LET ME HOLD IT FOREVER

I. NURSERY SCHOOL

Spinning, dancing.
Happy and carefree girlchild.
Blonde braids sailing through the air.
Mother braided our hair every morning
Pulling it tight so it would stay.
Four daughters then
And I was the youngest.
Then my two baby sisters arrived.
They kept trying for a boy,
But no,
Six daughters.
Family joke: they gave up after girl #6.
I already felt worthless: female.
So many sisters.
I felt not whole even then.
Lost in the shuffle.
Six paper dolls in a row.
1/6th of a unit.

That innocent, open, trusting and loving girlchild.
Were we a burden to you, mother?
Is that why I was always a “tomboy”?

II. DARKNESS

I accepted, tacitly, my demise,
Not knowing that I was already doomed to be a victim.
My spirit:

squashed
buried
hidden
repressed.

What they expected of me;
Their ideas of intelligence and beauty.
The quiet ones.
My mother, the socialite.
Money, family, 4th generation Californian.
An ornament: to be seen and not heard.
How many times I hear that echo in my head.
Happily ever after?
Emily Post, I hate you.
No sex education. No one ever told me,
That my body was my own.
Lost in darkness.
The quiet ones.
No questions of the Rebel.
Stunted by incest,
I tried to grow up like everyone else.

III. WOUNDED WOMAN

Searching for love, at any cost.
Everywhere, anywhere.
The confusion: love/sex/trust/limits.
Searching for love, everywhere-
But inside of me
Where it lay buried.
Buried under piles of guilt, shame,
Self-destruction, rebellion.

IV. TRANSFORMATION

Singer,

cellist.

Writer of poems.

The shining key to the Meaning of me.

The endless tears.

My power, newly found: A bright, strong flame Burning.

Let me hold it.

Don’t escape me

Only to hide.

Don’t elude me again,

Only to hide in the

Shadow of a man.

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LET THE WIND COME INSIDE ME

The force
Of the
Wind
Sends my hair flowing
As I meet it head on.
My eyes water,
Not with tears, though.
The reservoirs behind my eyes
Have gone dry from crying
So many tears
So many tears
I breathe deep
The scents of the air
There is magic in the wind.
Magic
Here on the ocean cliffs.
No separation
From nature
I feel a song inside of me
I scream,
“I love you!”
but it is only the
wind that
hears me.
I stand here motionless.
Yes, the questions.
The answers
Will come.
Time, I tell my self.
Time for the answers.
Let the
Wind
Come inside me!

Yes!

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THE VIEWING

I looked at her
Standing there so still,
In front of the casket;
So intent
Was the look on her face,
As if she could will him
To open his eyes,
To live again for her:

“Jim, I have to talk to you.
Don’t leave me, Jim.”

The words echoed
In the chapel.
Still, she stood,
As if frozen,
Unable to move,
The disbelief shining
In her clear blue eyes.
Still, she stood, so still,
Like a statue.
Looking so fragile.
The impulse to take her into
My arms, to rock her,
To comfort her, overwhelmed my senses.
Martina on one side,
I on the other.
The touch on her shoulders, the arm around he waist
Was as much as she
Would allow us to give.
I moved away
To kneel there in front of him
And sobbed, unashamed,
For a moment,
My moment with his body.
I guess she had started to cry a little,
But she stopped when she heard me
And when I looked up at her,
I saw the fear in her eyes:
The fear of loss
The fear of grief
The fear of tears uncontrollable
That threatened to wash her away.
I went to him again
And touched his hands,
I leaned over and kissed his forehead,
His cold cheeks.
I whispered, goodbye, dad.
We led her away then
Martina and I,
Understanding the shock,
The numbness
She must feel so acutely,
After a lifetime
Of being with him.
Mi querida madre
Ahora sola
E mi padre, sufriendo nada mas,
The world so fragile.
As fragile
As the look in my mother’s eyes.

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SURRENDER

I.
Self-discovery
Is bittersweet,
Like the chocolate
You gave me.
I will no longer be
a
love beggar
knocking
at your door,
calling out for you
in desperation.
I don’t need you
To validate me
Anymore.
I don’t have to
Be
Silent
Anymore.
I don’t have to suffer anymore.
I surrender to
My Spirit.
II.
They say I have
A perfect
Spiritual self
Under all these negative traits;
That I only have to un-bury her,
Let her breathe,
Let her shine,
Let her radiate
All the love,
And the beauty in my soul
For there is so much.
So much to give,
To offer the world.
My self.

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VOLCANO

I.
Today
I told my story
In a room full of women
With wounds like mine.
I screamed.
I cried.
I cried for my mother
Who never comforted me,
Who never
Once told me
That it wasn’t my fault,
Whose expression of disgust:
Her face,
When we finally told her,
My sisters and I;
Froze in my brain,
Leaving this imprint
On my young and innocent
Psyche,
That led me down
That dark path of destruction.
I felt like a volcano,
With tears and heat
Flowing from me like
Lava.
My rage.
My fury.
Crying, for that innocent
8-year-old
girlchild
I was then.
Screaming,
Because my grandfather is dead,
And he was never punished
For what he did to me.
II. young girlchild that I was.
A flower,
Not even blossomed yet.
Just a bud,
Yes, a rosebud;
You robbed me
Of my innocence
You—
Intruder.
Violator.
Why did you force me,
Father, to go in and see him
When he was in the hospital,
Why did you make me
Go in and see him
For the last time?
In retrospect
I walk into that room:
White, sanitized,
That smell of old people dying.
In my hand is a knife
And I plunge it into him,
Stabbing him with the rage
I still could not feel then,
Just a teenager,
Lost in forces
Beyond my comprehension.

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SECOND HUSBAND

I remembered
That morning
Just now,
Driving in my car:
Memory triggered
By a song on the radio.
I drove my self
To the emergency room that morning:
Pregnant, my face unrecognizable,
My heart broken.
When you came to,
You held my bruised and swollen face
In your powerful black hands
And said,
“let me see what I have done.”
I looked at you with one tear-filled
Blue eye, the other swollen shut,
A fractured cheekbone.
Did I see
The trace
Of a tear in your eye?
Yes, the shame of a man’s fists
Slamming against his woman’s face:
A woman who loved so much,
She wanted his child, their child?
Did I see sadness there?
Was I the object of your anger
At the world
At our society
At your family
At my family?
I realize now, that you
Really
Did love me,
The only way that you knew how.
And I really did love you,
The only way I knew how:
Completely,
With all of my heart.
Blindly,
With all of my Self.

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SON OF MINE

In a few weeks
He will be seven.
Tonight, as I tucked him
Into bed,
I thought of all the nights of agony,
The torment
I have suffered
Just trying to be a good mother to him
I only hope that I haven’t ruined him,
That I have given him some good things.
Because I know now
That I never was a good mother
And I feel so sorry
For him,
I brought him into this world
To a no-good father
And hardly a better mother –
My self.
And I have been so lost.
Now I am found, but I have
So much growing to do
And so I trust and leave much of his care to others.
I make sure that
He gets
That which I have not
And still am not able
To give him.
It breaks my heart,
But I must do it for
Both of us.
I look back at these years,
The nightmare of my past
That we lived through
Haunts me still.
I am leaving the dark tunnel
And facing the light,
I feel the sun on my face
Finally
I long to immure myself in it
Completely
I am almost there.

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MIRROR

When you hold
Me
In your arms
I think about
The sea,
The sea that hugs
The shore.
I feel the cool
Ocean breeze
In my hair,
I hear the waves
Breaking on the sand.
I see the clouds
High on the horizon,
I feel them
Moving
Across the sky.
I feel the warmth
Of the sun
On my body,
In my soul.
When I look in your eyes,
I am immersed in
My element,
The water
is smooth
and cool
and
folds around
me.
I am safe there.
I am floating.

THE DOCTOR

I.
Today
He brought me
An infant
To hold,
While he treated her mother
For spinal injuries.
This baby,
He told me,
Is blind.
And as I held her,
I sang to her,
And I thought how
Lucky
I am:
To have 2 healthy
And beautiful children,
And a life that gets better every day.
II.
The doctor says
I must eat
More protein.
Is there any
Protein
In love,
I ask.
For love is all
I need –
And love
Is all I want.

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FOR MY SON SEQUOYAH

And then one day
Life seemed to slow down
And then stop

And I froze,
As if told by some higher power:

Stop,
Breathe, and
Really look ­

And there you stood -
Right in front of me

And all of a sudden
I realized what
A miracle you are,
A precious gift
from the Day you were born,
My precious son,
A gift of immeasurable joy
With lessons yet untold.

I will never forget that
Magical santa Barbara morning
When I first looked at your
Sweet newborn face,
Relieved that you arrived
Safe and whole on this planet
And I wrapped you in my Loving arms

And your face was my face
And your father’s face Looking back at me ­

Your features an exquisite blend
Of a Love
I once fought for:
The Love that created you.

Even before you arrived, had begun the battle
For you and for me
Against those who would dare
To judge
A white woman, daring to love
A black man, Daring to have his child ­
You see, mi’jo
I was raised a “roman catholic”
And I believed what they preached
About humanity
And the race we all belong to:
The human race….

And it seemed all of a sudden
That there you were, standing
In front of me,
So far you have survived white cops
Waving their guns and their power at you
And worse, the insidious racism in our society that I cannot always
protect you from.
All I can do is to teach you about it,
To try to prepare you for
The despicable inevitable pain…

And I am overcome with emotion
Just seeing you now,
This tall and slender,
almost fully grown young man
and it is as if I am seeing you for the first time,

this miracle
that you are, son of mine, mi hijo.

An articulate, proud and loving
Charming and funny, bright and shining
Young man just like your
Namesake
The proud Cherokee chief
And I am filled with so much
Pride, love and joy,
And yes, tears, for the
Remarkable human being that
You are becoming with
Each lesson
On your journey

The path that is your own
The path that leads you
Away from me
To your destiny.

You are the miracle,
The gift,
That I celebrate
For the honor
Of being your mother
The day my life changed
On that sunny morning
In august 1982.

Felicitaciones, mi’jo,
Congratulations
On your graduation
From De Anza High School
July 2001.

You are on your way,
So,
The world awaits you.

Use your gifts to make
It a better place.

You honor your ancestors on this day.

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THE COLORS OF REBIRTH

The colors of rebirth.
Bright and shiny.
Joyful.
I’m leaving the pain,
The anger
The Rage, the Sorrow
Of my wounds
In the abyss behind me.
The reds:
Of violation.
My blood.
The blood of an innocent
Girlchild.
The colors of my life.
The blues I face.
The transcendence
Into purples,
Lavender.
Hope, shining bright.
A whole new future,
A whole new me.
I have given birth
To
My
Self.

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