Ghazal - there stood my mother

I wait for the day when I know that I've understood my mother

Did she do what she had to, or just whatever she could, my mother?

Oh Mama I want to summarize you, write you large, heroic

Sketch you greater than fabulous, even more perfect than good, my mother

O mother of all contradictions, I don't want to lose the real you

Little girl from suburban small-town New Jersey made good, my mother

Did you find what you thought you'd gone looking to do, far from home in Congo?

Did the fireworks and drudgery look like you thought they would, my mother?

I blew bubbles to float you off madcap, romantic, daredevil. They popped.

And teaching and typing, proofing and wife-ing, there stood my dear mother.

Self-Portrait - Barbara - 1970s - Post-New-Testament, Kinshasa

Self-Portrait - Barbara - 1970s - Post-New-Testament, Kinshasa

Between Don and the girls, typing and household,
the grapefruit mangoes guavas, floors fridge freezer,
filters kettles bottles and ice cubes, I am on the go.
The hours and days flap past. I daydream but quietly.
Between the newsletters and the class prep I keep myself
soft and brittle. I wait and I watch.
Where I am there are hard arguments and comfortable
silences. And a little deferential dickering.
My world is peanut skins, onionskin, the skin of my teeth
and the dry cracking skin of my bare furrowed heels.
We can't keep the linoleum floors swept dirtless. The bottoms
of my feet are black at the end of every day.
One day the girls will be grown, gone, I will be older
but when would I stop to mourn. Don will still be needing
helpmate listener typist shoulder lover friend and nurse.
I will be here.
I dance a lot, sing a lot, read whenever I can.
I listen for as long as I can, as I must. I listen slow
and I listen fast.
I see the dresses slips pants undies shirts nighties flap
on the line, we hustle
them in quick before the next rain comes,
Tata Ndelo and I. The next rain
always comes.
I read in the dark, in the light, in the bedroom, quick,
furtive, at the beauty salon downtown
under the big round space helmet.
I try to keep up. I try to stay awake.
Beside me Don is watching me, loving me, needing me, making me
beautiful. Strong.
Sometimes I get mad. I shout. Sometimes
he pushes me too far.
I love this life.
Every Sunday in a different pew I fall asleep for the sermon,
wake up for the hymns and the prayers.

What you say you can't remember

What you say you can't remember

I see you tossing out the songs of your life, Mommy, the queen on the songbird float slinging lovesong showboat operetta gospel candy, Ruthy and I line the parade running up and down the sidelines being all the three-year-olds and we catch, catch, catch till our hands and aprons and pockets are stuffed and our little wide-open babybird mouths are stuffed and still there are more falling and landing all around us that we will never pick up.

I see you dancing and entrancing us, you are the Charleston, the jitterbug, the Teton Mountain Stomp, we are Putting our Little Foot all the long up and down of the afternoon living room under the endless green windows, three of us always three of us you, me, Ruthy; Daddy's girls we promenade and dosido, walk in the open window and swing, swing her to.

I see you laying out the cards of solitaire, circling the marbles on the floor of our Kenge living room, returning triumphant from the arrow shoot, always your ducklings behind you. I see you happy in our littlehood, flushed with our threesomeness, handsome towering scary Daddy making brief appearances to admire, applaud, take note, and tell a story. We are the world inside our walls. We are a flashing changing matching mismatched set of four, two, three, four, two, Daddy comes and goes, Ruthy comes and goes, you are always there. I am always there.

Things that Come in Twos

Things that Come in Twos

The hands I type these lines with, read or unread, are a pair

Right hand that rubs my eyes and left hand ringed, wed, are a pair

My parents, my short tall yin-yang missionary parents

One desperate to talk and one leaving so much unsaid, are a pair

These lines, scrambling to fit what won't quite fit

These lines, pulling on the ragged binding shred, are a pair

The tree ripped out this afternoon, marked in pink by the city a week ago

And the deer this morning I almost tripped on, spilling red, are a pair

You and I, if only you'll come and dance with me again

If you dare come and see how lightly I've learned to tread, are a pair

You and I, rehearsing the lines, discussing the deer and the tree

You and I, holding these hands at night in this oversized bed, are a pair

Oh my slow and sleepy mother

Oh my slow and sleepy mother, always worried you'd be late

Or were doing something wrong or that Daddy'd set you straight

You were always feeling guilty, feeling late, a step behind.

You were always catching up from the detours of your mind

Hiding thrillers under pillows just as Daddy came home

Stashing mending in a trunk where it never got sewn

Dropping Ruthy on her head, stranding me locked out-of-doors

Ah but still, in spite of all, we were freely, gaily yours!

Daddy couldn't do without you, even while he stormed and fussed

You made every day a playtime, though we did the things we must

All the house was wild and roaring, we were loud and boisterous

Oh my slow, shy, sleepy mother, but you tamed and gentled us.

also today

also today

on the way to the trail / in our running gear

Marion helped me hunt at the Habitat ReStore, where we

opened and closed all the lined-up cabinets

long ones, wide ones / white, brown, dirty

checked out their insides & outsides, upsides & downsides

and we bought one. going to punch out the front

wooden panel / stick a glass pane in there / cover it with fabric

from Congo via Mommy's cupboard / put in some shelves

(Marion says Craig can help us with that) / mount it on a post

(and Marion has a posthole digger) by the limestone bench out front

fill it with books (we've got an awful lot of those)

take a book, leave a book, read a book

and it will be

the Barbara

and Donald

Deer

memorial

Little

Free

Library

and it cost 20 bucks