Frolic
Frolic at dawn when day has begun
and frolic at dusk while setting the sun
Frolic in moonlight with glee
Let others see you frolic in revelry
The Moon by the Lake
Sitting here by the lake
Sprawled on a mat on a jeep
The moon rises to show its glory
It’s perfect but spare me the rhetoric
Really? Crescent moon by the lake in the deep of night
Did I conjure this up or
did it really happen?
The truth behind Mason #20
Have I ever told you,
the truth behind Mason,
How he ventured to Waterloo,
and washed his hands in a basin?
I think I have not,
so gather around,
and I’ll tell you what
Mason did while he was still sound.
Mason was a tired old man,
who loved black shoelaces,
and lived in a big, bulky white van,
which doubled as multiple workplaces.
One day, he decided,
that he’d travel to Waterloo,
rather unguided,
and brought with him two black leather shoes.
Of course, he told us,
he’d like to buy a washbasin,
and believed nothing finer than Waterloo would rust,
and so he traveled to Waterloo, and ate nothing but raisins!
And so now, we come,
to the truth behind Mason,
he had a rather green thumb!
And so he purchased a field,
planted good vine,
and waited for what it would yield!
Apologies (to the poet Maxine Kumin, in Memoriam)
Apologies (to the poet Maxine Kumin, in Memoriam)
I must have been a handful.
20 year olds want to see, hear
and taste.
20 year old poets think they know
all.
So much new libido to expend.
So much anger to quiet.
And all the time you
were trying to keep her,
your best friend,
from hurting herself.
Anne Sexton’s signature
went from firm and clear
to a three-letter jagged block.
I saw it at BU. Frightening.
If a signature tells a story,
hers showed volumes.
I hope guilt didn’t sear you.
Meanwhile, there I was,
wanting to devour half the world
and sleep with the other half.
No wonder you retreated.
Sadness, confusion.
I am sorry.
I didn’t know,
although your favorite did.
Perhaps if I had been blond, blue-eyed
and Mayflower-related…
but no.
I never practiced sedate.
It wasn’t in my genes.
Nor demure, nor reverent.
And you would not explain.
I am sorry, Maxine.
I guess misunderstandings were fated.
I just hope
that somewhere,
your piano in the corner
is playing
and the cat on your window
is sunning.
I still have no patience for either.
21
Dearest One~
Slowly I dragged one foot forward. Coughing and sneezing from the dust. I dragged the other foot, scuffing it a little. Yowch! I Muttered to myself not worrying what the others would think. Talking to myself had become a habit and I was a great listener.
The silence then became so loud my ears hurt except for the sound of my labored breathing and the feel of my muscles complaining throughout the night.
My clothes stuck to my body. As I plodded on, I swiped at my face. It was so hot, I could barely stand to suck the air into my burning lungs.
Step~drag step~drag.
A little whisper of breeze tickled my brow.
I stopped and closed my eyes and for the first time in years smelled a pleasant smell. A tiny one that darted through my nostrils, daring me to breathe deeper.
So I did. The breeze stirred and through my slits of eyes I noticed a teeny tiny glow of golden light off in the distance.
Drawn to it, I dragged one foot, dragged another foot a little impatiently and finally began to step more easily and yes, more quickly as I was drawn drawn drawn to that beautiful golden light.
Brighter and brighter much cooler and warmer it glowed so sooo softly my skin felt so fresher from beautiful breezes fanning all ‘cross my face.
Quicker and quicker my steps became quicker and soon I was running my lungs breathing easier.
Younger, yes, younger I felt dropping burdens my troubles~ I ran toward the light.
Scrambling over the top of a hill it gleamed gol~den, I pulled my~self over, and dropped right there right next to you.
You.
I stood trembling yet open and scared, I moved closer and you stepped toward meee and you didn’t mind touching…
Your smile, it was golden~ Your laughter was airy~ Your eyes, how they reached me and touched me inside and I thought~ Am I dreaming? My journey so long and so dark and so dreary and yet here you were all a~tender and beautiful with arms all a~open and waiting and touching, yes, touching againnn at my hair…my eyes…my hands and my heart.
Ohhhh, lover, my dearheart, my sweet one, my life is not over….
My. Life. Has. Beee~gun.
~Yours
(and mine)
his morning #22
his morning
my husband’s having an awful time peeling
those three boiled eggs he has every morning
planning it just right so they are still warm
when the coffee pot perks his dark roast
single cup of Joe a splash of light cream
ESPN will report last night’s sports updates
so essential in his male world allowing
predictable communication with other men
people he interacts with daily
should this routine be disturbed
eggs overdone coffee grounds explode
all will be lost with no hope of redemption
while sitting by my side of the bed
before six a.m. he will deliver that day’s eulogy
certain he is doomed
To Whom does one say yes?
It drove home hard the place I was in, my face chapped by winter,
my soul hardened by sin.
I couldn’t feel much at all now. Could see even less.
I’d seen enough.
A church bell rings in the distance haunting echoes resound.
I recall a time when I knew the joy of that.
Was that a thousand lives ago?
I drop the bottle,
Snow crunches under the step I take
toward the sound.
Flowers
Flowers are pretty and smell really good,
They come in all colors and sizes and should,
Be in every home just to make them feel better, in a vase or a jar or a setter.
Just to see a flower sitting in a window,
Always makes me smile.
I want to go and pick it and keep it for a while.
Prompt Hour Twenty-three–a sense of place
Mystery Machine
When I was small my family prepared for a month long cross country road trip, Florida to California, there and back again. My parents, two brothers, mother’s sister, and I would need to comfortably coexist, mile upon mile, night after day after night.
We traveled in what I called our Mystery Machine, a brown van that seemed specially made for our family, our needs. A full-sized bed folded down from the seats, my brothers and I sprawled out in luxury, years before law enforced seat belts and car seats. My parents would sleep there at night.
Bench seats surrounded a fold-out table to share our evening meal, seats that would become my nightly nest, close by my parents’ breathing, secure. A tiny refrigerator kept daily drinks chilled, a fold-down counter prepped food.
My mother sewed curtains and placed them all round the windowed perimeter of this home space, pulled into dainty x-shapes during the day, and sheltering us from night’s prying eyes.
A pop-up trailer pulled behind this wondrous, folding machine kept my aunt and brothers close by through the night. It was magical, this mystery machine, an origami creation in metal, folding, unfolding, to meet all our needs, all the way there, and back again.
Tracy Plath
A Room
A room in this old house, holds history–
mine, yours ours and theirs.
This room is where I sleep nights;
it’s where I awaken each day to
slatted light from vertical blinds
that open to a window laden with
orange tree leaves and ripened
fruit, the color of the sun setting
on the Pacific not more than a mile
from this very room in this home.
Its cornflower blue walls contain
my thoughts and prayers, my
ujjayi breath, sometime despair.
This oaken floor steadies my
bare feet, wears my yoga mat,
including the cat on top who
skrick scratches her claws in it.
But it wasn’t always my cave;
it belonged to others before me.
Two nieces slept here, the last
who chose the wall colors, and
the one before who now sleeps
in my parents’ home, while they
sleep in mine now, in their room,
which used to be the play room
for loud television shows and toys
and kool aid colored couches for
friends to jump on and destroy.
And before that, it was the bedroom
my husband designed and had built
by a friend who charged too much and
stole his baby grand piano on pretext.
And before it was our bedroom, where
our children were conceived and I
labored in our big blue sunken jacuzzi
tub beneath the bay window and lime
stone tiles surrounding the midnight blue,
it was an office converted from a garage,
where his business began selling hardware,
which eventually turned to software and an
office elsewhere, which he sold to find
more fulfilling work, which he still seeks.
But when my parents moved in, we moved
the bed, desk, dresser, night table and lamps
into my room, the room I share with no one
except the dog, a few cats and the constant
turnstile traffic of inquirers and visitors living
in and outside the house, my room, the hub,
with its Picasso print of woman-dove face in
black and white, who resembles my oldest
daughter even though I bought that print
twenty years before her birth, and now that
she’s twenty herself, she tattooed that face
on her left arm, just like it appears on my
bedroom wall, above the hand painted
poster that asks, “Is there no way out of the
mind?”, purchased and overpriced by a
friend of my daughter’s who painted and
sold it to me after she returned from rehab.
And the Van Gogh with the gilt frame, huge
hanging above my bed, well that was a gift
from my nephew when he was only 23, and
he knew I loved art and so wrapped this big
old Starry Night print and gave it to me, so
that’s why it’s there framed above my head,
garish and cliché but sentimentally stationed.
Because my room holds pictures of my girls,
and a fan that cools me summers and a
heater that warms me winters, and dozens
of ceramic boxes and knick knacks and the
remains of my jewelry box, what wasn’t
stolen by someone who knew the dog
well enough not to get bitten as an intruder.
This room holds hours of frustration, and
ideas, poems and graded essays, years of
reading and writing, drawing, coloring and
crocheting, fretting and forgetting, crying
and laughing, the entire history of a house,
its inhabitants, furnishings, we call home.