La Llorona

Deep in the black velvet ooze
At the bottom of the saltwater cavern,
I found her weeping for her children.

Her weeping makes her monstrous.

Mothers warn their young ones away
And secretly worry
about where choices have led them–
About the salt in their blood.

I see her

Raw fingers raking the sludge,
so long from giving love.
My hands ache and sweat;
I taste my death but cannot look away.

Her hollow eyes focus on me and the time is fulfilled.

I kneel in front of her,
Take her hands to my breast,
And kiss her wide mouth long and full.

8.21.02

I Stop

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you.
~Walt Whitman

[Context: I had run away from home (for a week. yes I did set a time limit. mother of two after all–maybe not the best, but the only one.) because pretty much everything I had built my world on–my belief in what was the right way, who were the right people…the right according to everything I’d been fed and swallowed (or rebelled against and paid for dearly)–had fallen in rubble to the ground. Bad scene but also a chance to pick and choose what you’ll build with this time. If you can survive. (Which you can.)]

 

∞ ∞ ∞

Brand-new, clean notebook. All possibilities exist here. I love paper, and it hardly costs a thing. This 70-page, spiral-bound, college-ruled notebook cost 25¢ at Wal-Mart. It is one of the best-kept secrets of our time.

My feet are speckled with gray, the rim around my toenails black. I have a black smudge on my calf, just below a freckle, which is itself below the scar that is a reminder to me of Albert…nope–can’t remember his last name. Italian. Started with a C. These marks on my calf form a constellation–an anchor, perhaps. Here I sit, on my eldest son’s camp chair, up in the North Country. Sharp Bridge Campground, 40 sites and the cleanest bathroom I’ve ever had the pleasure of using while camping.

I wanted to write a little before doing the dishes, even though it will get dark soon. So much of my life is spent going, doing, or planning on going and doing that I almost never get the chance to just sit and daydream, or notice the activities of the little ones–worms, ants. A giant bug flew into my campsite this afternoon–I heard it rather than saw it at first–a dark humming, more bass than bee, and when I caught the movement that went with the sound I was prepared to get nervous if this creature did not go soon. But then it stopped moving and hovered in the air for a moment; it looked at me and I smiled and said, “Ahh! a hummingbird. Thank you.”

Ugly Duckling

Now I float upon the cool water,
My webbed feet gently keeping me true
As I breathe and come to.

Here I am upon the calm water~
The ungraceful dance,
Frantic footwork to be what I am not,
Is over.

In the distance swans take flight:
Recognition leaps in my heart
And my wings give a sympathetic shake.

Now, here, I am what I am.
My webbed feet paddle the cool water,
Moving me forward, swift and sure

Until yearning meets with knowing,
And I unfold large, beautiful wings
That carry the drumming of my heart
Across the years and vast deserts I have traveled.

In a moment,
Through a flurry of sun-kissed water,
I am airborne,
Flying to meet my mates.

Sharp Bridge Campsite, August 2002

It dawns on me that I have a tendency to expect too much from people. More specifically, I expect them to be “better” than I am–more enlightened, more understanding, more generous. I don’t expect this from everybody, but I do tend to expect this from those I admire, and often from those whom I love.

Sharp Bridge Campground

Sharp Bridge Campground in North Hudson, NY. Photo by Michael Lechasseur.

It is the morning after an afternoon and evening of rain. Every patch of sky I see supplies a crisp blue outline for the pine needles way up there. Long streams of sunlight lay upon the ground, flowing and shimmering when a breeze moves the trees. The white pines grow cathedrallike here–columns shooting straight up to the fronds at top. Steam rises from the ground and the trunks. We are all glad for the rain. We all need it deep down and often. And it does make the sunshine so sweet.

Turn

Bands of sunlight alternate with blue shadow
Across Italian ice snow.
I pass through enchantment laid in pools,

Breathing Purim air:
The air of promise,
Promising, promising….

Warm early summer alternates with cold,
And my steps dance with the flux,
Slipping and regaining in my worn, wet boots.