Heavy Arms

The babe was sick when he left

but only slightly as babies do.

He was their first, a strapping boy,

thier farm was large and far from town.

He needed to fish with his neighbors 

to salt the cod and lay in stores for winter,

their open dory powered by rowing in turn

while the rest fished open seas far from shore.

When it was the young father's turn to row

his arms felt far too heavy for this task.

He knew it was a sign to direct him

and told the others to take him back.

He knew something was wrong, his wife 

had need of him. He returned to find 

his small son dead in his wife's arms.

Let me take him, May, he's gone.

He built the casket  

from the wood of his land and lay the babe inside

then carried him down the aisle 

of their church to ask final blessings. 

As he sat next to his young wife

he told her that the heft of the casket in his arms

was the same he felt in the boat,

the sign sent to bring him home.

There were no shortage of such stories in our Irish/Scottish family growing up. This is a true story of my grandparents in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia when they lost their first baby in 1914. My mother was born the following year. The photo is of my grandmother with my mother and uncle. 

For Kerry at The Garden who asked us to write about Superstition or Science. This story, like many, falls somewhere in between.

A Runner's 55

Finished the Florida half marathon in February
7th out of 47 women in my age group (65-69).
Felt good but I set a new goal: keep running
until 70 when I'm the youngest in the age group
and come in first. This woman of a certain age
likes to have something to aim for.


For G-Man's Friday 55. True story.

On the Jacksonville beach:

At the finish line:

The Night My Friend Died

She relapsed hell bent, while dark overdrive

took her where she'd not gone for years, far side

of slick slope. She'd clung to recovery, night

meetings sparks of light to lead her way. But she lied

in secret ways or got left with sin's wage,

such fine lines woven between lost and saved,

or God turned his back on this great one, made

faulty wiring when precise was needed. Face

him now, demand redress for her, this nurse 

who loved fierce, taught with passion, like a church

shelters those in need, the worst of the worse

loved wildly, counted in, coins in life's purse,

valued by those with hearts big enough. Back,

bring her back. Back. Gone too soon, just lke that.

My friend died of an overdose recently and broke the hearts of we who loved her. Her presence filled a room. She gave of herself to her patients, advocated tirelessly for them, taught them as if their lives depended on it because it did and laughed with them with her whole body at the foibles that unite us all. I wish she didn't have to go. Damn this disease of addiction and its sabotage of good people's brains.

Written for dVerse Poets Pub for Tony Maude's Bout Rimés. He gave us a list of words to rhyme. They are: drive, side, night, lied, wage, saved, made, face, nurse, church, worse, purse, back, that. They seemed to tell my friend's sad story.

Prelude

The young boy told his mother his dream,
to have a falcon of his own. But how? They
problem- solved together; can't buy one, hard

to catch one, maybe find a nest and take a chick but
where are the nests? Could he take one? Two days later
a neighbor brought an unfeathered hawk fallen from its nest,

only weeks old, unable to be returned. Despite
the dream, the young boy had no idea how to care
for a raptor. Their kinship with dinosaurs drew him.

A quick trip to google revealed their diet- snakes, lizards,
insects, mammals; things that need to die to be fed
to small carnivores. And the young boy must do the killing.

This is in response to Kerry O'Connor over at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads who asked us to write something that's prelude to the main event which we don't describe. Her article on the types of preludes (mine is one of intention) is elegant so check it out.

Contact

She shuffles by lost
in the fog of mental illness,
mute, unreachable.
I make nursing rounds,
hum some old tune. She
turns, follows me, hums
the same song.
Across her chasm
of neural chaos,
contact.


The prompt from Fireblossom over at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads was to write about calamities and from my 36 years as a psychiatric nurse, there is no calamity that touches my heart more than major mental illness. This is a true story of a client with schizophrenia in a state hospital in California who had been mute for years. I was humming a song my father used to sing and she hummed along. So I started singing the songs I remembered from him and she sang along. She had a beautiful voice. Eventually we learned she was a singer with Benny Goodman in the mid 30's. She loved to sing. I offer it on dVerse poets open link night as well.

Fashion

"Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening. "Coco Chanel


I thought I would teach 
fashion to my granddaughter, age 5.
We went shopping at her request. 'Look
grandmother, I like those colors
together, and they're sparkly.'  

'You like sparkly?' I asked. 
'Sparkly is fun because
it makes me feel happy. 
And, when colors are all together, 
they look like flowers.'

I decided I'm the one to learn and she's my fashion teacher. 


This is posted in response to Ella's prompt over at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads regarding Coco Chanel's quote above on fashion. It reminded me of an incident that happened last year with my granddaughter. And for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub hosted by Natasha Head who generously admonishes us to encourage one another's poetry.
(the photo is the desk where my granddaughter, now six, designs her fashion creations)

Square Poem About My Grandson (Who's Cute as a Button)

Grandson   stands      across            the            room              filled

stands        future       lights             eyes          bright             within

across        lights       from              ancestors    generations    shine

the             eyes       ancestors        dreamed      embodied      now

room         bright     generations     embodied     in                  him

filled         within     shine               now            him               alight


I would write the poem like this:


Grandson stands across the room, filled,

stands, future lights eyes bright within,

across lights from ancestors generations shine,

the eyes ancestors dreamed embodied now,

room bright, generations embodied in him

filled within, shine now, him alight.

This came in response to a prompt from dVerse Poets for a square poem, which has the same number of words as lines and reads the same across and down. Unfortunately, I missed the deadline by two hours since I have my grandson visiting me in Italy from Trinidad for the first time by himself and he keeps me busy. Plus it was a difficult type of poem to write. But todays prompt is button (hosted by Brian) and my grandson's cute as a button so I'll submit it under that guise and hope for latitude!

that was the year

that was the year when my brother got arrested and all of us were stunned in that kind of what? in the world? it's impossible! kind of stunned that stopped me fast yanked me down and took my breath away and made me whisper to my girlfriend that the only way that the word brother goes with the word jail is if he was visiting one to volunteer. shows how much I knew that year. the year that my daughter went away to college and all I could do was cry not sweet motherly tears but heaving sobs with my nose running and my eyes swollen red that embarrassed everyone around including me but I couldn't stop and carried on like that just like that for weeks even when I went to a couple's weekend with my husband to talk and I couldn't because all I could do was wail at the loss of my daughter. that year my mother died when there should never be a year when a mother dies six weeks after being diagnosed with something that had treatment protocols described by the doctor for me to tell her about so she could decide which one to choose and instead she died and I just wasn't ready to not have her in my life in my daughter's life and to figure out what to do with the hole in my heart which they had no treatment protocols for or even told me about so I could prepare for until there it was and it felt like it was the whole of me this hole where I used to have a whole heart and I stood there without my mother who always took care of things like that like family heart holes and I had to figure out what to do myself alone that year. that year I got fired from my profession can I get fired from my profession? which they think is just a job and I had never been fired before and where do they get those ridiculous euphemisms like downsizing and rightsizing when it's down alright I mean I was down but it's not right no matter what size they say it is without me and it wasn't a job it was my professed profession since I was three and I was so immobilized really unable to move that I had to go to a healer to get healed because I couldn't just couldn't move and I had a hole in my heart and it wasn't the kind of healing you have to chat about at a coffee klatch it was the kind that fills heart holes gets limbs moving and saves your life. that year that was the year.


This was posted in response to the prompt: Stream-of-Consciousness Writing by Victoria Slotto in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft over at the dVerse Poets Pub.

A Time I Had Magic

A Time I Had Magic

I saved a life once.

On a Nebraska Reservation

a baby was born
blue, silent.

The doctor, a stranger

to these people,
instructed: "Leave him,

he'll die."

His mother cried,

refused to hold him,

begged: "Take him
away."

I was his nurse.

I focused on him,

massaged his feet,

stroked his chest.

Life loitered,

crept in slowly,

he breathed,

    he moved,

        turned pink.

Connected to life,

I fed it to him

     like milk.

It was that kind of magic.


This is for dVerse Poets Open Link Night hosted today by Claudia. She has some wonderful things to say about falling in love with poetry and she's a great example of really fine writing.

What Choice You Had

What Choice You Had

"Come to my room, help me 

choose the dress I'll be buried in.

Is it too morbid of me to ask you?"

Your first choice a fuchsia dress

silk, long sleeved, belted.

"Is it too garish for a funeral?"

You decided,

at your funeral you would wear

what you wanted,

bright color such a deliberate

counterpoint to your fading.

Final statement

by a legend of stylish dressing.

"Perfect choice, Mom."

"Guess what," you whispered, "it's a size 10!

I've always wanted to wear a size 10."

We laughed at your perverse

pleasure - loss of weight

even if it's to cancer, size 10

even if it's in your casket.

It had its intended effect.

Mourners remarked on how 

beautiful your dress was, 

how so like you.

                                                        

                                                                                        Mary Harvey Warren

in loving memory of Mary McLellan Harvey

I posted this poem  two years ago for a 100 word challenge. This is its full version posted in response to Victoria Slaotto's prompt at dVerse Poets entitled Meeting the Bar: Writing Emotion.
Check out this great resource blog for poets which contains both information and prompts.

January Child (The Full Version)

It's Open Link Night - week 18 at dVerse- Poets Pub, devoted to the encouragement of poetry and community among poets. Check it out and tell your friends.

January Child

I came along in the dead of winter

born in my own time three weeks late.

Father was at work.

Mother begged a ride from a neighbor

to go and do her woman's work alone.

She napped me on the porch

to be toughened by the snows

and gales of winter,

to cut my teeth on New England nor'easters

and fight the undeclared war against girls.

Middle child, only girl, small for my age.

Both brothers slept the porch in spring

took for granted the abundance

of our neighborhood, the visitors and friends,

the elms and hyacinths, maples and forsythias,

spring greens, yellows and new hues,

the migratory flocks parading back to northern homes.

Both boys read books, played quiet games

grew fat on father's favor.

I grew to a storm-wintered warrior child

sight practiced on bare lilac thicket,

schooled by wind in how the world sounds,

cries accompanied by blackbirds and jays,

layered against the elements.

Perhaps my skirmishes were attempts

to win that unwinable war

but I fought with the fury of calling,

battered brothers' enemies,

marshaled anger from hidden fronts

as I gave birth to myself.

Mary H. Warren

(I published a 100 word version of this poem on 9/30/11. This is the full poem that needed to be written.)

Call and Response

This is offered in response to the prompt for a "Call and Response poem" from dVerse- Poets Pub. (before I knew of the time limit) This is a marvelous site for learning about different kinds of poetry as well.

Call and Response

"I've a strange heaviness in my arms, Mac. Can't seem to row at all. Something's wrong. I need to get back to Mae and the baby." 


"We'll turn her around, Angus. We can do the rowing. Should be back by the afternoon if the waves hold constant." 


He saw Mae sitting by the window, the baby in her arms, as he rushed into the house.


"What's wrong, Mae? The baby's so still."


"Oh, Angy Mal, our Donald died this morning. He had a fierce fever while you were gone. He fought hard, poor wee one. I was praying you'd come."


"I had to come back, I couldn't row, Mae, had a heaviness in my arms. What can I do?"


"Best to make a casket to bury our baby in. Paint it white, pure soul that he was."


Angus carried the casket in his arms for the funeral. "Mae, this is the heaviness I felt in my arms in the boat, the very same."