Cherished

Helen Cecile

lillian5 Comments

My mother lived with Amy Lowell.
Wrong preposition.
In, she lived in
a Boston housing complex
with a plaque.
Did you know her?
Amy, not Helen.
Tomboy turned poet-ess.
Way before Maya.
Not Emily.
Less famous.
Except there’s a plaque
where Helen Cecile lived.

AMy House Amy plaque Amy mom

Photos:  Amy Lowell Apartment Complex in Boston,  the plaque and Amy Lowell (1874 – 1925). Born in Brookline, MA won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry posthumously in 1926. First published poem appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1910. First published collection of her poetry, A Dome of ManyColured Glass appeared in 1912.  Maya refers to poet Maya Angelou; Emily to Emily Dickinson.  Last photo is Helen Cecile, my mother, in her last year of life. She was born in Waukegan, Illinois and moved with us to Boston in 1997 – lived in the Amy Lowell Apartments and died in 1999.

Color Their Love: cherished series, opus 10

lillian5 Comments

Their love never showed itself
in word or touch.
It simply travelled
through a colored atlas
of their own making.

Sunday rides in a battered Buick,
state highways traced in orange.
Twenty-fifth anniversary in Hawaii,
circled in pink
like their matching floral shirts.

Retired early, she insisted,
they sold all their worldly goods.
Left a three bedroom colonial
for a small motor home,
and rambled through forty states.

College towns starred in blue
for the young at heart.
Green highlights for favorite parks
and the Grand Canyon’s purple X,
the greatest site of all.

Now, in a pastel assisted living center
map of colors upon her wall,
she gazes out the window
at red and yellow tulips,
his ashes beneath their blooms.

With quaking hand
she touches coffee cup to pane,
then slowly to her lips.
This, their morning kiss, a ritual
now the road is still.

momanddad

Her Legacy

lillian4 Comments

photo

It was a short notice.

Helen Cecile is predeceased
by Charles Andrew and Charles Gruenwald Jr,
her husband and son.
God knows, she’d lived the last eight years
impatiently waiting to join them.

It moved with her when she was left alone.
An eight by ten picture from a 1930s Life Magazine
a dark haired young nurse in white cap
surrounded by an aura of glowing light.

Her nurses’ training lasted six months.
Instead of earning a nurse’s pin
she eloped
and eight months later
put my brother to her breast.

The room was empty when I took it down.
Water-stained backing, script barely readable.
My dearest Helen,
No one can take this away from you.
Sister Everista 1937

For sixty years,
she’d kept her dream
in a plastic frame .

Revised from original post on April 17….to no acclaim except my neice’s phone call about this poem, about her grandma. My mom — 

Steps of Old

lillian3 Comments

In this place
we lived life without reins
walked quickly, surefooted and headstrong
enjoyed the sleep of youth, less but deep
savored black coffee and devoured Kierkegaard.

This hill
tread so many times
landscape changed, more green, more lush
more steps, surely higher, climb to a different space
new buildings rise above refurbished old.

The trees are bigger, the shade more dense
as we seek the shadows of our past.

      

Cul de Sac Season

lillian2 Comments

She sits on a faded brocade chair
brown age spots and blue veins
eyes clouded by cataracts
lace curtain pulled back.
Her house is on a cul de sac,
last one on the end curve.

Yard swings, long quiet
moved wistfully in summer winds
now shrouded in new-fallen snow.
Nearby holiday displays
draw a slow parade of cars
like moths drawn to light.

Cold drive-by strangers
slip past the lone dark house.
Her solitary reading lamp
turned off at seven
A Christmas Carol splayed open
on the wood planked floor.

Bisque: cherished series, opus 8

lillian8 Comments

IMG_5397

china bisque faced doll
my aunt’s when she was young
a twin, that’s two, but not really
the second was a boy
christmas tree with big lights
not twinkling like miniature strobes
not like stars on top of Cadillac Mountain
where you waved blueberry stained fingers
mine were smudged from ink
postcards and letters sent back home
left out the sad parts
the stained and smudged parts
bisque fragile life
still beautiful
without the sparkle

Photo: my aunt’s beautiful bride doll. China bisque face with kid leather body. 

Magical Place: cherished series, opus 7

lillian4 Comments

Everyone has a house, but not like 5018.       
We took many a long voyage
at that address, sailing the seas
within basement walls.

Grampa was a Swedish immigrant
young idealist and painter by trade.
He sailed across the Atlantic
right into the heart of America.

Years later, he painted the scene.
Ceiling sky cerulean blue
dipped to meet the walls’ horizon
forever brightened by invisible sun.

Gulls soared in place
their cries imagined real
through misshapen clouds
fluffy white, no rain in sight.

Waves rolled with white caps
dabs of paint that never splashed.
Life preserver, hung lifeless
unused and not quite round.

Dry mops swabbed the decks
while lookouts watched for land
till dreaded words Time to go home
drifted down from too real stairs.

We abandoned ship to heed the call
packed into four-door cars
rode through busy honking streets
back to everyday landlocked homes.