The Poetry Marathon

Reckoning of My Mission Bell 

Reckoning of My Mission Bell 

 

“Missions were sites of conflict, conquest, and forced labor.”

California History Social Science Framework, 2016.

 

How much I adored her

cast iron campana, erect in morning light, 

astride a rural bridge, entrance to our home,

          13 plus feet tall, shepherd’s crook holding 

          a California El Camino Real bell, 

          its green patina wizened to dark brown.

I imagined it to say, This hacienda welcomes you!

 

I’m not sure we can keep her. My husband

          winces, flashes his Are You Kidding Me look.

          Annoyed, he listens.

 

40 years ago I taught 4th graders 

state history, indigenous peoples’ cultures…

No model missions in my unit

          rather, Spanish settlement & land use. 

          a mention of manifest destiny

          (Somehow I failed to teach how landscape

holds history, genocide of California’s Natives.)

 

El Camino Real Bell, my husband gifted me

celebrating our dream-home, terra-cotta

saltillo tiles & bells grace our property.

          We even replaced it after theft.

          … A journey of new learning shatters 

          my understanding. My bell, a symbol

of cultural erasure, brutal truths. Crap!

 

Friday night ladies, chardonnays in hand, talk politics:

Liberals removing historical statues!

They just want to erase history!

          How my conscience writhes, my beloved bell

          weighs like lead in my gut. I learn

          some people have taken down their

El Camino Real bells. Does removal shape change?

 

I dream of people journeying to foothill baths

          through lands our orchards now occupy. I feel 

          their spirits, hear their weeping.

 

Time to create a new symbol, new narrative

my own space to acknowledge violence,

California’s colonialism in this shepherd’s crook,

          a curve of dominance, not protection.

          I place a fountain encircled with bougainvillea 

          below, honoring Yokut peoples here before me

whose teardrops fall beneath my mission bell. 

 

June 26, 2021

Family–Prompt 7

Living in other people’s minds
comparing
shaming
shifting blame
competing
we were never accepted to be ourselves
we manuevered through bad energy
in rooms of aunts and uncles
that possibly cringed at the length of our hair

outside of our own cublicle
each unit was built from the same
pair
the same grandmother and grandfather
the same mother and father
yet units were shattered into
a lifelong of animosity
and pushing down
withholding truths
ashamed of your very existence
no wonder I don’t fear being abandoned
It seems I fear being loved.

Hour 7 – Normal

I will never understand why

‘Normal’ is the gold standard. We were 

Not born to live the same lives as everyone else and 

Then die with nothing unique to show for it. 

 

Give me loud, bright hair,

Tattoos of pure art that cover your skin,

Laughter too boisterous for the atmosphere.

Give me your weird dances, ugly faces, 

Raw emotion and guttural pain. 

I want to see it all. 

 

To be human is to be different. 

If that wasn’t the case why aren’t 

We just clones of each other, robots 

Instead of free-will-driven people? 

 

Why should we try to change that? 

ITALY – AUSTRIA

No, I’m not watching. Obviously,
I’m here in another room, writing.

During the afternoon drive, I wondered
at all the anger in the world, mine
included. Of what other use is
the ground we stand on, aside from
the planting and watering of seeds,
if not for the stamping of our feet,
the violent beating motions of our arms
as we break the earth to use it?
How hallowed is this spot with weeds,
the final resting place of our peace,
our pleasure, and our endless fury.

Sounds of the match reach my room,
no goals have yet been made.

I could make it personal. There must be
some ugly element on my face, perhaps
on my limbs, or is it the way I speak,
that disgusts those I thought loved me,
and whom I thought I loved. What are
words like ‘family’, ‘brother’, ‘home’,
when uttered with such deep hypocrisy.
But they are them, and I, unfortunately,
am me, and no degree of envy or bitterness
on their part will change that. So little
warmth is left over after half a century.

There is no need to wait for half time.
I know how the game must be played.

Praying for a (Marathon) Miracle

Praying for a (Marathon) Miracle

 

The summertime flu comes around once

a year, always when you need it least.

 

But it’s that slow ache brings you back

to life. Stuffy head and heavy heart

 

broken reminders of things loved

and missed, required when you lack.

 

It signals that you have a mind

creative, a heart still beating, slowly

 

and then quick, a push and pull of strength

you didn’t know you had. You resist

 

the temptation of medicine calling

from the cabinet not wanting the numb

 

that comes. But it’s the ideas you crave,

the hallucinations that ensue,

 

the spin of the world going

dizzy and sideways – just for you.

Hour Seven: Deep Trees

When I was in middle school

Sitting in the back of the math class

On account of alphabetical order

(by last name)

I never knew that everyone else 

could see the equations

In dark green dry erase marker

at the front of the room clearly

 

Coming home from the optometrist

I stared out through the back seat window

Of the family car

in wonder

Now able to see 

the little leaves

On the tall trees

through glasses

For the first time

 

That little version of me

Was quietly beginning to understand

That I was different

And my nuances were obscured 

beneath the broad strokes

My errant rivulets diverted 

Back into the mainstream

 

Do not draw me

In your image 

Do not make me

with a child’s unsteady hand

In an attempt to make 

A green triangle into a tree

always missing the details

 

See my deep roots

the wild, thorny vines

Acknowledge the whorls and spots

I have lost limbs

Severed by rough, uncaring hands

I have withstood forest fire

And days of cooling rain

I will continue throwing off my leaves 

when it is time for me to transform again

And, Yet, here I stand

Swaying gently in the breeze

And beneath me, 

you sit

taking full advantage

of my shade

Post Pandemic

We and the world are changing daily
so that the notion of stability or the usual
seems an absurd construct of a needy, anxious species.
Our cells are constantly coming and going
at different rates, and at different ages
defying a simple equation to describe in total
the normal human being in the world at a point in time,
let alone several points.
The variables can be infinite and
like the Big Bang returning home
will not be the same.

New Normal: A Haiku

new normal weather

heat waves, intense storms, floods, droughts

not normal at all

Hour 5 – The Time Capsule

Mediate, they say.

Let me go.

See only the moment

And the mantra in your mind.

 

So I put on headphones,

I close all the doors.

I sit in the bath,

And let all else go.

 

But sitting there in space,

It’s not solitary,

For in the stillness

That damned box sits

Filed with all that

Waits Until Later.

I sit with my back against it,

The corners pressed in sharp lines across me,

To comfort and castigate me.

 

Shall I pull the tatted shawl off the box and open the rusted hinges?

Perhaps I’ll add another knitted layer to it instead,

Muffling its rust AMD wails a little bit more.

Why should I look inside it anyway?

I remember every harsh and hurtful thing I Squeezed and shoved through the keyhole.

Screaming in agony as I felt out treat from my flesh and wiggle through.

Let the capsule remain as it is,

So all my griefs can ache together.

Just Another Day in Paradise

Just another day in paradise they said

Until shouting started and headlines read

Pandemic, Emergency Measures, Many Dead

Oh! How did this happen?

What do we do?

A Global tragedy, nothing but dread!

The wise old man looked around at his kin and

One by one he clued them in.

“Fear has been the tool they’ve used since time began

Keep your eyes open and do the best that you can.

Take care of each other, each sister and brother.

Find love in your heart, forgiveness, and grace.”

The old man went down the street to his neighbor’s place,

No one to see. A sign on the door written in green

“Do Not Enter. Quarantine”

A curtain pulled back. His friend waved through her tears.

“He’s gone, dear friend. When will it end?” She asked.

“Will it ever be normal again?”

Sadly, he told her it never had been.

It was an imaginary place.

That’s why we need to find peace

and give grace.