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Text of Poems -
Children and Childhood
49 Elm Street (2002)
Carousel
(2003)
For Kari on Her 13th Birthday
(2007)
Making Breakfast (2009)
Melk
Pusset (2003)
Snapshots of Peter
(2005)
The Swan Boats (2002)
49 Elm Street
The few miles always seemed endless
Past the old
cemetery with the cast iron fence
Crowded Hebrew markers
crowned with small piles of pebbles
Clattering over the wooden
bridge high above the railroad tracks
Down the wide quiet
street.
High on the hill amongst the trees
Rich brown stained
clapboards
Rolling front lawn
Dark screened porch
surrounded by
Succulent white berried bushes and blue
rhododendrons.
Elm and chestnut leaves swirled and crunched as we made our
way up the long driveway
Chinked river stone foundation, and
ominous little door to the basement
The creak of the wooden
screen door
The back foyer filled with gadgets, glass bottles,
paper bags, tools
Hundreds of rubber bands stretched over the
glass doorknob.
The kitchen redolent of Marlboros and Ivory
soap
Wainscoting softened by repeated paintings
Whistling
tea kettle, small glass custard cups
Grampy eating Jello with
milk and sugar
Nana making jam turnovers with the big maple
rolling pin.
Delicate bone china teacups in tiny wall shelves
Coloring
books and playing cards crammed into the doors of the ancient
buffet
Sand filled plaid ashtrays smoldering during Red Sox
games
Dusty rays of sunlight in Grampy’s book lined study
Bubblebaths in the enormous claw footed tub.
The endless mysteries of Grampy’s garage
Vacuum tubes
and dusty appliances that long since despaired of repair
Smooth
wooden handled tools handing on pegs
Peanut butter jars filled
with magic potions
Infant tomato plants in newspaper
swaddling.
Clem nosing about the yard for treasure
Boisterous
children rolling down the front lawn
Discovering the mysteries
of the tiny patch of woods behind the house
Spider violets and
raspberries, smoky piles of leaves
Sparklers and lemonade on
the Fourth of July.
The wide expanse of lake dotted with skaters
Nana’s
brothers and sisters, sitting in state in the living
room
Cacophony of cousins at the piano beneath the small
stained glass window
A Maxfield Parrish print by the door and
push button light switches
Grampy singing O Holy Night, and
teaching us Chopsticks
Candied fruit slices and delicate
ribbon confections.
Silent empty rooms, boxes holding memories
Station
wagons bearing furniture down the curving drive
The secret
door and narrow treacherous stairs to the attic
A solitary
bentwood chair cradling a dusty red velvet photo album
Sepia
images long forgotten
In the house on Elm Street.
Carousel
My daughter and I both listen to our blood.
She waits eagerly for its first twinge
and I wistfully
for its last wail.
She squints in search of the first delicate
blond hairs
while mine coarsen and silver.
She waits impatiently for her curves
while I struggle to
keep them under control.
She preens coyly in front of the
mirror
while I attempt camouflage.
She is frightened by her fits of temper and turmoil
as
much as I am by mine.
She giggles with giddy infatuation
both
recent and distant to me.
She wears my earrings in her newly pierced ears
and I
wear her crystal charm for memory.
She twirls as her own
carousel, blond hair flailing straight
as I take a different
turn on the wheel of life.
Her eyes sparkle with the newness of living
while mine
shine with steady eternal fire.
For Kari on her 13th Birthday
I am now the mother of a teenager;
a lovely girl in
shabby chic and
thrift store stilettos holding peace
signs.
Blissfully oblivious to the attentions of boys,
she
still spends hours in front of the mirror
assembling quirky
ensembles whose audacity I envy.
When she was 9,
she
painted her cheeks blue and her eyelids pink.
Now, she
carefully applies her liner and mascara,
but reads the
ingredients, first.
She debates her teachers on the global
economy,
on war and the president.
She is skeptical of
everything.
I only hope when the hormonal poisoning
sets in,
she will wield equal discretion with men.
She
questions authority, but spreads affection
like flower petals
on a May breeze.
Everyone is worthy of her love,
even when
they are thoughtless and absent.
There is such joy and hope in
her face
I hesitate to taint her innocence.
Will
she honor her own perfection,
and guard her heart from
harm?
Will I endure her tears
when the unworthy squander
her gifts?
What role does a mother play
in the life of a
blossoming woman?
At what pace do I step back?
With what
urgency do I step in?
At what point is my experience
interference?
With what glance or sigh or word
might I push
her away with my love?
At what moment must I remain in the
doorway
and let her flutter away?
Making Breakfast
For Kari and Peter, February 1, 2009
To make a Mommy sandwich
upon a Sunday morn,
pull
covers high and snuggle deep.
Warm, warm, warm.
Wrap arms around her belly,
plant kisses on her
cheeks.
With cuddles, giggles, ticklish glee,
squeeze,
squeeze, squeeze.
Give a raspberry to her shoulder,
to her ear a teasing
smooch.
Let flailing arms akimbo fly
Swoosh, swoosh,
swoosh.
When giddy play has tired you
and hungry tummies
growl
to scramble eggs do set yourselves.
Roll, roll, roll.
Melk Pusset
In the aftermath of Thor’s thunder,
and bright
flashes,
Kari pattered into our room,
doe-eyed and
flannelled,
white bear in slender arms
to cuddle away her
fears.
Snuggling her against me,
her breath calm and even
and
scented with milk,
I thought of my baby girl
and our Norse
name for her
and rocked her to sleep.
Snapshots of Peter
The giant soap bubbles float gently down the street
followed by a bouncing 7-year-old
dancing and waving and
bobbing
and reaching for their invisible strings.
The frame of the bed is maple
and does not dent
as
he grasps it firmly
and bangs his head against it
over
and over and over
crying, no one loves you
you’re so
stupid.
He reaches for paper, tape, paints, stamps
bringing
forth with gleeful abandon
Valentines and masks and handprint
turkeys
and the Ogre faces now taped to kitchen cabinets.
The carpet under his bed is toy-littered
and the Legos
press into his face
and the dust chokes him
as he wedges
his chest
between springs and floor
and gasps until fear
makes him scream.
The intrepid superhero bounding across the street
woobie-cape flapping in the breeze
has not come to save
the front yard from evil
but to plant a goodbye kiss on his
mother’s cheek.
He has wrapped his blanket
over his head and around his
neck
and pulled the ends tightly
hoping I won’t notice
and he panics that
I will have to cut his beloved blanket
to allow him to breathe.
The ladybug moves quietly in his cupped hands
as he
carries it carefully to the garden
and sets it gently on the
strawberry plants
next to the gravestone he painted for his
roly-poly bug.
He has crawled into the far corner
half-buried by a
pile of books
and wails and rocks and weeps.
I sit on the
corner of his bed
and call to him softly
and take him
onto my lap
and together, we sit and rock and weep.
The Swan Boats
Last Christmas a sister gifted me with
Make Way for
Ducklings.
As I turned the pages, the images blurred as I
remembered
little girls, in frilly dresses and patent leather
shoes
clutching Nana’s hands and small brown paper bags
gleefully flinging peanuts to eager ducks
from the benches
of the gliding boats.
Nana no longer recognizes me.
She dreams in a room with
invisible bars on the door,
but her enemies are within
playing
reel after reel of tortured memories
to an audience of one.
I pray for an intermission where she can see
warm spring
days and adoring grandchildren
and the Swan Boats in the
Public Gardens.
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