He covers his sunlit towhead with one of his blankies and loosens glistening giggles.
And I remember what it is to hide. Hiding, a thing of childhood, joyful for this boy of three with his shining towhead appearing sprinkled with glitter in the sunlight and the bubbling raspy giggles he lets loose as he covers and uncovers his shimmering head with his beloved blankie.
I learned to hide from the monster who pursued me. At times, the monster was too angry, too quick, and I had no time to hide. Other times, there was only time to seek refuge behind rustling silk dresses, a molting mink, and piled up shoe boxes—only to be yanked out by an arm, thrown across a room before the whipping began. On rare occasions, there was time to make it to the small bedroom on the third floor where there was a closet over the stairs. The floor of the closet was raised and filled with boxes of junk. The boxes created a barricade against the monster my mother often became when she drank. Though she drank daily, always drunk by the time the evening news came on, the monster did not appear every day. On any particular day, if the monster’s rage began as a slow simmer, I would silently slip away to that closet, crawl over the boxes, and listen as the rage of the drunken monster began boiling below, hoping the stomping monster did not make her way up to the third floor. That third-floor closet never failed. I never allowed myself to breathe in the safety of that third floor over the stairs closet until long after the sounds of raging below stopped. Then, closing my eyes, enjoying the silence, my muscles beginning to relax, I would breathe in the safety found in the darkness. By the time I was twelve, I had outgrown the safe haven of the third-floor closet. There was no way to crawl over the boxes without knocking them over and making noise. My hiding place lost; I had to find a new one. One I created—not truly safe or a hiding spot, but an escape. A way to stand and take the whippings of yardsticks, wooden then metal, without a cry or a whimper, to use my mind to create an escape, a place my body could not go, yet my mind could fly in moments to the safety of silent blackness.
This little three-year-old towheaded boy, finished with his hiding game, asks for cold, frozen, blueberries. Upon discovering there are no cold blueberries left, he wails. A grieving wail with fat tears. It is tragic, this absence of cold blueberries. And all I can do is find a distraction for him. But I smile and I am teary eyed at this dramatic switch from joyous laughter to tragic grieving loss of cold blueberries because he knows he is safe. He can go from laughter to tears because he does not doubt his safety here in this place among these hearts within this room filled with sunshine.
Later, when I hug and kiss him goodnight, I say a silent prayer that he never knows what it is to seek safety in darkness and only ever knows what it is to feel the safety offered in the warmth of sunshine.
Forgive me, I ramble, telling you of life at sea level--
where a steady pour of hours stream, and minutes bead against the windowpanes as the seconds mist into fog-- decades of earth and rock liquify-- A mottled mix of flowing colors and viscosities defiant and devoid of any beauty to ease a slippery sharp-edged flow carving out an emptiness within this near ghost of a soul waiting in unacknowledged darkness, while asking for a way to the light—
before waking in the softness of morning at altitude.
The mountains draw their shawls of clouds
‘bout their shoulders to ward off the damp chill,
humming as if about to settle down
into rocking chairs before a fire
and knitting away this afternoon of winter
as they chat about the doings
of their children, grandchildren,
and their neighbors to the west.
Perhaps, this is why--
the birds flit and chirp
singing songs of spring
as they nibble at the suet cakes
you’ve left for them.
Photo by Yiu011fit KARAALu0130Ou011eLU on Pexels.com
At the edge of a known world
where sapphire sea meets an emerald surf
seals emerge in greeting
just feet from where I stand.
I did discover an absolute
in a moment of childlike wonder:
All things thought unattainable,
never to be found--
perhaps, even undeserved--
exist in the joy
at the edge of the sea.
I have always had rose bushes.
My mother’s rosebushes
so overgrown, hedges really,
filled with beautiful red blooms
and thick inch long thorns,
waiting for a chance to shred
away skin.
Then my own
before I was twenty-two.
White ones.
Planted on either side
of the front door
of a house in Baltimore.
I let a piece of me die
in that house
yet the roses thrived.
Then, in Texas.
Yes, roses there too.
Puny things. No lush leaves.
No huge blooms.
Black spot, fungus, rot
always a battle.
Vine like branches,
filled with thousands
of razor slicing thorns,
thirsting for my blood
when I came near
to fertilize or water
or with pruning shears.
But today,
in the high mountain desert,
I took a chainsaw to the rose bushes.
Buzzed them down
to nothing but nubs.
Roses do not belong here
in this dry terrain.
Thorns and a waste of water,
the price to pay
for no real return.
I placed their thick,
disconnected thorn filled limbs
into doubled up lawn bags,
and their thorny weapons,
still thirsting for a taste of blood,
stabbed at me as I carried the bag
of bundled limbs to the trash bin.
Some, of the toxic smiling kind,
might say, “Look to the blossoms
Not the thorns.”
Easy to say
if you’ve never seen,
never felt the shredding thorns can do.
Thus, I remove the shredding beauty
here in the mountain desert,
choosing beauty of a better kind.
no gulf across time
no forever in forever promises
of time that drips still
as if the eternal existed
in the binding of souls
and yet--
and yet—
breath stops in hope--
with my final breath
I will soar into the sun
to wait for you,
or should it be--
find you there waiting for me,
then we will fly beyond
whatever magic of spirit
there exists,
mingling and joining
with the elements--
of air
of earth
of water
of fire
merging and separating
and merging again
for an eternity.
then should we,
in the beauty of condemned blessings,
fall to earth once again,
no matter where,
no matter when,
I will find you yet again.
At the edges of this cool morning,
humming with the dying of summer,
I, long awake, attend to things
that must be done:
dogs fed; trash pulled to the curb;
a load of laundry started;
hummingbird feeders cleaned;
all ordinary, mundane things—
This chill in the air has me wish
I’d put on a jacket, yet the chill
will be gone by noon.
And I find I smile.
For the first time,
I do not despair at the dying
of this year’s summer,
but find a joyous warmth
in the light as this year’s autumn
is born.
I could rake these stones.
Free these tiny weeds
which my feeble fingers fumble to grab
and tweeze out.
Yes, with a rake,
I could disturb the harmony
of stones, free the weeds—
But no.
I have had enough of stones.
I’ve enough of their weight
placed upon me.
I’ve carried the tonnage of stone
from place to place,
lived under it,
barely breathing through years,
lived decades encased within a sarcophagus
of other’s demands and expectations,
all shattered now in lovely shards
left in the distance behind me.
No, I will leave these stones undisturbed.
They will not take up my time.
There are other ways to weed,
and should the weeds take the stones,
there is beauty to be found in the wildness of weeds.
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Hearing The Mermaids Sing 