She slumps at the table. It is shiny,
and like everything else here, it looks new,
everything else except the bodies, gnarled
and sloppy, hunched in and frail.
I cry in an instant, when, from across the room,
I see her, her face sunken,
her eyes closed, as if she is dreaming
she is somewhere else, beyond this room
with its scent of cabbage and medicine.
I do not want her to see me cry, but I walk
toward her table as fast as I dare, coming
to stand behind her wheelchair and kissing her on the head.
I say her name, I say it soft as the kiss that lands
in her short white hair. I say it soft as if the syllables
will break, or perhaps as if I will break in the speaking
of them. I tell her my name, not sure she’ll remember it.
Please, don’t let her see me cry. She opens
her eyes and finds me, and though English
does not have an elative case, we translate
with our eyes. She says my name, with what?
Surprise? And her signature gratitude. I notice her hands,
swollen and blue. And I kiss her head. And I kiss
her lips. Perhaps words will come later. I kiss her again.
Archive for March, 2013
Unutterable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, granddaughter, grandmother, love, poem on March 22, 2013| 1 Comment »
Someday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, poem, poetry, someday, the present on March 19, 2013| 2 Comments »
For so long I’ve been telling myself
the same thing. Someday, I say,
as if Someday were a fat striped cat.
When I’m paying bills, Someday
comes to the legs of my chair
and tries to leap up into my lap. Someday
comes to sleep at night on my pillow
and purrs in my ear. Someday
hisses at the window when it’s dark
and she senses something’s there.
Someday always wants to be stroked,
except when she doesn’t. And when
I am lonely, distracted by clouds,
Someday curls into my side
and nuzzles my hand as if to say,
though I ignore her, I’m here.
Join Me at the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival, March 29-31
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged karen chamberlain, poetry festival, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on March 19, 2013| 2 Comments »
A woman to celebrate–long live the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival, such a beautiful gathering in the name of a beautiful human
TRTC’s 3rd Annual
KAREN CHAMBERLAIN POETRY FESTIVAL
March 29-31
Thunder River Theatre Company’s third annual Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival will be held at Thunder River Theatre in Carbondale, Colorado, March 29 – 31, 2013. Everyone is invited to join us as we honor the inspiring life of Karen Chamberlain, who passed away in September 2010.
The theme of the third installment of this annual series is “Poetry Everywhere!” The first evening of the festival, poet Reg Saner will be awarded the Chamberlain Award for Lifetime Poetic Achievement., along with performances by Kit Kalreiss Muldoon, Patrick Curry, Eric and Jacob Walter, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Jeff Spahr-Summers, Debbi Brody, Ellen Metrick, Trinity Lafey, and SETH.
Saturday will feature an award ceremony naming the new Western Slope Poet Laureate, along with performances by M.D. Friedman, Uche Ogbuji, the Word Horde, Jimi Bernath, Barbara Ford, current Western Slope Poet Laureate Art Goodtimes, Roseanna Frechette, Bill Kight, Jared Smith, and Judyth Hill.
Performances and open mics will take place Friday and Saturday evenings beginning at 7 p.m. Sunday morning’s continental breakfast begins at 10 a.m., followed by a gourd circle led by Art Goodtimes.
Saturday workshops, more than a dozen of them, include Open Mic 101 with Kit Kalreiss Muldoon, Uche Ogbuji’s Poetry from the Heart’s Far-Flung Places, Contemporary Music and Poetry: Creative Connections taught by Rick Kempa, Writing the Political Poem with Debbi Brody, Stewart Warren’s “Collaborations: the muse everywhere,” Art Goodtimes and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s Loosening the Knot on the Robe, among others.
One of the highlights of the festival is an art show in the lobby of the theatre featuring the artwork of Kim Nuzzo and Wendy Videlock.
The Days Inn of Carbondale is helping TRTC by giving poetry festival attendees a special rate for the weekend. The Days Inn can be reached by calling 970-963-9111.
TRTC thanks our underwriters Bob Chamberlain, Days Inn- Carbondale, Sarah and Marty Flug and The Thrift Shop of Aspen.
Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to honor a great lady and to grow the poetry in your soul. Tickets are available online at http://www.thunderrivertheatre.com. TRTC is offering financial assistance scholarships to high school students and college students in need for the 3rd annual Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival. E-mail lonw@sopris.net for details. For more festival information, e-mail karenchamberlainpoetryfestival@gmail.com.
Tickets & Information: thunderrivertheatre.com
Twelve Reasons
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mother, poem, poetry, son, the present on March 18, 2013| 2 Comments »
For now, the newspaper strips.
For now, the glue whisked from flour and water.
For now, the long shape of a great blue whale made of crinkled paper
and cardboard and tape.
For now, my son and I crouch on a green tarp in the garage. It is cold. The glue is cold.
For now, my pointer and middle fingers run the long length of the paper to scrape off the excess glue, scraping over the story about another boy. Scraping over ads for big houses and bagels and help wanted. Scraping over half-completed crosswords and the story of the snow that didn’t fall.
For now, we sing the word violin, over and over. Violin, -lin, -lin, violin, -lin, -lin.
For now, we are quiet. I prepare strips. He lays them on the whale, creating the flippers, the great body, the forked tail.
For now, he says, “Mom, This is so much fun.”
For now, I am only here, glue on my hands, glue in my hair, glue on my shoes, glue on my new blue pants and glue dripping between me and this boy as we reach back and forth.
For now, he spreads his palms across the whale, smoothing the headlines across the long back, the head, inside the gaping mouth.
For now, he tells me facts, such as, “Did you know the baby of the great blue whale is bigger than a Volkswagon Bug?”
For now, there is only now, with its cramping leg and its laughter and glue, though outside the garage, the wind is blowing in spring and someone is knocking and already some part of me turns away toward what perhaps comes next.
Six Noticings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, poem, poetry on March 17, 2013| 1 Comment »
throwing open
the heart, surprised to find
another heart
*
six months later
dead is more dead
than before
*
the long road
to you not long
enough
*
cracked by joy
stars leak through my layers
an infinite spilling
*
trapped on barbed wire
the scrap
of a red balloon
*
even leafless
the old cottonwood perfect
in every moment
But Something Stays
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, loss of the self, poem, unity on March 15, 2013| 1 Comment »
All those worries
with their ragged edges,
all those nights
tossing in their beds,
the fevers, the shivers,
the dreams torn,
the falling, the jammed flow,
the empty bowl,
I would soften the world
if I could for you,
But it softens us,
over and over,
turning us, tumbling us,
scraping away
the layers,
even the one
our names on it,
even the one
we thought
we could never
do without.
Not Wholly Quantum Yet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clouds, going quantum, poem, sky on March 14, 2013| 4 Comments »
Not one puff,
not one wisp,
not one high
cirrocumulus,
no altostratus
no cumulus whorls
just blue, just blue
no cirrus swirls,
and could a girl
become a wing,
become a word,
or anything
that moves through blue
like arrow wood,
like zephyr, breeze,
I would, I would.
Grace
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, grace, life, poem, spring, weed on March 13, 2013| 4 Comments »
Spring comes to the sidewalk
in the longer days of March.
The sun warms the slab, and beneath
it the seeds of old weeds start to stir.
They are tiny. And who knows how,
but in the dark, they begin to grow
and put down roots and,
though it seems unlikely,
begin to push through the concrete itself.
First a hairline crack. This fissure is somehow
sufficient to provide light and water enough.
Soon there are tendrils, then whole leaves,
then the yellow blooms of new weeds.
What is it in us that knows to push?
I, too, have wintered in a dark, thick cast, one
of my own making. Cramped and dormant,
I had stopped believing in hope.
But it was not hope that cracked the shell.
Nor was it anything that I did.
It was life’s longing for itself.
The End of Nine Months
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childbirth, meter, mother, poem, poetry, pregnancy, rhyme, verbs on March 12, 2013| 2 Comments »
Swell, stutter,
tremble, flutter,
stumble, grasp, contract,
waddle, falter,
rise up, wither
wander, linger, gasp,
squat, break,
spread, quake,
writhe, clench, fall, breathe, groan,
wrestle, shake,
push, unmake,
release, arch, push, hum, moan,
shudder, sweat,
quiver, let,
crown, push, open, tear,
cradle, hum
unfold, undone,
stare, wonder, weep, revere.