Working in a Stranger's Land

I read today about a whale
through a poem written by a man
I see as a boy banging on the metal of a mailbox
written
about a whale that landed in a lake,
just like I did once,
Expecting that what I knew held
any authority or interest
or meaning here

Finding instead that I had to recreate a whole sea
to be heard
and then with the greatest
of effort, after collecting drop by drop each tear,
and accounting for evaporation and dry seasons,
I began to hold in my apron a small pond
Where I could say to those that watched me
gathering my pool
"This is wrong, that mattered,
this child is brilliant,
he is being harmed,
no one should suffer for birthrights."
and their eyes blink
As they hopped in and out of the water,
oblivious to the tune.

A whale in a poem
Stranded by my inability
to interpret with anything
Other than the limits of my comings and goings,
rated below
with my arms full of droplets as I try to understand
What is happening

The whale slips in to the salty depths of the waters
it happened despite promises I made to myself
About trying to stand alone
As an inland lighthouse does
deserted.

There is a shore, a light,
a mind, some words,
a poem, a whale and
the infinite truths of care and the deep of the sea
the shallowness of the pool
the depths of a lake.

It is hard to be a stranger
In a world that is strange
looking for and held by an apron
carried by another that is equally out of water
a poem about a whale became
a lake mirroring what my mind
had need to see.

Poems for Sophia

Mirror

Is it possible to hold a mirror
Up to echo what's past?
And she did that for me

I tried closing my eyes
Never looking in the glass
But she is there

Why Lie?

For a long while these last few I've had a little jealousy
My father didn't adore me like this
Nor was it easy like this, with him.
So it was a sting, a salt, some vinegar

Early Bird

We were just laughing about the jumpers
The ones she wore several years for everyday
Corduroy. I got her some cords this birthday
Wondering if she'd see those jumpers
One pink, one brown, they were adorable
If not kind of heavy, with these two shirts she wore down to
Pastel.

One summer my mom decided to go home
Sophia liked grandmom to read her books every night
A stack, so it was my turn to step in and be a momma
There I was 7 months expecting, with the stack
Anemic, ill, reading a few pages
And then saying nothing sensible beside her
Sleeping.

You'd come down in the dark in the morning
Getting ready to go to work
Always at 5 or 6 she was in the silent cold dawn
She's be sitting in her covers, blinking
She would maybe hear a chirp or sense the turn of the earth
On the couch, just staring or watching
Cartoons

Dick Van Dyke

Twice she's been taken
To see the star of a show
She never watched once
Laughing at that
As she found a nice way
To sigh
The desire to pleasantly
Get it over with
"Those were the days"
We tell her
Of course
She politely croons
Whatever you say.

I'm Eighteen

Embroidery stitches pastiche
Fractals and lucky charms
Fruit filled, Brazilian rose
Hermosa, winter white corduroy
Folded, tissued, twined
Wrap the memory of my becoming
Eighteen.

You Must Be Kidding

If you think that I'm just soft
Remember I'm strong enough to see you
As you are.

If you think I'm not so deep
Recall that I hold you
In my arms.

If you think that I am going to buy that
You must be kidding
I know you.

Picture in a Picture

They were making fun of me
For my taking pictures
So they took pictures
Aimed at Sophia to get her to laugh
Over get more outraged
At my constant focusing
As I still couldn't
Put it away and enjoy
The beach

It was obsessive
A need to freeze our time here
Or stop them from growing away
I can't even look
At the pictures of their
baby years
It's painful, miss them
On my lap, in my arms
In the shopping cart
Sophia trying to climb out

I discovered this
In some places
Is seen as stealing the soul
Pulling it
Into the image
Sealing you in
So you can stare
At your moments
Taken
Of joy

You
Passing like the
snowflake
I started with a elaborate process
Each image
Frame
Get them
But over time
It got to be
Each shot could
Talk to me

Portuguese Doll

Maybe it was a tiny self portrait
In wood and cloth
A dancer, she said
Laughing at the
Lack of arms
And the fly away curling hair

Splish, Splash


At nine months she was hospitalized for asthma so severe
She might have died in the ER, but they were able to pull her back
It was followed by a week or two in a hospital, on momma's tummy.
I went home for thirty minutes to shower that first week, reluctantly.
What saved us and passed the time was Baby Rock
A DVD that played over and over, Blue Suede Shoes
Some Bully Bully, Rub a Dub
And hits from another era, La Bamba, ding a lings
It grew inside of my skin like a time lost on a desert island
With only one thing to hear, because she liked it
Watched it, stared at it, seemed soothed by these diddies.
Last year my daughter found it in the cupboard at school
Putting it on and playing it for my class
As they got up doing
Little solos on imaginary saxes and blues guitars swinging
Their hips and going way down low.

My psychic self went back to that hospital and those realizations
Parents have about what they are capable of doing, bargaining, overcoming
For these little ones that hold our hearts.
After the tape finished I put it away
It was hard to go and call the reading groups and teach having
A part of me stretched out there
On the back carpet waiting for her breathing treatments
Bloodwork, the pulmonary therapists, the IV to be changed or checked,
The attempts to get her to leave the oxygen thingy on her fingertip,
Or cajoling her into a bit of jello or some rice.
It had come back, so many years later, after all the while
By listening to music so terrifically unlike it
Telling me to get off of those blue suede shoes.

In Temecula

In Temecula we had a small pool
It was wonderful
Like having a date with your heartthrob
It would welcome you in
Chill you, guide you through the water
The jacuzzi would froth and warm
You could plunge into the cooler side
Right down to the bottom
And wash away your troubles.
In Temecula that pool made us all feel
So terrifically alive.