Darning

challenges, grief, healing
-----------

Nana Freda used a light bulb when darning socks.
She'd stick it inside so the hole was on the curve.

Then she'd thread matching yarn into a fat needle,
you know that needle; it's the one that pricked you

so many times in the last year.  First, drawing blood
when your best friend died, second when Bob, whom

you treated like a dad, passed, and the worst when that
needle went right through your heart over and over

leaving you torn and ragged and daughterless.  But,
needles can fix things, too.  Nana Freda would weave

the yarn over and under itself.  Over and under.  Over
the memories, under the anger, over the grief, under

the regrets, until that hole was filled from side to side.
I tried darning, once.  It wasn't easy.  I made a big mess.

It certainly is a challenge.  I mean, how do you incorporate
all those mornings of sitting on the porch, smoke swirling

around your heads, conversation as warming as coffee,
those stories of WWII and endless repeated questions,

and Trish's wonderful smiles, common sense, and help
into a strand of yarn?  How can you even hold that needle

with your trembling hand?  There is only one way: pick
it up, stick it in the edge of the hole and let the healing

begin.  Grief begins with a needle and it is only that same
needle that can help darn everything back together.

Day 30 National Poetry Month 2015

rain, chalk, bicycle from Anne
------------------

Someone took a piece of chalk,
held it sideways, and smeared
the sky with it it.  Back and forth.

Back and forth on this last day
of the month, filling the emptiness
with shades and streaks of white.

I've been sitting here writing for thirty
mornings while memories pounded like rain
and rode a bicycle into my brain coasting

through the valleys of childhood
and the peaks of today.  I packed
old friends, family, regrets, and loves

into my saddlebags and took them along
for the ride.  For me, it was all about
pedaling and feeling the wind fill my

cheeks, my chest, my being with freshness.
Round and round my feet went.  I had
a wonderful ride.  I hope you did, too.

Day 29 National Poetry Month 2015

duckling, leaf, frog from Anne

-----------

Her American name is Jenny
but her Vietnamese name is "Nine."

I don't know how it's spelled
but it's pronounced with a lilt,

like you're smiling when you say it.
Not like how we say that number

with our frog voices.  She tells me
it means Snow and I think that is

beautiful.  She's my nail tech
and she's marrying Jimmy who

also works there.  He's a sprite,
flitting around, joking with everyone,

a lost duckling searching for himself.
He's two years older than her but

much younger.  I ask where they are going
for their honeymoon.  She says they

have to work.  "But we're taking Monday
off because Jimmy will be hung over."

I ask if it's going to be a big wedding
and it is because Jimmy has many friends.

She tells me he did all the planning.  She
is so ambivalent I wonder if she really

wants to get married.  "Well, Jimmy wants
this and I want to get married but I'm worried

because I don't want to hold him back."  She
even converted to Catholicism for him.

My nails are done and I leave there
feeling sad.  I want to tell her to run,

stop the wedding. They are as mismatched
as snow piling up on leaves in Florida.

But, it's not my place.  As I leave I glance
over and there is Jimmy flirting with another girl.

Jenny is hunched over, long hair hiding
her face as she begins another customer.

Day 28 National Poetry Month 2015

Camper, storm, and tequila from Donna
-------------

I've been sitting here for almost a half hour
trying to absorb today's words and turn

them into a tasty drink but they're stubborn
things today.  And then I realize what's wrong;

I haven't gotten the ingredients out.  So I just
start typing.  That's the secret, you know: starting.

I get the tequila out of the cupboard, the Limeaid
out of the freezer, the 7-Up and Corona from

the fridge.  I mix twelve ounces of each together
in a big pitcher.  I don't use a blender because I'd

end up with a storm in my kitchen and cleaning
up messes is no fun.  I get a couple of Margarita

glasses out, dip the rims in the drink, then into
coarse salt, add ice and the concoction. I hand

one to Donna, who knows a great deal about
cleaning up messes as her camper got badly

damaged in a huge explosion and fire last spring,
take the other one for myself, then we sit and talk.

And, that's how life turns into a poem: booze,
tears, laughter, and two friends sipping their drinks.

Day 27 National Poetry Month 2015

station wagon, reception, and accident from Tim
----------------

Fish are jumping like crazy this morning
in our canal.  Nice to see that.  A few months
ago we had a young alligator in it and all

the fish disappeared.  Alligators don't thrive
in salt water so authorities were called and he
was removed.  Now, the fish are back making

lazy circles on the surface of the water.  The
world is right once more.  It was just a hiccup,
a small frost heave, a backfire from the station

wagon of life.  Tim and I were coming back from
picking up folding chairs for my wedding reception.
He had just gotten his license.  We went through

the green light on the corner of Mason and Main
then Tim took his eyes off the road for just a sec
to admire a pretty girl walking on the sidewalk

when, bam, we smashed into the backside
of a boat trailer being towed.  Someone ahead
of him had stopped to make the turn onto Pleasant

Street right there by the Joliette Snowshoe Club.
The cops showed up, people gawked, Tim got
a ticket, then we went home and continued our

preparations for my wedding trying not to let
this accident, this alligator in salt water, put
a damper on that exciting time.  That's life for ya.

Day 26 National Poetry Month 2015

ripple, rustle, mist from Lucy
----------

I'm sitting in a different chair this morning,
a bar chair high enough so my face is out
of the sun.  The wind from the southwest
is creating rustles in the palms and ripples

on the water.  I should go in and get
my big girl camera and use those sparkles
to catch some bokeh, those atmospheric
background circles you can see on most

television shows.  So I do just that.  I set
the dial to aperture priority, get up close
to a flower, wait for the ding announcing
the focus is ready then click, click, click.

I transfer the photos to my iPad and love
the otherworldliness created from the simple
act of taking a picture.  A tiny bit of magic
happens, like that bubble of happy in my

chest whenever I see my son or my daughter
or my Kylie girl.  I'll be with them in less than
a month, their reality forming from the mist
of many days apart.  So, really, this morning

I was conjuring them while the neighbors
saw only a crazy woman out on the stairs
in her nightie with her nose in flowers taking
pictures.  Little did they know I wasn't alone.

Day 25 National Poetry Month 2015

Coffee cup, Apple, Egg roll from Anne
---------------

I'm watching an old movie version of Our Town
on the Turner Classic Movies channel.  It was
filmed in 1940 in black & white.  But, I see colors,

the colors of skin and auditorium seats and coffee
cups sitting on my table.  I'm Mrs. Gibbs, again,
preparing breakfast for my family.  George and

Rebecca are upstairs getting ready for school
and my husband is just coming in the door from
delivering twins.  Already I can feel my throat

tightening up.  Everything looks so normal
like a still life painting of a bowl of apples.  So
red and healthy, now, but if they stay there too

long, they'll begin to die.  I know what is coming.
And I know I'll cry.  I anticipate every line before
the actors say them.  "The moon is so terrible."

Yes, Emily, life can be terrible, but first you have
to have a soda with George and marry him
and go to live on his uncle Luke's farm and have

a baby before the terrible part, before you'll join me
in the cemetery.  There's George standing
in the rain at your funeral and here you are

with us.  There's Simon Stinson, the choir director
and your brother Wally whose appendix burst
while on a camping trip to Crawford Notch.  You

aren't ready, though, to join us.  You want to go back
so you pick your twelfth birthday....wait, in the movie
it's your sixteenth.  I guess they couldn't make

you look like a twelve year old.  Okay, I can go with it.
You are still so frustrated that your folks won't really
look at you.  You notice all the little things but you

aren't Paulette Demers in the Berlin High School
production.  You aren't packing the same emotional
punch that she did. My goodness, there wasn't

a dry eye when she whirled around..."and new-ironed
dresses"...just the tears in her voice had grown men
sobbing.  "Do people really appreciate life every, every

minute?" No, they can't.  It would hurt too much.
So you rejoin us and take your chair in the cemetery
But, hold on, the movie isn't done.  It fades back

to the childbirth scene where you die, but you don't.
You don't die.  You're snuggling with your new baby
and George is smiling.  What?  You don't die?

You're supposed to.  In my play you do.  What kind
of a lesson do we learn if you live?  Life always has
a happy ending?  I'm not even crying; I'm too mad.

How dare they?  I turn the TV off then bang pans
and cupboard doors while making breakfast.  That end-
ing was as wrong as Ma Gibbs serving her kids egg rolls.

Day 24 National Poetry Month 2015

Golf, grass, and water from Gina produced this cinquain.
----------

As Necessary as Water

Morning
stretches like a
par-5 golf hole with yards
of quiet grass in front of me.
Alone.

Day 23 National Poetry Month 2015

Sparks, Suburban, Vacation from Alissa
------------------

Gary's going to Sun 'N' Fun today.
He'll be gone overnight so that means
a vacation for me.  Not that our life

isn't a permanent vacation now that
we're retired.  But, it will be nice
to be alone for a change.  He's like

a Suburban filled with noisy teenagers
on their way to a ski meet with music
blasting and equipment everywhere.

The minute he gets up, he turns the radio
on in the bathroom to shower.  Then he
walks into the living room to grab the remote

and tune the TV to The Morning Express
with Robin Meade on CNN to hear the news.
But it's not enough just to listen.  No.  He

has to make comments about everything.
I'm trying to listen to her and him and make
breakfast and write a poem and check my email

and he's blabbering away.  But, today, after
he leaves, I'll turn everything off, I'll bask
in solitude, I'll swim through my day in quiet

underwater buoyancy. Shhhhh.  And, then, I'll
get bored and even enjoy that for a bit until
I remember that cars need spark plugs to run.

Day 22 National Poetry Month 2015

Motorcycle, music and marbles from Donna
------------

Tiny marbles of rain are making our canal dance
this morning.  I watch it kicking its legs up

in exuberance and marvel at its happiness
on a cloudy day.  Or am I projecting my own

feelings onto this inanimate living thing?  Okay
I know that doesn't make sense but that's

how it seems.  Like a motorcycle isn't alive
but it is, you know?  We enjoy an occasional

ride on Gary's '67 Harley Panhead.  Listen to me,
like I know what I'm talking about!  Last summer

we and some friends rode down route 1 in Maine
to Ogunquit and had Flo's hotdogs for lunch.

Have you been there?  It's an institution.  You have
to have their house special: mayo, Flo's relish,

and celery salt.  So, so good!  Afterwards we went
to the top of Mt. Agamenticus and the bike never

complained all day.  She's a sweetheart.  See what
I mean?  The music from the raindrops is lulling

me into a fantasy land and making me mumble
about improbabilities, about happy canals and motorcycles

with feelings.  But you know I'm really talking about myself,
right?  About how raindrops carve smiles into the water.

Day 21 National Poetry Month 2015

*Ice cream cone, sauerkraut, spoon.   from Anne
----------------

It wasn't so much for an ice cream cone,
although that was always a delicious benefit,
that we'd drive up and down Main Street
from Norm's Drive-In to the Dairy Bar
looking for our friends and cute boys.

I'd ask my dad to use the car, we'd pool
our money, buy as much 29 cents
per gallon gas as we could afford, then
begin our journey through the sauerkraut
air of that paper mill town.  But, the smell

didn't bother us; we were too busy gawking
in all the cars driving by, gossiping about
this person and that one and what they'd done
or hadn't done or might do.  Through Green
Square, by the stores, checking who

was hanging out in front of Woolworth's,
and all along the Androscoggin River, we were
this bubble of chatter and music and hope.
Life was a bowl of maple walnut ice cream
and we were savoring it one spoonful at a time.

Day 20 National Poetry Month 2015

arms, eyes, & tears from Sherrie
---------------

It's a reverse sunrise this morning,
poking its nose around
the trees, blinding my eyes for a second,
then letting the gray mouth

of the clouds devour it.  Some days
are like that, huge monsters
that eat us up, that suck all the life
out of us, then burp.

I'm trying to get Erin's arms into her
jacket but she's too sleepy
to help.  Nathan is teasing her.
If we don't leave now

I'll be late for school.  On the way
to the babysitter's I speed
through a puddle that splashes on the clean
suit of a man walking to his car.

I should stop, apologize, offer to pay
for his dry cleaning but, if
I do, my classroom will be filled with kids
and I won't be there.  So I don't.

All day I feel terrible.  I bark at students;
my voice has that edge
only regret can produce.  I'm mad at myself
so I yell at them, instead.

And, that's how the beast thrives,
how he rubs his tummy
with satisfaction, chomping on the tears
of others, consuming their sunshine.

Day 19 National Poetry Month 2015

a moment that made a difference in your life...from Sally (opening, lingering, song)
---------------

I'm sitting here marveling at two simple words:
yes and no and what lingering effects they have

and how sometimes we don't even know we're
making a decision that will change our lives.

Sleep was a dreamless song, a waltz, soft
and undulating.  I was swaying back and forth

in it's gauzy, foggy embrace that morning in1967
three days after Christmas when the phone rang.

I was in no state of mind to make an important
decision, nor did I even know it was momentous.

I cleared my throat a few times so the caller
wouldn't know I'd just awoken then picked up

the receiver.  My mom's voice from the bank she worked
at trilled into my ear.  "Lee's going skiing.  Do you

want to go?  He'll pick you up in twenty minutes."
Lee was her coworker's son.  I loved to ski.  I said

yes and that tiny word was the opening to the rest
of my life.  I got ready.  Lee arrived.  And, also sitting

in the front seat was a blonde guy I'd never met,
who, on our second date, asked me to marry him.

Day 18 National Poetry Month 2015

iPad, cinnamon stick, vitamin from Anne
--------------

My iPad is on my lap.
I've picked three words.
I typed them at the top.
Now, I sit waiting for birds

of inspiration to fly into my
head.  Some days those
ideas stand up like cinnamon
sticks.  Others, they doze.

Today they are fast asleep
hiding under a heavy rock.
Not even vitamin D from
the sun can help unlock

them.  So, I sit watching
real birds flit around the sky,
watching real words appear
on my screen then die.

Day 17 National Poetry Month 2015

Whiskers, Saloon and Haystack from Lisa Ryan
------------
Finding That Needle in a Haystack

The show is starting, again, as it does every morning
and I'm out here to see it because it's April.  I'd be sleeping
otherwise.  Pink whiskers fan out from where the sun

will rise.  Some are clouds, some are jet contrails.  All
are beautiful.  Three birds flutter by in formation.  Lilac
sky gives way to the pale yellow of some marigolds

which in turn becomes the golden glow from saloon lights
in a lonely desert.   And, that's what poetry is for me,
a place alive with noisy chatter, beer glasses clinking,

soft laughter, and a home away from home.  I placed
one foot in front of another and just kept trudging through
the sand and scrub grass of life until a tiny pinprick

of light started growing on the horizon.  Oh, and the thirst!
I imagined the feel of that cold whiskey turning hot as it quenched
my throat, until I picked up a pencil and started writing

my first poem when I was forty years old.  One word, one simile,
one rhyme at a time I staggered to the door, opened it,
and, like Norm walking into Cheers, it shouted my name.

Day 16 National Poetry Month 2015

Whoopie pies, doughnuts & chocolate chip cookies from Tim....

----------------
I walk into Dena's Bakery in downtown Punta Gorda
hoping they'll have old-fashioned doughnuts.

You know the kind with just a hint of nutmeg, no sugar
coating, a crunchy outside and soft middle.  They

are impossible to find down here in Florida.  Dena's
is more like a cafe with tables and just a small

assortment of whoopie pies and chocolate chip cookies,
those staples of bakeries all across the United States.

But, no doughnuts.  Kelly's Pastry Shop on Main Street
in Berlin had the best ones.  Every morning on his way

to his logging job, Gary would stop in for a sweet.  If he
was lucky, they'd have macaroons.  If not, he'd buy two

plain doughnuts, one for him and one for Annie, our dog
who always went to work with him.  She loved them.

One morning, the shop was closed so Gary had to backtrack
to Dunkin' Donuts.  He bought the two donuts but when he

tried to give hers to Annie, she turned her head and refused
to even nibble it.  Gary ate his, of course, all the while wondering

exactly what he was consuming.  Back in Dena's, the kind owner
suggests I check Publix or Winn Dixie but we already have

to no avail.  And, so our quest for good doughnuts continues.
I drive by Dunkin' Donuts but don't even bother going in.

Day 15 National Poetry Month 2015

horse, breeze, friend from Dale
-------------
Did You Ever Do Anything Stupid?

The parking meter wiggles
     as we feed our coins into its
          slit of a mouth so, when we return

to the car after shopping, we,
     the six of us friends, having no
          idea how the breeze of this idea

entered our heads, pull it out
     of the soft ground and slide it into
          the back of Donna's station wagon.

We cover it with a blanket to
     disguise it as we drive through
          town.  It looks like a corpse lying

there, still and quiet.  We giggle
     all the way back to the motel where
          we work as chambermaids for the summer.

Of course, we have no idea what
     to do with it.  We can hear coins
          jingling inside but don't know how

to get them out and don't really
      want to since we are not thieves.
          We hide it in a closet off the kitchen

and there it stays for a month
     until it becomes a secret almost
          alive.  We can hear it breathing in

there, growing.  It whinnies like
     a horse in its stall waiting to be
          fed, waiting to be released, waiting.

Then, on a moonless night we
     carry that heavy thing out to the
          car and drive to the back of a dark

cemetery where we dump it
     and leave it next to someone's
          grave.  We hold our breath as we

rush out of that scary place, turn
     onto the road, crank up the radio,
          and sing along in strong, sure voices.

Day 14 National Poetry Month 2015

snow, puppy, trees from Mary (Gina's friend)
------------

There are pink and gray eels in the sky this morning
as I sit here for the fourteenth morning in a row

looking at three words and waiting for inspiration.
A bird flies by, a silhouette, against the now pale blue.

The baby-girl pink is giving way to brash neon.  How quickly
they grow.  Every time I look up, there is a change.

Every wispy cloud is smeared with strawberry cream cheese
The boxwood trees point toward the new day, toward

brightness, toward hints of lavender, where we all end up.
But, not yet.  The sun hasn't even risen and I'm thinking

about the end.  Most of the clouds have faded to snow,
a clean, freshly-fallen snow.  Only the area near the sunrise

turns apricot.  And, now, there it is pulling itself up.  I snap
a picture with my phone then change seats because it's just

too bright on my eyes.  This is my Kylie girl so bright in my
heart, it hurts.  Her puppyness is almost over.  She wants

to become a vet, this critter lover of ours.  For years her favorite
was the dung beetle.  I remember sitting with her reading

a book about animals.  She was maybe two and she knew
them all, what was curious about them, where they lived.

"This one has poison but you don't have to worry because
he lives in Africa" she wisely informed me.  Oh, but, Ky, I do

worry about all the poisons you'll encounter out there in the world.
There is nothing I can do about that.  Next month when she's

here, we want to visit the seaquarium where Winter and Hope
live, the two dolphins from A Dolphin's Tale 2.  We saw

the movie together last summer.  How can she already be nine?
Almost double digits.  Most of the clouds have dissipated,

the sun has released itself from the trees, the blue path
it follows looks even and clear.  Please, please: even and clear.

Day 13 National Poetry Month 2015

book, candle, sweater from Dar

--------------
How to Write a Book of Poetry

I pull a length of green yarn
     out of the skein,
wrap it around the needle
     then pull it through

to make a stitch.  I'm knitting
     a sweater for a 4-H
project that will be judged
     at the Lancaster Fair.

I tried being a Girl Scout, well
     a Brownie, really,
but it wasn't a good fit for me.
     It couldn't hold a candle

to the fun we have in 4-H
     where my aunt
and her friend are the leaders
     and my cousins

are members, too.  There is no
     door-to-door selling
in this group.  No embarrassing
     "No's" from annoyed

customers, just meetings where
     we learn to cook
(no-boil chocolate and peanut butter
     fudge rolled and sliced.

Yum!), crochet, sew, play games,
     laugh, lose, get along,
and, knit like I'm doing, now, in that
     past and this present.
   
My sweater has a cable design
     twisting up the middle.
I have to transfer five stitches
     to another needle,

continue with the row, then insert
     those saved ones
further along to create the braided
     design.  I hear the others

chatting and chuckling but I concentrate
     so I don't make a mistake.
I'd hate to have to unravel my hard work.
     The needles click.  I weave


one pearl stitch after another,
     preparing me for
the poems I'll knit with memories
     when I get older.

Day 12 National Poetry Month 2015

Sunshine, trees, beach! 🌞🌳🌊 from Deirdre

------------

Yes, the word beach definitely needs
an exclamation point.  I grew up
suffocated in the middle of mountains.

Our house was just one street away
from the elephant body of Mt. Forist.
I could almost reach my hand out

and pat the gray body.  It blocked
every single sunset.  Some days,
when I'd get home from school, the moon

would already be poking it's nose
over the beast's back and sunshine
was long gone.  Even my classroom

faced a mountain.  It started six feet
away and sloped up steeply covered
in white birch trees.  I won't deny

it was pretty with the sunlight scampering
through the underbrush but how I longed
for a wide open beach with sweet brown

sugar sand seeping through my toes
and waves, endless and new, crashing,
foaming, receding, repeating nearby.

And, then, we retired and moved near
the sea and finally I could breathe.  In
the summer you might catch a glimpse

of a curly, white-haired lady on a red bicycle
pedaling toward the end of the land
and you'll smile knowing she's heading home.