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Junie Z.

lillian12 Comments

West School, still here.
That metal bar around the schoolyard,
smoother now. So many years
of little hands sliding along its surface.
I bend low, touch its coolness
and you’re with me again.
Junie with the short dark hair.
Eyes closed, I see four anklet socks
in plain brown mary janes
kick up and over the rail,
cotton dresses in laughing faces.
Up the street, a car alarm blares.
And just like that,
your laughter floats away,
my hand lifted from the bar.


WRITING PROMPT in my June Challenge class:  recall a memory of someone, what provoked the memory — a scent, a place? 

With Apologies to Oscar Wilde

lillian3 Comments

I’d never met a ghost
or a celebrity
so was surprised on the treadmill
when Oscar Wilde whispered
directly in my ear,
the heart was meant to be broken.

Home again,
caretaker roles reversed
your heart beats strong
mine now slow,
blown out from stress
like a Japanese octopus bag.

Takotsubo,
Broken Heart Syndrome.
Not the stuff of playwrights.

I learned again that day
the importance of being earnest.
Talking softly with, not at,
we climbed five stairs
inch by inch,
this time
your steps
matched to mine.

This is NOT Happening

lillian7 Comments

Two hundred fifty square feet of living space.
One glass wall with city views no one sees.
Jagged zig zags roll on monitors
lightning bleeps across the zags.
Your hands still, bloated fingers slightly curved.
My head hears a migraine beat,
while eyeballs stare so long,
they feel outside my face.
This whirring place makes my skin crawl raw.
Your mouth should be pressed on mine.
Like last night. Or speaking simple words
like this, when, or eggs this morning?
Any words from your mouth,
not taped shut
locked inside an intubation tube.

Emptiness Beside Me – cherished series, opus 6

lillian16 Comments

photo 1

We looked like that.

Proud nine year old, awkward
holding three month me, a treasure
until five years later
pest to your teenage hormones.

You, proud new daddy
me, awkward gawky sister,
new aunt in braces
and lollipop bra.

You, my tuxedo handsome usher
black shiny shoes on white sheeted aisle.
Me, excited oh-so-young bride
barely noticed your proud eyes and smile.

You, father of five
tee ball games and packed full car.
Held your newborn niece,
gentleness on your face.

No photos last time
you so cold and me so flushed.
In front of multitudes
you absolutely still, I wept you.

Pictures stopped. Not you with me,
no you with anyone.
Not in anger, joy or silliness,
just stopped.

Death’s reality lives
in happy photo albums.
Same people, changed by age,
with no you.

photo 2-2 photo 1-2

My brother, nine years older than me. Lost suddenly, too soon at 51.
“Not to worry” he’d say on the phone. Love these pictures. Love his family.

On the Way

lillian7 Comments

IMG_6136

Spread your wings to glide
through sun streaks’ warmth,
to reach and feel the clouds.

          In my best dreams
          I fly round and round
          the confines of my room.

Catch the upward draft.
A lazy float through clear air
colored only by the sky.

Magnificent quiet follows
as you bank left, shift course
to a new everything.

          Strap on wings
          hold tight
          and soar.

In response to the Daily Post Photo Challenge: to interpret “on the way”. 
Pboto from a Baltic cruise. 

Memories Attached: cherished series, opus 5

lillian9 Comments

Her dresser, the last to dismantle.
Birthday figurine, two fingers chipped
sits on a dusty mirrored tray.

Sweater sets and pedal pushers,
one lacey veil, bobby pins still attached
yellow cotton gloves, last worn many Easters past.

Hankies with hand stitched pansies
on delicate tatted corners,
peek from a small silk purse.

Sachet bags tied in faded ribbons
tucked in corners, sweetness long spent.
And then, there they were.

Red glass beads with silver crucifix
nestled on a small satin cushion,
third drawer front.

Ready for gnarled fingers
to move from stone to stone
haunted by her whispered words,

Hail Mary, full of grace.
Now hailed by millions,
minus one.

Wondrous India

lillian16 Comments

My career took me several times to India. A land of magnificent colors, beautiful people, and simplicity beside urgent modernity.  I was honored to share meals and meet relatives of my students, visit holy places, and experience this wonderful culture. 

Wondrous India

Stone mosque bathed in light,
waits in glistening dark sea
an icon of hope.

Cities teem and swarm
with cars parked beside oxen,
new challenging old.

Low tide finds boardwalk
revealed through waste and debris,
pilgrims’ path to prayer.

Land of paradox:
harsh realities mar the
exalted sublime.

Pristine white heron
scavenges beside children.
Innocent dwellers
of this land called India.

Written for a writing prompt to write in a “series.”  I decided to try my hand at a series of haiku within one larger poem. I found the aspect of “hiding” the haiku form a challenge. To have the sense of the poem meet the reader, rather than the form itself. UPDATE:  

Discarded Memories: cherished series, opus 4

lillian4 Comments

Our family bible was leather bound with gilt edges, like a large coffee-table book, except it sat on an out-of-the-way end table. Mother listened raptly to the door-to-door salesman and agreed. Books you own are a sign of pedigree. And then she filed away the precious threads of her life between its pages.

I used to sit fingering the bits and pieces of family history. Poems on scraps of paper with her handwriting: 1944 ~ Bud this is how much I love you. There was yellowed newsprint: Arthur Petitclair, dead at 58 with the smiling face of my grandfather staring out at me. A fragile, stained news clipping introduced Butch, the cousin I never met. …tragically found dead in his bed on Tuesday morning, at age eight, by his mother, Helvie Petitclair. There were holy cards of Mary and Saint Francis, and handmade cards drawn in those primary color thick crayons we had in grade school.

My parents called. We sold the house and everything in it to a nice young family.  Everything? Everything. We just want to move on.

A nice young family? I suppose they held the bible upside down and shook out all those scraps of history. They probably sit and read the real text inside the leather cover.

Those Were the Days

lillian13 Comments

May12:  All poets, even house-poets, share bits and pieces of themselves every time they set pen to paper.  My poetry writing started in February, with an online class, and then another and another, with a wonderful teacher/mentor. A recent assignment: write a poem of celebration,  in an exhuberant mood, made from a list, possibly including negatives and positives.  Tall order.  This is what happened!

Those Were the Days

There’s Florida! I’ve got Maine. Shout outs
from the license plate game. Insert tapes.
Sesame Street morphed to Aretha.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T at the top of our lungs,
windows down, rolling along. Campfires
and that sloshing green water jug we lugged.
German shepherds, standard poodles.
One cat named Blossom, not mean like Siamese.
Recitals and running for yellow school buses.
Clouds of Aqua Net created almost asphyxiation.
Legos and taco suppers accompanied by
Circle of Love, our sung not said table grace.
Saucy beef stroganoff caused upturned
noses, just like Alice’s jello salad – green not red.
Escanaba cabin seven, just steps away from cold
Lake Michigan. Real play pens. Emphasis on safe and
play, not pen. RC Cola and Cool Ranch Doritos. Cold milk
and Oreos, no oatmeal and definitely not fish.
Birthday parties in 613’s orange and yellow family
room not at Chuckie Cheese or bowling alleys.
Singer sewing machine hummed near clunking
barbells by the chest freezer. Teenage angst appeared
with hot hormones. Not bad. Just challenging
and sometimes loud. Cymbals swished by foot thumping
bass drum while sticks twirled and beat. Juxtaposed
to sonorous organ chords or piano arpeggios.
Sweet Iowa corn with fresh-from-the-garden red
tomatoes. Melted butter and cherry juice slid down
licked fingers. Tractor tire sandbox in a city yard.
Pals walked to grade school with metal lunch boxes.
Not metal detectors. Split foyer house with upstairs
kitchen and one shower for all. Those Were the Days.

** Title inspired by the folksong, Those Were the Days….watch and listen to the original song by the Limelighters.

Forever

lillian9 Comments

Sometimes, things happen in life that truly truly make you thankful for every day. I’ve been 46 + years now with the love of my life — and we are grateful for every day in this “rejuvenatement” period of our lives  (see my About for an explanation of the term). This poem was motivated by a poetry class assignment:  look very very closely at things around you and write about something you want to save from oblivion.  The mind jumps around and makes various connections, the pen writes, scratches out, and writes again…and this is the result.

Forever

Two gulls skitter about the shore’s edge
leaving track upon track, their dance notation.
Voices sound cacophonous shrills
wings flap, contract, and flap again.

IMG_4004Two children skip, swinging hand in hand
suddenly unjoin. Side by side, in unison
arms wide, they leap and jump
like gulls ahead who splash, lift and soar.

Waves rollick and return, out and always in.
Sea, animals, and children seen in twos
assault my oneness, so recently assumed
etched into being, sears and spills my tears.

Hands rest upon this familiar rail
seek coolness from the seasons’ heat
instead, send chills from hand to heart
my body, an eclipse of the sun.

Let go the rail. Come stand with me, my love
your life, not death, forever.