The Shine Journal

 

Fin (the end)

The last time you held court,
your bed loomed
huge around your shrunken frame;
flat on your back
upon the pillowed stage,
you did your best to
stay engaged.

The Wizard switched your body;
The Scarecrow stole your bed.
I never saw them til the film,
Thin-skinned traitor,
flapped off the reel.
By then, the harpies had dug
deep inside your bones.
            *****
We were bantering in French
when you broke off,
mid-sentence,
mind still razor-stropped,
lips too weak to cut words.

So long, lone sailor,
I’ll remember everything--
for mom--
You in your dress blues,
gold stripes at the wrist.
leaning up against the rail.
How you eyed her with a hint of lust,
your Hudson River belle.

Mom’s projector‘s jammed since you’ve been gone.
I tinkered with it, but it wouldn’t run
forward or back. Your shirts, obedient officers,
still hang without a crease
in the wardrobe where you left them.

She lives her life in present tense,
the newsreel spins remembrance.
Today, we daughters could be two or twelve;
my children might be Dorothy.
Your sixty-two-year marriage, Dad,
an afternoon at the matinee.

 

 

Asymmetry   (Truth is beauty; beauty truth)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My friend Dan wore a magnet in his eye
to keep the lid from flying
open
while he slept.
Deaf in his right ear, jaw
frozen hard,
a perfect Picasso face.

He limped to the left,
a gift from his brain--
which had wedged a tumor between
itself and the ear.
I loved to watch him walk away,
A boozy cowboy, lurching down the trail.

Taos Pueblo (Adobe Abode)

This house is alive with contour.
Throw away your levels,
straight lines need not apply.

The church buttress, an elephant’s rump,
boasts straw hair growing from follicles
deep within the mud.

Shadows play peek-a-boo on rooftops
where stray green patches sprout.
I laugh aloud: giant Chia Pets!

Each year the Tiwa add a layer
stroking the ragged flesh
smoothing and sculpting
bandaging the crumbled bones
of old bricks
cracked ribs beneath the skin.

The lunar cycle
holds the people in
this distant valley,
shelters them in cupped hands.

Their village is a hive.
Before the blue and grass-green doors
appeared,
they entered through their rooftops.
One could not, would not,
live alone.

We, in angled,
hardened
boxes,
lonely, peer without.

 

---

Motivation:

Fin: I wrote this poem in a writing workshop, while remembering my last moments with my father.

Asymmetry: This poem was born in response to an exercise about equating truth with beauty.

Taos Pueblo: I was very moved by visiting Taos Pueblo this summer. I loved the soft, organic flow of the houses. Our native guide told us about the annual re-adobeing process.

Bio: I am a teacher, writer, and painter living in a small northern California town. I am about to become an empty-nester, and am finding new ways to feather my life. I find inspiration in odd places.