memories

Sunrise Return to Sweden

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Four years ago, we took a Baltic Cruise, including a day in Stockholm. My husbands’ family is very Swedish. His grandfather, Hjalmer Siegfried immigrated in 1906, at age 22. Painter by trade, he decorated the basement walls to look like the USS Sweden, the ship that brought him to Ellis Island — complete with ship railings, sky, and sea gulls. Some visitors actually got seasick after a Yule drink of homemade glog. Well, honestly, I don’t know if it was the simulated ship or the grain alcohol in grampa’s glog!  Criuise highlight?  The VERY early morning glide through the absolutely quiet and rustic archipelago, leading into Stockholm. Island after island….stunning!  NaPoWriMo day 8 entry, without prompt.

     Dawn in the Archipelago, outside Stockholm….just entering Sweden.  IMG_6095      

Sunrise Return to Sweden                                                             

I stand mesmerized.
Dawn awakens serenity’s beauty
rippled patterns glisten on black sea
gulls hover over softly churning wake.

Moving patterns of white wings
against dark greens and grey rock edges
the occasional light house turns its eye
wood frame homes nestle in their woods.

The ship slowly glides in dark waters
through Sweden’s archipelago
guardian isles to myriad lines of ancestry
protector from the city’s growing girth.

A lone call from among the gulls
pierces still air, a stark welcome
primitive in nature, surely heard before
by our grandfather and his and his and his.

IMG_6136

The Table: cherished series, opus 2

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Celebrate National Poetry Writing Month  NaPoWriMo   Writing Prompt Day 7: a poem about something that has value or worth.

Cherished items, people, and places live in our memories. And because we lead transient lives, their meaning and clarity can evolve over time. Old photos call forth recollections. 

 

The Table

She found the table at Marshall Fields
in nineteen forty-nine, and pictured
her family at exactly half-past six each night
four plates, four forks, knives and spoons.

White oak, the Illinois state tree
with tight growth rings
durable, resilient, and
carved with artisan’s care.

Emotions buffed artfully into lustrous patina
over years marred by scratches, chips and burns
tuna-noodle-pea casseroles set forgetfully upon the wood
and forks slammed down in anger.

Keeping up with Rita, Gwen, and Claire
teflon pans and a formica table-topper
emotions erupt on modernity as leftovers
disappear in a single swipe of the hand.

Phraseology

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The power of words – made into phrases – dependent on circumstances…

Words to a baby small
said with a grin
scooping mashed somethings
from a dripping chin.
All gone.

Long buried
dark transgression
in the almost unreachable
back room of my mind.
All gone.

Brother sudden, father slow,
mother slower still.
My lips whisper:
now – just me.
Almost – all gone

   

Uncle Jim – cherished series, opus 1

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A Prose Poem? Never created in this form before — sort of like a short story, but shorter and more musical? And so begins the Cherished Series.

Jim

Uncle Jim

We hadn’t seen each other in more than twenty years. Now, here I am, watching him peer out of a torn screen door in a mobile home park. I feel his thinness in our hug.

He leads me into the kitchenette where a yellow Tupperware pitcher of pink lemonade sits on the table. There are two metal glasses, one red and one purple. The sticky cardboard can, on its side in the sink.

He listens for a while, to the latest stories about my kids. Do you have any pets? Before I can answer his eyes glance down and he starts talking about Cindy, the black lab he had for so many years. You remember Dickie, my second wife? Well, she just didn’t like dogs and so I couldn’t…..  and his voice trails off. This seems like a nice park I say, filling in the silence. Oh I love the dances and the bingo parties. All the ladies want to dance with me since Dickie died. But I’m not up to any of it so much anymore.

It took an hour to walk the small grocery store. We came back with ten cans of soup, applesauce packs, a quart of nonfat milk, some Comet and three chicken pot pies.

On my way to his place I was thinking it would be nice to see Uncle Jim in his twilight years. But it’s dark going home and I never did see any fireflies lighting up the sky.

Secrets One and Two

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We all have them, right?   Secrets can be delicious or debilitating, wonderful or horrific. So here’s the question to think about. At some time in our lives, have we all had both?
 

Secret One                                                  

A secret so sublime
you long to swirl it
relish it slowly
like the first pour
of fine red wine
as it coats the glass
anticipation heightens
the tasting as divine
as the telling.

 

Secret Two

A secret so potent
like anger
wind-whipped current
roaring through
the sea wall of your mind
unrelenting persistent
batters forward
again and again
through rock hard edges
until released in spews
shattered feelings spent.

The Tree

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We lived in Bermuda for  35 days (Jan 24 – Feb 26) at Crooked Elbow, #5 Shinbone Alley. Bermudians in St. George name their homes. So we totally missed Boston’s 100+ inches of snow.  Well, not missed, but missed — you know what I mean.

We understood quickly why, during one of his stays in Bermuda, Mark Twain famously wrote, “You go to heaven if you want to, I’d rather stay here.”  We spent many a day in shirt sleeves hiking the Old Railway Trail.

            

The Tree

Sprawling twisted legs
of varied length and size
gnarled knotted and crawling over each other
seeking to be sure-footed on this earth.

Torso evolved into two odd-shaped
bark encrusted bodies fused as one
yet each side and angle unique
as if a fraternal twin.

Like many-armed goddess Durga
female in beauty strength and power
you bear fruit with crimson leaves
to protect your own from the maelstroms of nature.

A tree spirit, you walk and dance while rooted in solitude
your only partner a yellow breasted Kiskadee who
flits from branch to branch making its acquaintance
with all your wondrous limbs.

Self-Portrait: Dancer Down

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Have you ever been asked to “define” yourself?

In Holly Wren Spaulding’s poetry class, we were asked to write a Self-Portrait Poem. That seems a bit softer, less in-your-face and serious than “defining” myself.

By way of explanation, I took dance lessons from age 4 to 17 with Miss Edith Tewes in Waukegan, Illinois. She was one tough lady and for a long time I fancied myself a budding Rockette. Photo is me in one of the many Boston rehearsals mentioned below.

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Self-Portrait: Dancer Down

There it was. Audition.
Wanted: 100 dancers
for three months prep to perform
in Boston’s Copley Square.
No experience required.
I did this twenty years ago –
in Iowa.
Ninety-nine hoofer-wanna-bes
plus Gene Kelly and me.
Thousands saw me
in the big-ten half-time show
or took a trip for hotdogs
and the john.

So I did it. Again.
Ninety-nine plus me
two nights every week.
Loud fast rehearsals
with slow
every day
repeats
at home
to video
online.
I should have known.
I was twenty years older
not newer.

One month to go.
On burgundy shag carpet
right-turn-slide-spin.
Then on wooden
unforgiving studio floor.
Five-six-seven-eight……
Crap.……dancer down.

Legs sagged. Muscles be damned.
Relegated to rice.
Rest-Ice-Compression-and-
–   – oh hell,
I forget what the E stands for.

Rain Song

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I’ve always loved the sound of rain.

My most vivid memory is from the first years of our marriage, when we went camping in the woods near Lake Superior in our old canvas tent. The kind where you couldn’t touch the canvas “walls” or they’d “bleed” — meaning the rain would seep in. So you had to center yourselves — which somehow is really what the rain seemed to do.

We’d fall asleep quietly, just listening to the rain. Have you ever done that?

 

Rain Song

Plop
patter
ping
slow steady
nocturnal rain
tapping on the yellow-green ceiling
of my ancient canvas tent.
Comfort seeps in
as I burrow deep
in my cocoon zippered bag,
crisp cold nose
just outside the seam.
Lids shutter
slowly
to listen as thoughts float
in a cool haze.
A hooting owl sits sheltered
beneath spring’s green-yellow canopy
the drip
drop
patter
plops above his feathered head.
Dreaming now, I see
a moon sliver guide me
to a moment of clarity.
These rain notes
are nature’s evensong:
a prayer for all who sleep
in this forested place.