cheese and crackers

None of the facts were clear until Uncle Cal died. His obituary stated he was born in Wisconsin but later moved with his family to Idaho where his father, William Miller, had taken a job with Kraft Cheese. Esther and William had two boys, Willis and Calvin, when they packed up and moved west. My mother was born after the family had settled in a verdant valley named Rockland where they raised cows, as did the Millers and the Rosins they’d left behind. Watercress grew on the banks of the Snake River nearby. William had been a valued member of the team establishing the first dairy facility in southeastern Idaho for the Kraft Corporation in the 1930’s.
Growing up I heard the name Colby only as it referenced Aunts Emma, Anna and Hortense or cousin Minnie Mae. My mother’s jaw would tighten when she mentioned the Millers back in Wisconsin. William had disgraced them and ruthlessly altered the history of his wife and children by walking off the Rockland farm one day during the Depression. Decades later word trickled down that he had another family in California.

Even more decades have passed leaving only the famous orange cheese, made in Wisconsin since 1882, as a reminder of what might have been. I’ve kept an image of my grandfather wrapped in the cooler drawer of my heart. He’s in the field behind the plow pulled by his faithful mule when he stops to watch a flock of geese pass overhead. Then he drops the reins and follows them.

Visit Sunday Scribblings and read more stories prompted by 'cheese.'

Endorphin City!

3Jerry Seinfeld

3George Burns

Sunday Scribblings challenged us to have a dinner party, invite seven people and plan the menu. I can't wait!
4Statler & Waldorf

4Billy Crystal

5Denis Leary
4Paul Giamatti
5Yogi Berra

Nobody was very funny in my family, with the possible exception of moi but, as someone who grew up watching the Ed Sullivan Show every Sunday night, I knew comedy when I saw it.

So, given the chance to have a few people over for dinner here's what I'd do. I'd invite my favorite comedians to break bread and be exceedingly funny. The wine list funny guys, please: George Burns, because his was one of the first I remember hearing as a child and his autobiographies cracked me up--New York Yankees catcher & coach Yogi Berra who is funnier than a crutch without even trying--Denis Leary who tells it pretty expletive much like it is and has great hair--actor Paul Giamatti is funny just by being himself, or Harvey Pekar--Billy Crystal who is mah-va-luss in my book and because he loves his family--I used to watch Jerry Seinfield's stand up on The Improv before he was famous [I still quote his schtick: 'Why don't dogs ever have any money?... No pockets!] and lastly Statler and Waldorf who added the snarky icing on the cake to The Muppet Show I watched faithfully with Audrey and Erica and later by myself. Just thinking about these guys makes me laugh out loud.

For dinner I'd whip up a big brisket, an even bigger pan of lasagna, Caesar salad, asparagus, tomato-basil-mozarella salad & apple pie for dessert. Plenty of cold beer and ashtrays all around. I'd keep a bottle of chaum-pag-na on ice in case Christopher Walken gets my phone message.

Post Script: here's a funny one for you. . .the dinner party theme was for last week's Sunday Scribblings. Not only am I funny, but I'm a week behind! expletives, expletives

Saturday's Child

I am writing this because I don’t want to forget that I once was young and full of dreams. In the early 1970’s, while I was busy ‘putting my husband through college’ working in a law office, we would occasionally visit a town 50 miles away. It was double the size of our college town and though it would always be another farm town, it had its very own small bookshop. Sure, you could pick up books at K-Mart or the university bookstore or even at the adult bookstore, but nothing like this little shop was to be had where we lived.

Not only did this shop sell hardbound books in its long narrow room but also sprinkled between the shelves were little areas devoted to hand-thrown pottery from local kilns. Large old storefront windows allowed the maximum amount of that precious north light to bath the store. And best of all, chairs were available to sit and read. Of course I did buy one book in spite of our lean financial status, Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet that became the bible of the organic food movement.

After my very first visit to this bookstore—its name escapes me—I promised myself that this is what I’d like to do with the rest of my life when it was my turn to have that life was have my own little bookstore. I would name it Saturday’s Child because weekends were so precious to me. I would furnish it with large lights hanging from the ceiling like I’d seen in the railroad depot, local pots—maybe even some of my own, imagine that! —and best of all I would find the largest, plushest leather armchairs with reading lamps to set near the door. That would be how visitors to my Saturday’s Child would be welcomed.

My plan for my own shop kept being pushed behind in line by life: dear children, detours of depression, the oddest jobs, school, libraries and more living. Little did I know back then that these brave little shops would be nudged out by big box bookstores. And as a gift for that young woman in Idaho who once had a plan, I periodically revisit my copy of the book 84 Charing Cross Road about a writer in New York and her lifetime relationship with a London antiquarian bookstore. The photo below is from Charing Cross Road in London.

I’ve kept my promise to always stop at bookstores on the main streets of any town I visit, in homage to big plans, the small bookseller and with a fond memory of my Saturday’s Child.

Study more plans at Sunday Scribblings.
Y

A language of silence.

I wish it to be so
To inhabit the world with my heart,
and not my ears. Just knowing.

When the sap loosens and there is a groaning
In the top branches
Does the whole stand reply in silence ?

Her tail flashes and her spotted-one listens.
Their fear is quelled by recollection
of the meadow
and their own salty runestone.

Behind velvet eyes,
Pain and beauty coexist; without my words.
They feast on wild plum trees.
I wish to be
free of my desire to give them a name.

Visit Sunday Scribblings for more answers to the prompt, Language.

Sad but true

‘I can only trust myself,’ he repeats.
She says, ‘I’m careful where I place my hand.’
You can’t be too wise or too useful.

He always looks over his shoulder when changing lanes.
She refuses to comply, flexing her tone-deaf muscles.
Avoidance pulled on like pigskin gloves, snug and ordinary.

Suffering oozes from his sockets; indeed
Making eye contact fruitless.
A relief.
Unsanitized fingers twitching
She wipes her hand in her pocket lining
Another threat averted.

Windows wearily draped in muslin.
Stomach mopped clean.
Heart chambers locked,
Checked, locked again.
She trusts only safety.
He trusts no one.

Consider this a weak punch at my recent writer's block by my healed left hook. I offer my take on the Sunday Scribblings prompt, 'trust.'

Phantoms & Shadows

You said, ‘She’s got the map of Japan all over her face.’
But when I looked up at her I only saw skin.

My welted, wet face reminded you of a big, fat Indian squaw.

I thought we were Italians.

Shineola, blue gums, Sambo?

They’re only shoe polish, Halloween teeth and pancakes to me.

Like watermelon seeds, you spit out ‘Those kraut bastards!’

cleverly confusing your wife’s blond hair and blue eyes

with the sauerkraut barrel.

Filthy gypsies, no-good Greeks, yellow Chinks:
Your mother taught you that people are mean.
In embracing her, even to the grave,
You set this legacy spinning into the next generation’s fragile orbit.

If you could see how hard I’ve tried to dispel these lies,
your ideas like an unopened gift left behind
Would you be proud of me?

You can rest now in the gathered satin of your apathy

knowing I have slowly untangled the knots that were once given to you.
But at what price?

~~~

After the past campaign, my living in south Chicago for fourteen years, and finally in seeing history being made at last week's inauguration, I have jotted down these few thoughts. Presumably the are submitted to Sunday Scribblings--late again--but more importantly as a note to my daughters and future members of our family: I didn't get here overnight!

[collage photos from Bannock County archives
of Asians in Idaho in the 20th century,
when my dad was growing up]

mmmmmmmmmm

I have finally resigned myself to the fact that my mother wasn’t a cook. She could till a plot of ground and work the garden until dark every day of summer. She scrubbed every wall in the house, washed and ironed into the wee hours after working a shift on her feet at the grocery store. But she only learned from her own mother that the kitchen was hot, that canning season seemed endless and there were only so many pigs feet she could gnaw on. Its no wonder she was glad to go to work.

No cookies were baked in our oven but occasionally a Jiffy cake mix appeared and the three of us would scrap over the crumbs like a pack of hungry mongrels. Once a year at Christmas time this German workhorse of a woman would make one unfailing delight for us.

After much hinting and playful cajoling from the man whose left hook could bring her to her knees, she gave in. I was alerted by the sound of the small electric mixer cord swinging against the cabinet door as she retrieved it from its dusty box. Bowls, pans, sugar spilling, syrup measured and soon the familiar rise of the acrid exhaust from the mixer’s motor that had just been rudely awakened from its year-long slumber. No wooden spoons in our kitchen, just the scraping of stainless steel on stainless steel. Droning became more labored and then stopped.

Into a pan lay the white molten ooze which she quickly smoothed out, then cut into squares and dusted with powdered sugar. It was a miracle to behold—science and strong biceps had produced a pan of homemade marshmallows. Only once did my father intrude on the process by insisting that anise flavoring be added in remembrance of his dear departed Italian mama who had never made this delicacy in her life. Powdered sugar everywhere, dusting my father’s mustache, on my pajamas and a thin layer along the stove top my mother must have remembered herself as a little girl standing on the kindling box in her mother’s steamy kitchen waiting patiently for her piece of marshmallow to appear. Then it would be Christmas for her too.

* * * * *

This week's Sunday Scribbling's prompt was tradition and though it is already Monday, I've been marshmallow-dreaming since the calendar turned to December. Visit here to see more writers' traditions.

p.s. A very good site for making your own marshmallows can be visited here.

Happy Monday!

Fact is stranger than fiction.

Sunday Scribblings prompt this week is 'stranger.'

My dad drove my mother to work and back every day in a gunmetal gray Ford Falcon. He parked it with precision in front of our house so that when the passenger door opened she could step right onto the sidewalk leading to our front door. You would have thought she was a movie star arriving on the red carpet; but sadly she was only on her lunch hour from the grocery store. This day my father’s mood matched the perfect v formation and the peeling paint in the dented hood. The day before, our black and white world had been rocked as he had been following another car too closely while he lit up a cigarette. Now he felt even guiltier than he was every other day and try as he might, he couldn’t smoke, yell, hit or sleep away the fact that his new car wasn’t new anymore.

After he deposited my mother back at work he went immediately to the back porch, retrieved the hand clippers from the windowsill and marched to the front lawn. On his knees he carefully cut the grass that the lawn mower didn’t reach along the curb. As he crawled along he finally came even with the front of the car. He stood up. Filthy Italian expletives flew out under his mustache like startled bats. Then he returned the clippers to their windowsill parking spot, forgetting that he had only finished half the trimming job he had started.

Sitting out his penance on the top step of the porch he had a perfect view of the incised hood as well as a man standing next to the fender, also surveying the hood. This mystery man was as tall and swarthy as my father but wore a long sleeve flannel shirt, boots and a small hoop in both ears. His unseasonable dress should have alerted my dad that something was odd about this man but the visitor in our front yard was someone to talk to until my mother got off work.

For $50 this wanderer promised to return in the morning with some tools and in no time he would have that dent pulled out. My father was skeptical and my mother was too tired to care. From their conversation my father also knew that he was a gypsy just passing through and could use the money. A deal was a deal. Next day my friends and I watched from the porch, while my dad stood at the window intent on the spectacle in the street, a sweaty $50 bill wadded in his palm.

The man brought along a giant rubber mallet, a can of Simonize and an old rag that I recognized as a sleeveless undershirt. All morning he paced, pounded, tapped, wiped and stopped periodically to wipe the sweat from his face with the undershirt. Nothing changed. While we were in the kitchen making sandwiches, we missed seeing him climb on the hood. When we returned he was jumping up and down like the car was a little round trampoline. Finally he gave up, climbed down and slowly met my father at the front door.

I wish I could say that benevolence won out over anger but my father was driven by even more humiliation than the exhausted would-be car repairman. Whenever I see a rebuilt Falcon or a Gypsy, for that matter, I can recall in perfect detail the defeated posture of a retreating man carrying a mallet down Birch Street in the summer of 1960.

The short list

Sunday Scribblings prompted us to list our bragging rights this week.

I haven’t always been a friend to myself,
but
I appreciate beauty and intelligence.
I am shy but want to talk your ear off.
I am saddened by the passing of life of very small creatures.

I talk with my hands, walk fast and have a repertoire of one-liners for every occasion.
I never forget—a face, a lyric, a feeling.
I recognize other’s pain, grief and confusion even if I don’t like how they act.
I’m curious and want to see what’s new but love the old.
What’s mine is yours.
I’m adaptable to life and creative when needed.
My hands are graceful, my ears are tuned and I care.
Where others forecast the future I usually see the humor.
I am the one who sees both sides, front and back.
I am smarter than I think.
I am neither what I was told I was nor what I have believed.

Her style is my style

I watched you when you weren’t looking
Yet when given the opportunity, I
Couldn’t turn away.

While you winnowed truth from pain,
Brushed the velvet petal’s nap
Sifted and put up for winter, I was
Watching you
Nose to nose as a child.

A speck on the vast landscape of years
Braid down your back,
Cataloging all the stars,
Did you ask for more time
while I was checking my watch?

Turning the teacup over to look at the bottom
Instead of the tea leaves inside--
Porcelain so pure from worlds away.
I caught your faint silk smile of knowing
You would not change.

Lively thoughts circle your neck

Clasped by timeworn reckonings.
Your soul’s decorations: deep vision, peace,
Beauty with parity and merriment.
I am watching still.
I cannot turn away.

My thoughts on Sunday Scribbling's prompt this week 'my style' illustrated by John William Waterhouse's Spring (The Flower Picker), circa 1900.

Sunday Scribblings, R.S.V.P.

Spring wobbled in brand new heels
And took the stairs gleefully,
Dropping petals that
Floated softly away.

Summer sat at the end of the table
Picking flowers from a vase.
Pulling petal from stem, entwined,
Moon blushed smile.

Fragrant ribbons unrolled across the floor
As Autumn’s velvet skirts swayed,
Pouring wine in upturned glasses
Intoxicating their dreams.

Sated eyes watched the doors and
Lips silently repeated the clock’s ring
The slow waltz of regret and wondering played,
Waiting for Winter to accept the invitation.


Visit Sunday Scribblings for more takes on the prompt 'invitation.'

Well, a guy’s gotta eat!

No one told me that one day I’d be wrapping lettuce at a produce market. Likewise I was clueless that all those cello and saxophone lessons, recitals and practice would naturally lead to Audrey & Erica making orchestra and band trips overseas in high school. So what’s a mother to do but get a spur of the moment job to legally raise some fast cash.

The store manager assured me they would appreciate my skill at putting together fruit baskets for the holidays but in the meantime a regular produce person was needed—someone to wrap heads of lettuce and bunches of broccoli and grapes. Oh, and there was the orange juice machine, salad bar, pineapple de-corer and the scales. And we all had to work on Saturday because that was their busiest day.

Thus began my brilliant career at a small, family owned chain of grocery stores in the south suburbs of Chicago one fall where I learned that not only did money not grow on trees but a produce department is run on constants. Every night most of the produce had to be moved into the cooler and brought out again the next morning, day after day, night after night. Monday mornings meant bringing box after box of oranges out of the cooler to run through the orange juicer, filling the bottles, cleaning up the pulp and mopping the floor constantly so no customer would accidentally fall on the juice. Then there was the grouchy manager, a guy who refused to retire but hated every minute while he was at work. Some of the crew worked in the back room sorting, wrapping and weighing. The rest of us stood in a sort of kiosk called ‘the scales’ where customers lined up to have all of their produce choices weighed and bagged and tagged, then secured by a machine that taped the bag shut. This made for a surly bunch of customers who had to wait in line just so they wouldn’t have to wait in line later at the checkout register to have things weighed.

One morning toward the end of my sentence, I watched a customer picking out scallions. What caught my eye was the large turquoise jacket he wore advertising Buddy Guy’s Legends, a famous blues club in Chicago. When he brought his onions up for the obligatory weighing and bagging I saw it was the man himself, Buddy Guy. Losing any bit of produce-inspired dignity I said something special like, “Oh, you’re Buddy Guy aren’t you? Let me shake your hand.” Which he did and not often does someone look me straight in the eye like he did that morning. I handed him his bag and said it had been my pleasure. Smiling, he pulled out his wallet and he wrote a name on the back of one of his Legends’ cards. “Call this guy on Monday and tell him I said to save some tickets for you the next time I’m playing.” In that moment the air was rarified and all I remember doing was leaving ‘the scales’ to tell everyone in the back room that I had just met guitar legend Buddy Guy. That’s when I learned the third lesson about produce: wrapping lettuce can make one apathetic. The only person who cared enough to reply said, “Well, if you’re happy, then I’m happy for you.”

See more answers to the prompt: How I met my. . .on Sunday Scribblings. And while you’re at it, listen to Buddy below.

Sunday Scribblings' Observations

I'm been known to observe:
After spending probably more time than necessary watching people, I have my own theory about faces: usually the first-born child strongly resembles the father. Then the subsequent children’s features are up for grabs. I may be stepping out on a limb here; I’d like to think I am about 90% correct.

Chin hairs that have been black thus far, eventually will turn gray in direct proportion to the number of gray hairs on one’s head. Eyebrows wait for that process to finish and then succumb to the lackluster hue. This is normal as set down in the owner’s manual.

Finding the Big Dipper in the northern sky on a dark night can actually calm one’s heartbeat, lower blood pressure and prevent nightmares if viewed at bedtime.

In fact, looking up is a good cure-all for many things with the possible exception of being short on funds. One should periodically look down because sometimes you’ll find money. A corollary to this is Jerry Seinfeld’s reason why dogs are always poor—they have no money, why? Because they have no pockets.

Germs die. This is the best advice my mother gave me. When I was eleven I had my first experience with a sort of OCD. I couldn’t tell my mom exactly what was wrong, because I didn’t know, nor that I couldn’t stop worrying about dying or couldn’t quit washing my hands because I was afraid of getting sick from touching the millions of wads of gum under my desks at school. She never knew. So I just asked casual questions about germs and illness, appealing to her on the level of her pharmacy studies. But she did say that she had learned that germs die rather quickly when exposed to air. That gave me a modicum of relief as I endured bouts of counting or hand washing and eventually this fear of disease passed, to be replaced later with more ingenious fears. But I have always remembered what she said because it was all she could offer me.

The holy water found in church tastes salty and I know because I was the one repeatedly scolded for sampling when I was in elementary school. Now I like to think it has some mystical connection to tears. However, using holy water does not a holy person make.

Speaking of water, everywhere I’ve lived, the water is colder coming from the tap in the bathroom than in the kitchen. Mysterious and annoying.

Finally, life is mysterious, circadian, wonderful and worthy of scrutiny whenever possible. Especially when afraid, thirsty or overjoyed with seeing oneself in the face of your child.

~~

See more observations at Sunday Scribblings here. You'll be amazed at what you'll learn.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sunday Scribblings--Q & A

[Mother Combing Sara's Hair--Mary Cassatt]

Shoeless, the little girl crawled up into her lap letting the comfort
Unleash many questions pouring out

in a steady stream like a bag of sugar with a hole in the bottom.

She asked why she is usually the sole witness,
The one to shed the only tear
For the dead rabbit curled up on the grass?
Because you will be ready to stand at a grave someday.

She shyly asked why
Her smile is unwanted by two women of equal race.
They only smile at each other and turn away from her.
Because you will understand racism and might want to
help change the world someday.

The lonely call of the circling goose
Whose mate could not fly away from the pavement--
Recalling the memory choked the word ‘why’ back down her throat
Because now you know the sweetness of love and will always
remember the value of relationships.

Will I finally get picked on Roxy’s team and visit Italy and play the bassoon?
And live in a lighthouse and travel with gypsies?

Why do I have to wear shoes?
Why do I have to leave again?

Will I know when its my turn?
You will see yourself in all these places—and more,
but your home will always be in your beautiful heart.

This week's prompt for Sunday Scribblings is 'Do I have to?' Visit here to see more questions.

Sunday Scribblings on Monday

I know, its not Sunday anymore but I couldn't pass up this opportunity to write about the prompt offered this week at Sunday Scribblings. . .solace.
in particular, the solace of memories.

If events are a feast, then memories are just a snack
To nourish my soul.
I vow then to take solace in them. I promise
I’ll nibble carefully and leave some for tomorrow.

The feel of your smooth, small arms around my neck and the
Kiss stuck to my cheek from the peach you just swallowed.

My head sprouting curly wires where a mane once flowed
And in the mirror it is Aunt Carmela, patron saint of garlic,
Whose face–and hair—I see.

The wet spot on my shoulder I felt when you hugged me the last time
Unrestrained tears and saliva a maternal dead end sign.

Why did he wait so long to correct my earnest belief

that he had wanted to be a ‘magician’ when it was music he craved?

I would have been his assistant when I grew up.

Your stoic note to the tooth fairy explaining how your tooth went missing
Due to my absentmindedness.

My unproven theory of genetic affinity

Giving you the same warm maple syrup color to your eyes as mine.

Routinely I maneuver my boat
Around and between the archipelago of memories.
A movable feast,

They always welcome me back and offer renewal.

a day late and a dollar short

a very short fairy tale

Day after day she sifted through applications sent to personnel by the state agency. Line workers, weekend shifts and an occasional razzle-dazzle resume from some out of work English major. A few bloodless stabs were made at the pile of paper and those that clung to her sharp intuition were called back. The rest got filed away.

Not so this day when his call was routed to her desk. Watching a cobweb float around on the ceiling above her she waited while he told her he was back in town, looking for a job and had a lot of experience. Nice voice, fairly articulate and following the procedure outlined in ‘how to win over your prospective boss 101’ to the letter. Unfortunately there were no openings, but he was welcome to send that stellar resume to her. He said he would.

In that drowsy time after lunch, absent-mindedly wiping up the spilled tea on her desk she saw the receptionist motioning someone toward her desk.

He reminded her of Sinatra entering the Sands after hours-- swagger, sly charm with hair slicked back on the sides. There he stood at her desk, with a look of surprise, as if he’d seen her before. Tossing the tea soaked napkin she looked up from the waste can contents, into his eyes, then coughed. She knew she was blushing. Shortly they both returned to business, handshakes, names, a mini interview ensued. He had come from the semi-conductor world in Seattle but wanted to re-locate to be near his son.
Nice try.

She felt oddly sad when he shook her hand again and said with a wave—a hometown giveaway—that they’d be in touch. No one needed to know that in her research she discovered he lived near the river in those rentals that once comfortably housed railroad workers. Nor would she tell anyone how she had scoured her yearbooks at home that night.

His face was stunningly familiar and that confounding look of recognition at seeing her was loosening her hinges. Because she figured he was a con artist, she dismissed the high school reunion being held in her mind and carried on, until Friday. He called her at the plant, asking for her by her first name. She told him how she had dutifully sent his [impressive] resume up the cattle ramp. Signing off he said, ‘I hope we can talk again.’ She meant to say that she would keep him posted…. but instead she said she hoped so too. They only spoke by phone one more time.

He didn’t get the job. Even now as her memory dims when remembering the faces of friends and family, his appears as vivid as ever. But she still doesn’t know who he was.

My very late contribution to Sunday Scribblings' prompt 'chance encounter.' See more writing or join in here.

I can see clearly now!

Granny didn’t mind if she visited the schoolyard
But she stayed to watch the little girl swing
Unaware that she also roamed the halls
After school was over for the day.
The story spun like cotton candy.

Up the stairs one at a time
Paste wax on the railings, door ajar
The little girl tiptoed in, sat on the floor
While ribbons of melody floated off the bow
A smile bestowed by the cellist.

One day when the little girl slipped in again
She found someone else in the room
Who invited her in, all the same.
The room lit like a holy card
With an angel sitting where the cellist had been.

The swing started slowly as Granny pushed
Stepping back she watched the little legs pump
Higher and swifter the trees came closer
Reaching her bare feet to touch the leaves
She jumped.

Bunny paws, sun on the ditch bank, she felt
Strong arms carry her home.
Her head tied with a clean dishtowel,
The little girl cried to see her own blood
And cried because of Granny’s fear. Why?

I wanted wings like the angel I met.
I thought I could fly,
But I changed my mind.
A discerning scar now
Marks the place in her unfolding symphony.

This happy ending brought to you by Sunday Scribblings. You can read more, or add your own here.

Scribblings and tangential curves on Sunday

Last night as I floated above the treetops
Clouds were forming to the north
Grace gazed at the river’s edge
Shaking out her skirt, small birds flew
And with their beaks wrote new chapters
From the ink the river spilled under the stars.


On pristine ice I made figure eights
While Grace gathered from those clouds
Sweet children
From her plaits she released blue ribbons
And tied sashes and curving hair bows for each
Then into one ear, and the next she whispered,

Take heart, my dear one
You’ll find your own story I’ve kept
Page after page, book after book
Ink barely dry.

Third cousins will become first,
You are related and dear.

Melancholy dawn and slumber’s end
It was time for me to sweep up fallen stars
Release the lambs and ewes
And close the elephant’s gate.
On the lintel
My key to the day hung from a new blue ribbon.


My sleepy thoughts on the prompt 'curve' for Sunday Scribblings. See more curves here.

Soul in the updraft

Your music cracks my heart open
Taking my spine two stairs at a time
Leaving every door ajar
Colors alight with hollow bones

Aching melodies spin
Crinoline clouds weep
Freedom,
Granted and received

Truth and wonders
Are the fragrant petals
You toss through the gap-toothed
Windows of my soul.

~~

Based on a prompt of 'soar' for Sunday Scribblings, my gratitude to Ludwig van Beethoven for his short, sweet Symphony No. 6, Pastoral, which causes a mighty separation of soul and body every time I listen. Listen to my favorite, the fourth movement here.

[The graphic above is from a painting called "The Bedroom"--1658/1600 by Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch.]

But, the phone never rings.

He answered with a question mark,
As if surprised by the sound
Coming from his kitchen.
He had only borrowed phones
Refusing to own one
Instead, stopped at a relative’s house
To make a call to someone else.

No rambling during this visit.
He seemed like a new person
I’d recently met.
Tidbits about a new doctor
And a banana a day
Had made him feel better than ever.
I took keen notes.

I think about you often, Daddy.
But, my phone never rings.
A fact I couldn’t deny.
How can you marry fear to love?
Or envision this old man ever doing those things?
I didn’t want that time to return
Or this new encounter to end.

Love was mumbled
Across the wires.
I said I’d talk to him soon
And because he knew I liked the sound of it,
His perfect ‘arrivederci’
Was the last sound I heard.

~~

My memory from the prompt 'telephone' from Sunday Scribblings. Ring up other writers here.

[photo by Helen Levitt--New York, 1940]