The Poetry Marathon

Sweets

I was a rambler as a child in the summer,
outside dawn to dusk with a sandwich and a book,
maybe a friend or two, a thistledown seed on the wind.

If nothing sweet was in the house, no candy or cookies around,
I would take from the cupboard a packet or two of winter’s
leftover cocoa mix on my meandering travels.

When the need for sweets would hit, I’d tear off a corner,
lick a finger, and coat it in sweet brown crystals
until the packet was empty, bonus points if it had mini marshmallows.

If even old cocoa wasn’t available, a friend and I would raid our homes
and pool loose change to buy nickel candy at the local IGA,
an ice cream or two if we were particularly lucky.

Looking at my grandson’s cocoa in the kitchen pantry, I realize
what an idyllic childhood my parents gave me, what trust they bestowed,
merely by allowing me the freedom to be alone.

My adult womanly existence is flush with the full moon,
a Super Moon when closest to my earthly focus, my love,
a Micro Moon when distant, tiny and dull in the dark.

Wolves keened my loneliness in the cold Wolf Moon,
the Snow Moon marked my February birth.

A Blood Moon’s rarity radiated red, brought forth little deaths of youth,
shed uterine linings prepared my womb for new life.

Blue Moon, you marked my sons’ entrances into the world,
and the Pink Moon of soft Spring gave both life and death to my twin girls.

Strawberry Moon, I thought I would forever be fertile, vibrant,
my adult womanly existence flush with the full moon.

Blood on the moon radiated red, brought forth the death of first love,
but the Buck Moon gifted a richer love in the full flush of summer,
the Corn Moon’s crop harvest gave me his heart.

Frost Moon, I am waning, my woman’s blood drying.
Long Nights Moon, one night soon, I will lay me down.

Six years in the desert of southwest Texas
gave me a new appreciation for seasonal change,
anchoring my soul and body to time and place
in a manner missing for those half dozen years.

Three years since my return, and my gardens
and knowledge are growing apace with one another,
layer by yearly layer.
Fruit trees that were mere twigs are now bearing
for my family, providing present and future sustenance.

I am rooted within the rich soil, rejoicing
in each rainfall in its time, each snowfall
while the gardens slumber.
Every year brings new projects, new experimental
beds and plants, cultivating harmonious growth.

The world at large may be chaotic still,
but here in this secret garden I am at peace.

Dear Tracy,

It’s been twenty-two years since I last saw you,
but I want you to know I think of you often.
I’ve tried to nudge events from this side
to help you and the family, and I’d like to think I have.
Your guardian angels are exhausted, by the way.

Tell your Mom I love her, and we’re all here,
including the uncle that named her, my brother
that was listed as missing from Pearl Harbor all those years ago,
blown off course in his plane, just as we thought.
Tell your Dad his parents are very proud of him, too.

I didn’t think that first marriage of yours would last,
and I’m glad I was right. What, I still speak my mind!
He was cruel to you, always bullying and pushing.
You found your spine and your real love.
I like this one.

Tell all three kids I wish I could have known them longer;
they were so little they probably don’t remember me much at all.
I love your idea to plant purple Shirley tulips in my remembrance;
have the kids help you when you do.
I get to see a whole field of them whenever I want now.

I see you’re a writer; I told your Mom you could!
Maybe if this letter gets to you, you can write about it.
Don’t be in a hurry to get here, but don’t fear getting here either.
All my love,
Grandma, the former Shirley Erck

Homecoming

An oak a century older than my home
peered sternly over the rooftop at me
as my steps meandered up the front pavement,
past the last sunflower not stolen by squirrels
in my dooryard garden.

I stepped through the front door
and hung my writing satchel
on a convenient nail,
inordinately pleased to be enfolded
in my space once more.

With my son’s mulberry wine in a wineglass
and cheddar cheese on a plate at my elbow,
I settled down with a new hardback
and the evening’s knitting at my feet,
content at the end of another day.*

*Use the words oak, pavement, sunflower, satchel, nail, space, wineglass, cheddar cheese, hardback, knitting.

Ancestry.com

When time trickles away
and my body is lost to it,
one more soul among a trillion others
that float freely in the ether,
what memory hand will snatch me back?

To whom will my words speak?

Will they be pressed between the pages
of a few obscure books
on a dusty backroom bookshelf,
or laid away in the corner trunk
of a great granddaughter’s attic?

Will a wondering descendant a century hence
crack open crumbling pages
and marvel at the quaint turns of phrase,
as flowers from a long gone field?

More likely I will survive
in bytes and bits,
emojis of a distant past
strewn throughout a digital record,
archived, if I’m fortunate, annotated,
my googled past laid bare.

Revelation

I wander,
gathering wool down memory lane
and sweetly roaming,
amid revery,
immersed in my mind
and the pulsing heart
of peaceful being when

a sharp noise, a scrolling headline
proclaiming the latest atrocity
yanks me back to HERE,
back to NOW,
a fish on a barbed hook until
I wriggle and rip
away, bleeding,

and set forth,
once again to go a-roaming
through the golden twilight
of my inner meadow,
an abductee to memory,
yet free.

He Will Not See Me Stopping Here*

My love lives in a high house on a hill
surrounded by lush gardens
and trickling fountains.
He enjoys walking those paths
mid morning, late afternoon, and early evening,
digesting the day’s meals in solitude.

I watch as his large knuckled yet languid hand
brushes a flower’s petals,
pushes long fingers through his own thick hair,
or absently waves a gnat away, and
long to have that hand touch me as tenderly.

His eyes caress all that surrounds him,
drinking in the beauty of his insular stronghold.
A judge may sign a paper, but
he will not see me stopping here,
nor here, nor here,
nor here,
or here.

*Line from Robert Frost’s poem Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Learning to Float

I was six when Jaws the movie was released.
We lived in Florida,
a short bike ride to the beach,
and not too far to a favorite drive-in theater either.

Tinny speakers hung from the windows
of our ’76 full size van,
the scent of popcorn wafted through
partial openings, and technicolor gore
splashed across the enormous screen
in front of my terrified eyes,
my sun browned body hunched in the back
between two much larger brothers.

Our next trip to the beach
no way on this planet would I go in the water.
My frustrated father
peeled my iron rod body off his neck,
laid me on the water’s surface,
and spoke gently to me.

My rigid little body
slowly relaxed into the waves’ rhythms,
lulled by the rocking motion,
the flickering sun flirting
with clouds beyond my closed lids,
outer sounds distilled
to just my heartbeat,
as I dreamed
and felt his hand
beneath my back.

So looking forward to the 2022 Poetry Marathon! This will be my sixth full 24 hour marathon, with a half marathon on a seventh year when our family of seven was moving from Texas to Indiana. Happy to be settled in our Indiana home these days and ready to fully immerse myself in this wonderful experience once again, and meet old friends and new. Over time, this one day every year has become a reference point stitching its way through all the intervening days of the year. Though it isn’t easy to find equilibrium and quiet long enough to create meaningful writing in a four generation household, my family respects the good the marathon brings to me enough to allow and even encourage this one day of uninterrupted writing bliss. Good fortune to all who have shared this time with me before, and to those that are new this year, allow yourselves to fully enjoy the experience. The rewards are well worth the 24 hour sleepless effort.