Soapbox

I actually think this one was better.

Time Undone

In the kitchen
thumbing through a box of odds and ends~
my fingers grow still at the sight.
The colors have faded after so many years
but I can see so clearly—

I am looking through an open window
and if I reach, my fingers will find
not paper~ but trees, and grass,
And his face.

My grandpa
stands on the bank of the Big Darby creek
wearing his funny old-man sneakers
and his fishing hat.
He smiles at me
as the sun dapples through the walnut trees
that shade the riverbank.

I hear the rush of water over rocks
and then his rumbling baritone chuckle,
So, do you want to go fishing, little one?
and oh, Grandpa, I do,
just one more time.

We’ll get the canoe
and I’ll make you proud
with how I’ve learned to paddle.
I reach to take
his rough, calloused hand in mine~

but I am clutching only paper
in a box of old photographs
and the refrigerator hums to life
drowning out the fading echo
of water over rocks.

With sincerest apologies to Walt Whitman., and based on a poem by my amazing son, Stephen

O Dubya, my Dubya! You said you were the one!
You said you’d bring back honesty, but your answers all are spun.
Our children is not learning, our Bill of Rights, just chaff,
And as for our security; oh please, don’t make me laugh.
And oh, lies, lies, lies! They’re all we ever hear!
What will we do? Can’t live with you
As Captain four more years.

Oh Dubya! My Dubya! Tell me, what have you done?
You got us in a war that I fear cannot be won.
Our enemies attack us; our friends all hate us too!
Those weapons, they were never there! Why did we listen to you?
But oh heart, heart, heart; that thing you lack, I fear
I hate to see where the world will be
With you four more years.

The Dubya does not listen, he only gives a smirk,
And suddenly, flipping burgers is called factory work!
He breaks our treaties, pollutes the air, the country’s going broke
Still he cuts taxes to the rich and smiles like it’s a joke.
So if you want a future, the path is crystal clear:
Cut the string! Let the fat lady sing!
Don’t give him four more years!

I didn’t write this. I’m told it is a song, though I haven’t heard the tune. But in light of all the inflamed rhetoric that is flying around these days, I think putting a personal face on the gay marriage issue is worthwhile. I wish all the “good Americans” who oppose it could read this, and then think again.

Tuesday Morning by Melissa Ethridge

10:03 on a Tuesday morning
In the fall of an American dream
A man is doing what he knows is right
On Flight 93

He loved his mom and he loved his dad
He loved his home and he loved his man
But on that bloody Tuesday morning
He died an American

Now you cannot change this
You can’t erase this
You can’t pretend this is not the truth

Even though he could not marry
Or teach your children in our schools
Because who he wants to love
Is breaking your God’s rules

He stood up on a Tuesday morning
In the terror he was brave
And he made his choice, and without a doubt
A hundred lives he must have saved

And the things you might take for granted
Your inalienable rights
Some might choose to deny him
Even though he gave his life

Can you live with yourself in the land of the free
And make him less of a hero than the other three
Well it might begin to change ya
In a field in Pennsylvania

Stand up America
Hear the bell now as it tolls
Wake up America
It’s Tuesday morning…

Come on, let’s roll.

I wrote this poem at the Ohio Poetry Day event, where attendees were challenged (after a presentation from a lady on the Bicentennial Commission) to write a poem about Ohio, in the spirit of the bicentennial. I didn’t expect this to be a hit, for political reasons, but it won second prize! The Bicentennial Lady wasn’t judging.

Where the broad brown river flows
On its timeless journey
To join with the Great Father Water,
Proud dark eyes once watched from among the trees.
Silent feet trod narrow trails
Where the smoke from village cookfires
Smudged the pale morning sky.

Ohio: a land of plenty
Cradled in the sweep of the Beautiful Water,
Rising and falling with the breath of the seasons,
With forests so dense
A squirrel could run to the banks of the great north lake
And never touch the ground.

And then the seekers came to this wild place,
Across the ancient mountains
And up the teeming rivers,
Each of them wishing to claim one small piece
Of that beautiful abundance.

They came, with names both great and small,
And they changed her face forever
As their axes flashed in the morning sun
And gunfire echoed across the hills.
Her first children,
Those who named her,
And treasured her wild nature
Were swept away at Fallen Timbers,
Robbed by the pen at the treaty table
And poisoned by the white man’s pox
Until the last of the village fires grew cold.

Plows divided the earth,
Narrow trails became wagon roads
And flowering meadows became golden with grain.
The rolling hills were soon dotted
With sheep and cows
And apple trees.
Houses and fences sprouted
From the bones of the ancient forest.

Ohio, land of the beautiful waters,
Blushing from green to gold
In the rhythm of the seasons:
Growing, rich and giving.

And still they came,
Seeking opportunity in a good land,
And some, looking north toward freedom.
Hamlets became small towns
And quiet avenues, busy streets.
The broad brown waters
Were cris-crossed by barges and riverboats,
Bringing the people in,
Taking the coal away:
Providing wealth and opportunity.
Towns and factories grew
Along the banks of her rivers and lakes,
And the once-beautiful waters
Were disfigured by their own prosperity:
The morning sky smudged now
With soot and smog.

And still they come.
They come to her cities,
Seeking success
And when they find it,
They move to the country-
But they take the cities with them,
One gas station at a time
As they cut down the trees
And name their streets after them.
The rich, giving land is imprisoned
By grey concrete
Which swallows, mile by mile,
The quiet farms
That swallowed, mile by mile,
The silent forests that came before.

Ohio, land of the shopping mall,
Where people drive to their walking paths
And an SUV can travel from Cincinatti to Cleveland
And never be far from Walmart.

But still there are those
Who prefer the brilliant hues of a roadside weed
To the uniform green of a golf course:
Who cherish the wild places
Away from the noise and smell and trash of the city.
They walk along the banks of the beautiful waters,
where they can still catch the scent of a cookfire on the morning breeze
And smile to hear an acorn drop
Onto fertile soil
As a squirrel jumps from tree to tree.

The last of the afternoon storms have passed
And the sky begins to clear
To show sunset’s blush in the western sky
Through the cool, rain-washed air.
The earth’s full flagon turns and tips
And another day treads the rim, and slips
Over the red horizon
And into the night’s dark snare.

Only a moment ago, it was morning
Full of the robin’s call,
Coffee and news on the table
But I blinked, and missed it all.
Where did it go, this August day?
How many more will slip away
through my careless fingers,
‘Til green summer is golden fall?

Yesterday was the first of June,
The summer stretched long and new
And bright with possibility,
But twilight comes too soon.
A young man watches the evening sky
And realizes September is nigh:
Can he feel his world tremble with change,
The way I suddenly do?

Surely it was just last week,
A trickle of time’s sand
When he was s stumbling child,
Clutching his mother’s hand:
But even now, his life turns and tips
And quickly, so quickly, his childhood slips
Through my clumsy fingers
And the boy becomes a man.

How easily now matures into then,
And yesterday, long ago.
Seems barely a year since I was 16
Watching the summer go:
Wondering what my future would hold,
How it would feel to ever grow old:
Caught in time’s rushing torrent
And thinking it moved so slow.

I watch a moment longer, and then
I bid this day goodbye
Grieving the many I’ve spilled, unheeding
From my own life’s short supply.
As again the shadow of change does fall
I wish I had better treasured them all:
The day, the summer, the childhood,
The crimson August sky.