A Poem in October

October here is not the October of my youth,

days remain warm even while nights cool,

sun invites final days of outside dining,

children catch last hours of outdoor play.

Grapes, harvested in great trucks, are pressed

and judgements made on the stamp this year's weather,

vines are cut back to trunk, ground tidied for the coming year,

all focus is now on making wine with the year's distinctive vintage.

Olives, coaxed from generations old trees, spill on the ground

to be scooped into burlap bags and quickly pressed for oil,

shared with pickers, family and friends before sale of all excess,

pruned branches burn in fields and scent the air with turf- like smells.

Octobers of my youth were things of color,

an extravaganza of New England fall colors,

New England at its best, a lavish 

showiness of reds, yellows, oranges, fuchsia,

the abandonment of Pilgrim reserve to flaunt a ruckus of color,

whole mountainsides wild with flamboyant spectacle,

the boisterous rave of hills doubled in reflective lakes,

even small ponds mirrored the elaborate abundance of color

to dazzle us before the bare thickets of winter appeared,

fallen leaves filled yards, got pressed to preserve color

against the black and white of winter,

were fingered while lingering in front of winter fires.


Posted for Open Link Monday with Magaly at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads and prompted by Kerry's earlier encouragement to read Dylan Thomas's  Poem in October. 
I took the photo in New Hampshire.

Where I'm From

I'm from paved over cow paths 

leading to a central common

where modern stands side by side with

historic and holds the pride of hub to the rest.

My people came here from elsewhere

and left the map of those lands on my face

so I never quite fit, didn't look like most others.

My wandering ancestors

came from other places searching

for what they thought more important

than home, willing to make a new home

rather than live without, or who were driven

out by those who wanted what they had.

It all left its mark, so I call one place home

but search ancestral homelands to find

those left pieces of me to make me whole.

Meanwhile, my displaced people displaced others

to claim what they had, as if one could have

what another had by the wish or the taking.

My heritage is immigrant and for how long homeless?

For Poets United with the theme of Heritage Day. I took the photo in Boston during a visit in August.

Boston, Princesses, and Brave Heroines

“I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one's skin, at the extreme corners of one's eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.”

                                                               (Maya Angelou- from her book: Letter to My Daughter)


My home coordinates lie in Boston.
History and the sea set the backdrop
that grew me up.
The sea fed me
as father brought home fresh catch from Boston's docks since fish was cheaper than meat
and lobster was called poor man's food back then. Fed me in other ways, too,
having more to do
with things mulled, decided, wanted
while watching its rhythms. A gentle teacher, a harsh
teacher, a strict teacher in immutable laws learned
through osmosis and frequent contact. History was repeated
each grade, at home, museums and trails toured
often, father and teachers as tour guides. Birthplace
of the Nation, central to all that came to be. Growing
up poor in Boston set one scenario absorbed early and uncensored at subliminal levels.
Moving later to an affluent area set another and stood in contrast
even to my child mind. The wrench of a ten year old moving from scores
of playmates in a housing project, the freedom of unlimited places to go, people to watch,
things to do. Suburbs look nicer but restrict playmates and places, set up
different expectations. On me. Quit being a scrapper, be a lady. Ladylike prescribed
by the catholic school I went to and the unmarried aunts with whom I lived. A starker
contrast to the Boston housing project is hard to imagine. I never judged the projects harsh,
simply my world. I felt at home. A world rich in colorful folks who knew
how to take care of themselves
and business. Fought for what they thought was right. Or to protect. Fought a lot. Taught
me to fight. I'm not talking figuratively here but physically. Real fights, vanquishing evil fights.
Or so it seemed. I had no time for fairy tale princesses in those days, before Brave,
even with red hair, freckles and Scottish ancestry. But Merida would have been my heroine,
my kind of gal - a wild, witches consulting, shooting arrows at enemies, all in, redefining,
no limits just because we're girls,
fully alive on her own terms kind of gal.





This is in response to Mary over at dVerse Poets who asked us to write about with a Disney theme way back on Saturday but which I missed. So I'm doing it for open link Tuesday since it really got me thinking.

High School, 50 years on...

We've all changed in 50 years; some remarkably, some quite well. Some of the attendees I'd not seen since graduation, others at our 25th reunion or beyond. I visited, had dinner, listened to old tunes, danced, received my "golden" diploma and felt glad to be alive to do so in the light of absent classmates. Afterwards, I went to a party graciously hosted by two friends, now married. We had the chance to sit and share memories, happy, sad and painful in such an intimate way that I felt moved, privileged to be there to bear witness, sorry for the experiences that shaped lives in hurtful ways, grateful for the ones that shaped us in positive ways and finally aware of how little sometimes separates one from the other. We each had our story, of course. It was precious little time to catch up and hear even a bit of those stories. Left me wanting to hear more. I'm not sure what I can do about that but it's a niggling, recurring thought at this point.

I stayed with my best friend from high school, Ann, and had the opportunity to tour some of her world, meet her fiance, daughter, grandchildren and talk the days away in our effort to bridge the gap of too many years. It won't be that long again, we vowed, and retirement can make that resolution a reality. I liked and admired her in high school and found that I still do. We sang as girl scouts: "make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold." She's gold.

We toured some of our old haunts the day after the reunion, a perfect Boston spring day, and just enjoyed each other's company. The beaches I frequented as a high schooler stretched before me, stirred memories held for years and grounded me once more in home. Put together with the memories of my classmates, it rounded the picture of where I came from, the complexity of what shaped me, good and bad, and generated not quite a nostalgia, but a desire to know and understand more.

I also had the chance to see my father, now 96, and spend the day with him and his companion of sixteen years. They had been dancing the day before, spoke of their outings with other seniors and discussed current events, so I'm holding him as my aging mentor.

It was only five days but they were full and impacted me in ways I'm trying to understand more fully. I'm glad I went.