Tag: childhood
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Poesy for the Grown-Up Child
(The poem is best read in landscape view, so as to keep the original formatting intact.) This year when the ginormous flamingos arrived Harold and Lilith, little brother and sister so, lassoed the pinkest and to the sky they arose— above all the straw maidens playing games with life’s fire, the slow dancing couple living…
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Moon Play
The moon slipped into his room a suitcase of light seeking commiseration,The boy imagined three stars stolen from the Northern Sky packed inside.The beam stopped by the bookcase,thumbed its light on a few titles,and since the books would not open and confess their wordsdrifted its attention to the unexpected life awakening on the other side—a…
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Behind the photo of the boy on the rubble
The boy sits atop of the rubble of his homeHis father lies silent twelve feet belowHis infancy has fallen from that summitThe darkness chokes his gentle neckNeedles of despair push into himTheir sharpness kills his heartInside he feels all his organs shrivel His tears fertilize the moundFrom them, a black flower seedsIts delicate roots claw…
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Rain Chapter and Verse
He fell in love with the rainvolumes and volumes sheets upon sheetseach drop a wet memorya weather forecast of himThere he was a child in yellowand black rubber bootssplashing up and downfeeling the pinging on his hoodthe flavor of pond on his tongueputting his existence on hold for maybe days and dayslocked away in play…
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Chalk
They traced their chalk hand first; yellow, pink, gold flowers second; memorized the white ridges of that good dog paw mold from the vet third; all the accretions, good and bad of the pastel outlines of life’s hopscotch fourth; copied dutifully the chalkboard forms fifth; leaving only the final one drawn by others, the one…
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Sana, Sana
Set the flower aflame.Hold your sister closeamidst the flowing water.Sana, Sana, colita de rana.Si no sanas hoysanaras manana, The bark is exposed.A bird dies in the forest.Hold your brother close.Dry his every tear.Sana, SanaSi no sanas hoy,Sanaras manana.The crack is wide.The cactus has dried.The frog jumps in the drainwith the push of a hand.Sana, Sana,…
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Cardboard
Given enough cardboard and tape I could make my own childhood house.At least until winter. Then, it allflattened, became one big sledthat raced down the brown foothills,so out of control, fast, faster still,until a Plymouth door handle left a permanent time scar on my forehead- one, two, three little rivers forging into each other.Now, that…
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Four Haikus on Childhood
1. A MAGICAL PLACE From the yellow hut near the power plant’s river he’s shocked to see fish. 2. THE INTERNAL NOTEBOOK She scratches the spot on her arm where her parents buried deep their dreams. 3. ALONE AT THE FAIR WITH MONEY Rubber duck winnings buys popcorn, moo-moos, a pony, car rides, burst balloons.…
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Bed Bugs: A Love Story
He smuggled them in his pockets. Easy— just a step into the house, after digging in the yard. There they stayed until after he was fed and washed. Then, he removed them from their hidden space, released them from the lining and seams into the dwindling bedroom light, to snuggle under the warmth of blanket…
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Circuses Go Round and Round
On days when the girls were circusestheir mother would parade them in the dusky living room where the overhead spotswould highlight each one in their own three ring aura, The Entrance of the Gladiators stuck on repeat on the old phonograph, brass and woodwinds bouncing lithely off their bodies and trumpeting off the walls,the humid…
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Hot Wax on a Wool Dress
After three days of black rags over mirrors,three days of the open coffin in the parlor,Nana’s eyes closed, unable to see beyond-Lena, needed to run around the backyard,holding the hand of the first living thing that would follow her around, round, round.She was wearing the last wool dress Nana knitted for her (a green, white…
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Strawberries
Abuela bought them, the strawberries, plump , sweet, spotted, ripe for tasting from the roadside market- the one with the burlap heaven flapping in the humid air, on a day that smelled of smoke and incense. I wanted to eat them, but she slapped my hands away. The strawberries hadn’t traveled far- torn up from…
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The Lightening
It’s hardly remembered, this first lightening of a child—snip by snip each curl floating to the floor,causing an impatient rising from the high chairThe child wants wings. He’s evaporating in the air.Yet, the mother holds him down, cutting a heavy linkin the nape of his neck to tether him to her, the earth. “Hold my…
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Rainy Day
Only the rain moves,nailing the houses into their own coffins. In childhood daysthe rain sailed down alleys.merrily sweeping motley papers, leaves,once, a tiny pink shoe—everything, to the sea, a rollicking circus calliope. Now the rain, the iron rain,lets the sky place itstombstones onevery single roof.
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Walking Her Bicycle Back Home, Alone
Oh, child of mine, I’ve come back toreclaim your most precious thing from that blue ravine off the stone road.I lack the steadiness and pulse of movementto ride it home.So, I walk it back totally alone now,remembering those first unsteady lessonsuntil you found the perfect balance to peddle this silver dreambeyond my steady support.I will…
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Walking the Living Beach
Past:The sea foam grants me gifts of pink, blue, green:a man-o-war, a mermaid’s purse,brine shrimp,sea lettuce. With each step, I feel my feet uncover and burythe beach’s cycle,the grit and stingof warm sand caressing my soles.I wish to stay to watch the purple evening come,long enough to witness the loggerhead turtlebury its eggs in the…
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Childhood 3: Riding Dark Horses Bareback and Barefoot
The boy wants a horse.The dad gets him a horse—a bronco he was told which use to be a thoroughbred,a black wind of a creaturewho barely tolerates the old, cracked saddlefrom the dad’s jockey days.It takes two track hands to hold the reins, to keep the stallion stillwhen the dad addresses him . In the…
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Childhood 2: Creating Wonder
Only a child believes that a jar of released fireflies will become stars.That the calico teddy bear watchingthe still lake with you knows every creature in the 100 acre woodsThat the too big straw hatwill never blow off your headwhen running through a field of lilacs.That the biggest fish ever caughtis the blue origami one…
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Childhood 1: Visiting the Land of Make Believe
This is not a true story but the expression of a wish of a poor Bronx girlon Christmas Day. There were Christmas gifts but they flew out the windowin a drunken father’s rage.There was a menagerie setwith a Jesus in a manger,cows, sheep, pig, donkeys,two collies, a pony and a camel,but all was shatteredto pieces,…
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Life’s Moments
The child looks out her toy windowand imagines her adult self sailing on the blue ocean of the old hat box that holds her communion veil. Her childhood dances alone along the berm’s dawn light as the sloop plies onto the sand.They hug and gallop horses bareback in the vanishing mistwhile Tess, the sea turtle…
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The String is not the only Thing that Holds the Kite in the Air
If kites are nothing but a cross on a sailthey can only rise.Yet, the child running with all his joyin the brown fieldon a cloudless day will hold the string taut, thinking it’s up to himto keep the kite in the air and never let its line cross the path of birds.Today, he will learn…
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The Mayas of the Old Beehive
The Mayas of Colemnar Viejo for the last twilight hours of early May exist in mature thoughts, statues unable to address the questions designed to unseat their repose from spectators marching into shadows. By night they will know the answers that will secret their lives, grateful for Ermita de Remedios for the revelation and…