tulips for tissues

little girl lost at home
wanted nothing more
than a white fence around a
garden, a cottage filled
with children
and a man whose eyes
brought the sun indoors

fairy tale princess, don’t be sad
your cottage is made of plaster
but it keeps you warm at night
and when you dream, the sunshine
does not forget you, coming
to you in visions, warming your
body like you need

do you suppose the garden to be
filled with fanciful creatures–
fairies who wield swords
battling dragons that threaten
to turn off the sunshine–
don’t cry–you know you
can beat them, if only you
look your monsters in the eyes

hydrangeas and daffodils remind you
that this is what you wanted
the fence can be painted over
and the tears dried–
tulip petals for tissues
beware–you don’t grab
at the poison ivy
with your small hands

beware of warm breath, the
dragons that look like princes–
you are safer in your make-believe
gazebo, this splendid tea laid out
on toadstools
and smiles–
all your smiles that bring the sunshine
with no help at all

you have it in you
to shine, and
cottage, garden, fairies and slain dragons
are all yours

graduation speech

there was something they never told us
the way things feel in the night when it rains
and every kind of emotion drawn out
by school and girl scouts and travelogues-
don’t be afraid, you will get through it
but no one promises you won’t be scarred
each mark you are proud of today, tomorrow
you will sue the city for, bound and determined
to be something other than them, someone else
that does not fail to be all that you can be
the cliché of the moment, and in forty years,that
all-encompassing deliberation of 12 angry men
to decide your guilt knowing
you probably are not innocent, not
really, but no one will ever ever know about
that time in the fitting room so as far as the
neighbors are concerned, you could be Eleanor
Roosevelt, after all, you did pay for that
annual firemans calendar and you didn’t come by
that burn mark on your thigh playing pinochle

Intruder

 

I stomp through your rooms
I scream my childhood until it echoes
I take off my shoes and lie on the floor
feet on the wall while I read

We live here in shifts
you with reality, I with my fairies
wandering in and out with one of them
on my shoulder. Scampering

when you come home you kick off shoes
you turn on music and from a shadow
we watch you dance away your day
before we find another place

to lie through the night

Monday Random: love and hate list

It’s time for a little transparency:

I hate:

1. people being mean, especially to the defenseless
2. reading ‘teh’ for the
3. your instead of ‘you’re’
4. ‘bitch’ becoming part of the vernacular
5. judging and dismissing based on the body or face
6. milk
7. beets
8. honey
9. hot, humid days
10. socks with holes

I love:

1. humble people who listen
2. words
3. music
4. poets- crazy, strange, and wonderful people
5. chocolate
6. coffee
7. every vegetable and fruit except beets. I eye artichokes and okra warily
8. pasta
9. Bill Murray
10. cool, rainy days

I wish:

• I spent more time listening when my kids were kids
• there were less 1-strike-you’re-out people and more listeners
• spring followed autumn
• you weren’t so far away, you know who you are
• the wrong people would leave me be and the right people would see how time is slipping away
• honey didn’t taste so bad because I seem to be the only one in the world that hates it
• Kurt Cobain and Robin Williams didn’t give up
• we could sell laughter for currency
• Orson Welles lived now, still making films
• no one was hungry

A song about love and hate:

Visiting

 

I went to a local nursing home to visit my friend. She turned 93 on her birthday yesterday. I hadn’t been able to reach her by phone. Bad timing and bad luck. I would call during a meal that was earlier than I expected, or she would be at physical therapy or a Bible Study down the hall. I could have interrupted, but it seemed best not to. Today though, I felt I ought to go find her. I hadn’t seen her in a month, and I didn’t want her to think I had forgotten her birthday. Her husband was there and told me she was in the cafeteria. Walking to the lunch room I saw faces I recognized, but could no longer put names too, familiar faces from my relatively small town that helped make up the quilt of a place. Seeing their faces again filled in the empty squares. I had missed them and didn’t know it. They were simply in this peaceful place, trying to get well. Some had family coming. Others have outlived their families and work the days as best as they can by reading or talking to the other residents.

When I found my friend’s table, she had a smile upon seeing me. Lunch wasn’t served yet, so we talked some, and caught up. She asked if I had remembered her birthday yesterday, and I told her I had, only I could not find her. She said that they had let her go home with her family for a few hours and enjoy her birthday there. I told her I loved her and gave her the fudge I made, her favourite treat, which she has told me many times that she used to make as a young girl after school. I kissed her and hugged her shoulders and left, again, seeing faces I had not seen in years, some ghostly now, others seeming to recognize me as well. Walking out into the sunshine and sliding my sunglasses from the top of my head to cover my eyes, I felt changed. It was a daily, mundane experience, but I was changed by the love of people for the rest of their town that is slowly becoming another town entirely.

like at your home
birds still sing at your window
sanctuary