....From The Tree Of...............Love & Family
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_______________________________________________________ Handed Christmas Thirty days or so of Bing Crosby, Jimmy Stewart waving his manic joy to a world lit up with too much light as the colors bring on panic, trying to get by when day to day is what I handle, Christmas has to mean something more than this; kept small and simple. Whispered, so you notice it then, last night I helped a woman cross the road. Dirty, wearing a red coat with missing buttons, under a gray face, face YWCA clean: cold water tap, no soap, ring of grime around the jaw, a down-and-out in search of medication from the looks of her, and probably some shelter bed. Trying to get back again to scratchy covers, frayed sheets, a narrow cot at lights out- all except the fire exit sign she watches trying to keep her eye on an escape route, knowing there is none. I left the restaurant to buy some smokes and there she was. Fretting, pacing baby steps, keeping to the cracks with eyes gone luminous with fear. I tried to glance away and heard, "Are you crossing over, miss?" "Pardon?", I said. "Are you crossing over?" The words gave me a chill. "I need to catch the bus. Will you take me across this road, I'm scared to cross alone." She wouldn't let me hasten us, clung just like a child as though my arm was all the safety in the world. She gripped my hand. I never said the intersection frightened me. Four roads converged and it was wide- I never would have crossed alone, and I don't think that any of us ever do. A Lonely Place  The Lake And The Rock 1. Some things never seem to change - the rock, the lake, the child who sits there outlined in the sun away from everyone, her heart's boom boom boom boom with never any room for even whispers of untruth; the truth and only truth will make for one far reach for such a little hand, still small still fisted gripping at the other one so like a stone. 2. The lake, the rock the woman grown around them for whom lies can bring the sky down, raining booze, fair weather friends she'd catch in layers of false laughter, just the touch of warmth they want- she knows the way to toast a heart. Or worse, the flatterer- she shape shifts wins approval lying, dying on a rock around the child who though alone knew where her compass was. I need to keep the child awake. I need the rock, the lake- to stand here looking at you, knowing who I am. It's all I have- it's not enough- it's all I have. Heart Stuck On A 1964 Marquee Richard Burton, fixing those too-blue eyes from the screen sent a hot icicle through my heart that's stayed there all these years, and I know that hot icicle is an oxymoron, but so is virginal passion. It was that pure sonorousness of vowel curled every toe and I just want to say he made those meatless Friday nights at the McKee as close to sin as I dared back when there was something to do glad penance for- back when life made me shiver I spoke only in run-on sentences too breathless to stop he crushedmylungs to him- my god that man was he eversomething... Rock Of Ages Lost another uncle there they go one old withered one, stoop-shouldered into the sunset into the dream of God and Revelation's scary beasts and whatever's hiding beyond the smoke walking hand in hand with the one I lost ten years ago. A sad parade of camel-men carrying their sins on their backs, storing them; they'll have to do. Eternity's a long time without history. Poetry By Proxy: The Rug Thief We eat pasta every Wednesday. Local restaurant, and suck each other's week like long linguini, catching up, my daughter, my lover and I. Three bent over marinara, heads thrown back in bright oreganos of laughter and last night, my daughter held a poem in her mouth. I said: "Look; there is a poem in there", said it with eyes only. It was missed because the writing rides her hard. She talked about her wedding a year away; right then, it was gone for good. I'm stealing what I saw climb up and sit upon her tongue, above her heart. "Mom", she said, "a woman stole a rug..." A woman was returning an expensive, woven rug. Wanted a simple merchandize exchange. My daughter tallied candles, pillows, wicker sconces, Eastern- flavored bric a brac, and then she saw the woman's half everted face, the deep and ugly roping scars raised up the flesh for a quarter of an arm. Her chin was oddly cleft. An inch-wide septum of the face divided one, appended life clean from the other one. She showed a driver's license photo, snapped before the cloven horror happened to her. Must have been within the last four years; the license had an expiration date within the month. The photo, now in contrast showed a person so much younger, smiling big like Easter morning for the camera with a healthy kind of handsomeness; some businessman's confectionary wife. As my daughter turned to get another bag, the woman made off to her car with all the bright, new thing-a-ma-jigs, the rug, tucked under one retreating, puckered arm. "I was shocked right into silence. Couldn't do a thing. Kept wondering how it happened: an accident, an attack? Did someone take an ax to her? She had the money. Got into a brand new SUV, and drove away without a face. If somehow some old silly, twisted wool could make her happy, I thought what's the harm?" I love that girl. I really do. A Toast To Robert Burns There is a bite, one last chomp the year saves up until the final blast off, ten second countdown when you're drowning in it, seeing life spin past like apple, oranges, cherries on a slot machine. Nothing left to catch; it just blurs by. You may reach out and try to stop a juicy memory for one last look- it's gone. You throw confetti. Happy New Year. May auld aquaintance be forgot: the ones you never see but twine your roots, the ones you see but never knew or knew too hurtingly, I believe those are the one's I'll toast tonight. Show Me Yours Hot, sticky bugs dragged invisible threads up chubby arms of a three year-old me crouched under a porch that was latticed so I saw diamonds on his face and he was six. I remember it; remember crib and nipple and a wooden box of toys and on its lid, a painted pirate face so scary I would throw my dolls from a distance; not go near it. I'd clap hands over eyes and run away so certain I heard Blackbeard chuckle close behind. That weekday under the porch when we were breathing warm as sheep, quiet there, as close as secrets- "Show me yours", that's how it started. Bellybuttons seemed such randy things to a three year old, and good for giggles, but then I saw his little pop up peepee- small and sweet no bigger than a pinkie, then he began to pee. And me? I only bared my bum for him, and raced back to the linoleum kitchen where mother gave me cookies on a plate and sideways looks. Ones that left two burning holes at the back of my head. Here, crook your finger through the hair and you can feel them, now then: Show Me Yours. Was it a closet or a bedroom or a bathroom? Was it evening? Give details so I can understand that faint, gray wraith bent right in front of you- the memory of a day like that, you have one too. We all have such companions. Auto Pilots Although my mind is millet filled, evaporated milk suspending particles of chalk, I still can think of you. You roam the basal ganglia, deep within the central core and bore your way to the pineal bridge where ideas become substance where mere thought of breath becomes the moist, hot chase of your magic on my neck. You are within or just behind me, we twin optics, seeing rain and sun together, afloat in cerebro spinal fluid- happy on a raft of moment to moment, chucking neurons back and forth like bright, striped beachballs. Not Even Jewish There's nothing like the wonder of little eyes gone big with happiness, surprise at seeing grandma, who's usually a thin voice on a phone a half a world away, come through the door wrapped up in seven feet of caterpiller, plush and crayon-colored love. Antennae stretching out to meet you, grin like a watermelon slice, you know that trick- you stick it in your mouth from east to west- and she would do it too- if she'd remembered to stop at Giant Eagle pick one up, but she didn't in her race right to your little arms and faces, you two boys of wondrous Huckleberry wander love. The blond of both of you could rival any dawn on any day, you bright boy Mitzvahs. All Souls Nights Each event of benchmark impact has a night before, a night that is the hours penultimate to the jumping point where everything is changed; the night before my wedding was one of these. I remember I tiptoed through it like a person walking on gauze, suspended over a cliff; if it held me- well then I supposed the thing was meant to be. I still believe that, still believe that when I look into the faces of my children. When I think of the daughter doing her own gauze walking tonight, I'd like to be a whisper on the breeze that says alright. It's all alright, it rolls and rolls. These days are wheat shafts waved in patterns back and forth. We are the moment and the movement. You will not see its grace for years. There are no bronzed cathedral doors to step inside; there is no Rubicon so solid you would notice as you ford it; it is, all of it, like latitudes you pass through. Invisible lines we read on faces at the end. The wrinkles aren't there, and then they are; it is the certainty we need but rarely have that we replace with faith. Hold on to that- and hope and love; these three will take you girl, the way you need to go. On To Page 10 .............. Return To Contents This site sponsered by 
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