Rebecca: To Tie Firmly, To Bind

She wanted me to call her Rebecca.

I complied.

But not at the end.

 

Twenty-three years ago today,

My brother called.

She’d died of a stroke in the night.

 

“Mom’s dead?” “Mom’s dead?”

My then six-year-old son reported my reaction.

I have no memory of my words.

 

Only incredulity

Only dismay

Only shattering

 

How I remember her final words:

“You, your brother, and your sister are my

Greatest gift to the world.”

 

Mom’s final gift to me

A blessing without end

Rebecca’s memory a blessing.

With my crappy mood
ginally finally out of its shell,
it is breakfast time

Hour 1: Training at Ned’s Point

Training at Ned’s Point, Mattapoisett, Massachusetts

 

The lighthouse, white

washed brick stands

stark against the matte

grey, winter waves,

darker than the leaden

steel clouds, my breath

hangs in the air, a puff

of steam captured in a mask.

 

It sits, as grumpy old New Englanders do

cold and silent, watching.

 

Seagulls dart over the tarnished silver

surface of the sea, but human

trash is easier pickings.

Rats of the Sea

Ocean pigeons

Dropping discarded wrappers

on the rocky beach.

 

Every Saturday morning, we bow

to the East, the tides

silent against the rocks. Boats

in their moorings sheeted white

with plastic and snow.

 

Submerging, the pain is instant.

An exquisite icy blow

shocks me alive,

pins and needles

more electric than Afib paddles.

I shake

red and blue

dripping on the beach.

 

Its lines have long since

smoothed into aesthetically pleasing curves;

its jagged character flattened.

Vessels crowd wooden docks,

glistening, reflecting the polished

sheen of privilege.

Quiet and still more often than not.

I wish I was more

like the lighthouse

like the sea

like the boats.

 

 

 

The Ending

The Ending

 

A text arrived. “can we meet tonight?”

rapidly I replied “Off course, i’d love to”

I was madly in Love, therefore blinded

with a glowing heart and beaming smile I set off.

 

“This is my dad” introducing me on my arrival

“Nice to meet you”. the first meeting since we started dating

when we entered her house, things were different

no embracing hug or kiss. Still I did not see!

 

Sitting down next to me, her quietness confused me

No eye contact and a soft voice, “This isn’t working out”

not quite the whole it’s not you, It’s me scenario

dumbfounded and devastated. Did i hear that right?

 

Both of us were adults, yet i felt like a little boy.

Heart broken and fully aware it was over, not a break.

Any other dialogue is a blur, well, my side of the coin

leaving for the last time, she gently pressed a kiss on my Cheek

 

Sitting in my car with my head down on the steering wheel

tears freely flowing. I didn’t move for twenty minutes

it was then I realised, I was so blinded by love

with my guard down, The ending shattered a fragile heart.

 

 

Visiting the lake

You are a pair of legs pegged beneath gunwales up ahead in the forest. You with your canoe-head where forward is easy.

Did we bring the right things? Paddles, fishing-rods, and something to light the fire.

Did we remember everything? Cans of deviled ham, musk oil, and rope.

Was it a useful checklist or a collection doomed? Fuzzy-peach gummy candies and the worn out tarp that was “better than nothing”.

So the canoe sank heavy into the surface, tipping left and right, with our leans and dips, and our paddle strokes.

Pulling us, by hand, and arm, and bodily forward.

Gliding, softly above the black.

Contemplating Endings

In my seashell I lie.
Packaged in a nice neat ball
like the fetus I am.

Needs are met
could ask for more
but I’ll save that.

Content and fed
will do for now.
Daydreams consumed
with running away.
Yet here I remain.

Caged out of my own freewill.
I’m scared.
Won’t bother elaborating
about my achy chest.

To be free
is to be vulnerable.
And each day
I still remain like so.

 

As seasons fade by
I grow against
my own freewill.
One day my home
will crack to pieces.

Maybe I should
just break free myself…
Nah.

Letting something else
write my story
brings me an eerie comfort.
Fate does all the work.

 

(Poem 1 of 2021 Half-Marathon)

Hour 1: Journey

Our journey was so beautiful

I wonder why

Why didn’t it work

I blamed myself

I sacrificed myself,

But it still didn’t go well,

It still ended,

My heart broke into pieces,

But, I found myself afterwards,

My journey is more colourful now

The end was bad, the afterwards is lovely.

 

Prompt One (perfect prompt for my April retirement from teaching)

The Stars are Waiting

Not a door closing but
steps further away

Not steps further away but
in a different direction

Not steps in a different
direction but

new steps, full of vigor
carrying thirty years

of children with me –
their laughter, joy, and sorrow

Their curiosity and
wide-eyed wonder

Their innocence and will to
believe in things, unseen

Their ability to forgive and
care just as fully as before…

Their upside-down grins –
hanging from the monkey-bars

Their antics and giggles
while no-one is watching

Their antics and giggles
while everyone is watching

Their rush to comfort when
friends are down

and their love of everything new

Everything – no longer new
but my steps

New is what I’ll search for as I
take in my surroundings… seeing more –

New is stillness on the forest path; the
unturned stone of the future

New is learning to hop-skip on the beach again –
the invitation of the ocean’s swell

New is sitting in a tree
reading poetry by Maya Angelou

New is building a garden big enough to house
hundreds of peace stones; gifts, accumulated

New is baking up a storm for doors
once again, flung wide

New is flinging doors open-wide
arms, too – hearts, singing

Being the kite
wafting in the wind

the stars are waiting

(Cristy Watson, 2021)

Hour 1: The End of the Beginning

She wore a suit to the office and slicked her hair back.

The sun rose over her desk on the 12th floor each morning,

some mornings with her still at it from the night before,

way after the fireworks at Disney lit up the sky over the Matterhorn.

 

She often trembled and screamed in frightful hysteria,

whether in terror, rage, or frustrating fear, the office mates heard.

Until that day, when the mine went off, a planted time bomb,

and her head exploded inside a cage, inside the cement, inside–

 

When the four-wall howling ended and the gavel slam echoed

through a billion steps home, a fish tank then, she walked out.

And never looked back as the deputy screamed, “Get the fuck out!”

So she did and freed her bodily being, her mind not far behind.

 

She wears slippers and pajamas to work now, flexible hours,

and whispers, “thank you” to all she meets and all she doesn’t.

For all terrible storms, wind, fire, water, pour over the dead, or

soon-to-be-dead, until they learn to awaken and be, live and breathe.