For mother’s day,
3 months after my Dad died,
& 1 year after
her own mother passed
I made my mother dinner
from her 1959
better homes & garden cookbook
with the cardboard gingham cover
I was 12
& proud to follow
3 fancy recipes:
Swiss steak jardinere,
carrot-raisin salad,
banana-walnut cake
with cooked frosting
I wanted to give her something
I planned & made myself,
& we 4 who used to be 6
ate every bite together.
I am uncertain
how 3 words breathed in passion
more than we spoke them
remain strong enough
to hold us together still
despite differences
With what words then, love
can I possibly free you?
Can they be unsaid?
American,
say it with a swagger
& with confidence;
like we own the name
somehow more than the
Canadians & Mexicans,
& all those other Americans
south of Panama
but say it with force
& the assurance
that all those other Americas
don’t really matter,
because they are not really
as American as we are;
they lack that insular arrogance,
fed past gluttony to a place
beyond fatness & complacency–
if the west were open to be won today
we couldn’t do it
because it would take too much effort
& we would have to move away
from the computers
& television screens
& actually do something
besides politicking,
like shoot dinner, or feed it,
or plant it
or even teach
our children to read
ourselves
& not blame a teacher
when it doesn’t happen
fast enough.
How nice
to have strong bodies
whose minds
are wasting away.
****this poem is not anti-American–it is anti-the-America I am seeing in politics, on the news, and in the social media.
It has been said
that the dead do not speak,
but they do, if the ear
is attuned to their mutterings;
as far as family stories go for us
my mother,
my grandmother,
my great-grandmother,
and I
have been told in dreams
when someone loved
climbs the ladder to heaven,
or will climb it soon
we do not even know what tells us.
This is no blessing or curse,
just something we carry
inside our blood,
perhaps nothing more
than an ability to listen well
& that same sense
tells us when we meet someone living
who will be significant
to our lives in some way:
a knowing
that tingles up the spine
and raises fine hair
on my forearms,
this body simply a finely-tuned antenna.
Some people make religion
of this same knowing,
not I. Spirit whispers
can mislead,
& are of little value
to the living.
My God is alive.
How can one worship
a sense
or court a feeling
that has me pass strange graveyards
& empty houses
quickly, breath held,
my hands tight
over those invisible ears?
Mask (Photo credit: poropitia outside the box)
perfect little thief
wears his bandit mask always–
rascally raccoon.
***
don’t look too closely
her smooth features disguise pain
brittle, pretty mask
***
free from my true face
the mask I wore blows away
lighter now, and free
which is free,
the face or the mask?
perhaps both
Outside the walls of my house
the air is heavy and sweeter
that the strawberries the tiny white flowers promise;
opening just this morning
& already the bees were drunk
all day on nectar
an hour past sunset and the night music
in our valley is now a murmur
which will crescendo after midnight;
an orchestra that has no need of practice,
or tuning, or precise seating–
perfect in its exuberance,
the performance stops just before dawn
when the birds pick up the refrain
and lure the sun into rising.
Inside, two children
still smelling of sunlight & crushed grass
are a chorus of shouting
that rivals the noise of the peepers outside–
joy leaps from soprano throats
as they flash through the rooms
like lightning streaks,
& I, mother that I am, call after them,
“not so fast!”
but all I have really done
is add to the noise.
So much energy inside,
so much ardor outside;
when I open a window,
I don’t know if I am letting in freshness
or spilling it over the sill.
By Noel Ihebuzor and Susan Daniels
outside my window, tree frogs and crickets
are in full spring shout, like calling to like
until they meet and are silent
from within, behind my window,
I hear their calls, calls from within,
coded calls that inspire and stir,
that codes of the seasons unlock and trigger
not just yet, because it is too cool
in my valley for them, fireflies
will begin their coded, coordinated sparking
in a language that rivals stars
in their persuasion of each other
the sparking fireflies speak in response to a flame that glows within, stoked by embers of a lighting warming and awakening season
they spark-sing songs to like souls, sparks that speak alluringly like star studded invitation cards, the glistening promise of plenty to a journey of sharing and multiplying
but how will my call or flicker of false starlight be answered?
and as like attracts like,
and every human act is a flicker, a signal
every call too a signal
every silence a message
I sense that you for whom I flicker
will hear me and I your sparking,
that my voice will carry to you even when I speak not
and that I will hear you even in your deepest silence
on the darkest starlit night where fireflies rival stars
and creatures of spring craft their coded colorful creation symphonies
***Noel’s voice is in bold, mine italicized. Sending this to dverse poets to share today.
This was a spur of the moment thing–we wrote this in less than an hour, my ingenious friend & I…hope you like this one–we certainly did–this man writes unspeakably beautiful verses.
Susan Daniels Poetry 