

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

Neither good nor bad – life happens.

Like when Fatima, 17, was 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 geographic 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 for a transplant?

In Malaysia, ATG shock and awe – 

An attempt to zap her body into production.

It didn’t work.

She embraced 

Muslim nurses’ fashion – colorful Head scarves with pins,

wrote her first English words 

in mashed potatoes on the hospital tray

thank you.

Vietnam platelets were the best – lasted the longest. 

Fatima 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

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

The world kept her alive.

Hour Twelve –   Beyond Biafran War    Mary Pecaut

In a circle they gather

on the banks of the Qua Iboe River

sandaled feet firm upon Akwa Ibom soil.

Swaddled in colorful cloth, the Paramount 

Chief pours libations inviting ancestors and all that is

sacred to soften the ground 

of each being, carve out a space within 

where a Holy presence may abide.

Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, Ijaw, Igbo,

Tiv, Kanuri, Efik, Ebibio

Like fishing nets hand-knotted

not handled with proper care 

an entanglement of one’s own making.

Unravel the ropes of destiny

that bind. Repair the net. Mend the ties. Release 

the snarl of past mistakes.

All that is gathered is made whole again.

POST SCRIPT:

The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970; also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War or the Biafran War) was a civil war  fought between the government of Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence from Nigeria in 1967.

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 lies on her back

next to the piano. Sister rests her head 

on mother’s belly. And I, in turn,  pillow

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!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

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

alone

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.

Hour Eight-  GIGAN       How We Got Here                  Mary Pecaut

After Ruth Ellen Kocher

you imagine you are god – a god like no other

like Zeus, the ruler, protector of all gods and humans

you imagine you are here to help gods, goddesses and mortals

-unless they are not worthy of your help –

giving rights and privileges in exchange for allegiance

your weakness for women should have been your downfall

repeat cheat in a world without morals

as though we cannot see you 

shape shift, lie and deceive

a tame white bull in Europa’s father’s herd you 

rape, for you imagine you are god

your weakness for women should have made you fall down

down down to the underworld

apprentice to Hades

godly power can be misused

ask anyone seduced by Zeus  

Hour Seven – Together Apart     Mary Pecaut

Ekphrastic Poem After Photograph by Marc A.Sporys on unsplash.com)

Together Apart

The way a couple

sits on a bench

under the shade of a tree

in late summer or perhaps

early fall,

his arm around her shoulders

her gaze cuts right

through the haze

down to the valley below

his regard left

toward the promise

of the sky as if he can determine

the way the wind will blow.

Hour Six –   To Be A Dog in America     Mary Pecaut

Summer morning on the couch 

in my daughter’s house

Luna Love naps 

on my lap.   Where does she go 

in her sleep?  Twitching legs and muffled 

belly barks as though racing ‘round 

Longfellow Park with Jack or Jake – it seems 

on a doggie date. She lives 

the good life 

even in her dreams.

Hour Five –  Gone                  Mary Pecaut

Today, outside our house

looking at your window I

want to believe 

that what I see 

in the pane

is sky –

the same wide-open sky we 

once shared.

The sky that never denied 

an obstinate hope-filled sun

& held our constellations

through the dark.

Now, I doubt the cumulus full sky.

Cauliflower clouds carried 

by the wind do not question

where they will go or what

their purpose might be

or when they must dissipate.

Droplets fill the stream

stream to the ocean

left wide open.