Seeing the Detail. Writing it Down.

Not to denigrate poetry... but I had the feeling today that since I had "nothing better to do", I might as well try another of the poetry challenges laid out in author L. L. Barkat's blog. I still don't "like" to write poetry, and I still don't think I do a very good job of it, but far be it from me to decide that just because I am not master of something, I cannot try it; I lived that way for too many years. Life is too short.

So, for this challenge, to "see" and write, I have made two offerings. One is sentimental, the other was painful to recall and possibly more painful to write. I'll start with the bad, and then move to the better... at least in terms of what I can only imagine will be the general response to the subject matter - no guesses about the writing. I gave myself a new guideline this time: that is, one of the poems needed to be relatively short. The first one below is the result of that limitation. In both cases, the challenge was to start from a given line and then "see" the detail when writing. I'm not sure I did a great job of the latter, but the former was a piece of cake. Ah well... I have to start somewhere!


A Question for the Man on the Highway

I close my eyes and I can still see
through the gray-lit darkness of a starless California night
and the ubiquitous streaks on my windshield,
your elongated shape taking recognizable form in the lane
imperfectly revealed by the distant white glare of a streetlamp.

It's all wrong. You are out of place between the reflecting stripes
on the still-warm asphalt, your dark-panted leg twisted,
your arms akimbo, your foot in a posture no ballerina would dare,
your unmoving face melting into a luminous pool
on the pocked black earth.

I am in motion, yet you remain unmoved
I see the lights draw near behind and beside me,
help arriving, flashing a warning it is too late for you to heed.
I hear the wailing siren and grip the wheel until my knuckles blanch.
My eyes blur with salty wetness, you hear nothing, see nothing.

Which of life's curves so tangled your mind
that you chose to wring the life from your body tonight,
in the middle of Highway 10, just east of Los Angeles,
where I, young and carefree, on the way to laugh and dance,
would find you lying still, grow suddenly old and weep?

-----


Never Out of Mind.

I close my eyes and I can still see…
home.
It isn't so far away, it lurks just out of waking sight.
It's there, unchanged, as it was, right now.
Do you see the huge magnolia overhanging the busy street,
dropping its curious seed pods and fragrant blossoms,
on the dandelion-dotted grass.
There’s the avocado tree prostrate in an invitation to climb,
and the roses Dad cultivates and aphids devour?

Do you see me, small and unkempt,
brown hair ratted and blue eyes glistening,
lying in the itchy Augustine grass?
Dwelling in mansions of old sheets and imagination,
splashing in a creaking plastic pool,
or reading in the shadow of a tree until the sun sinks out of sight?
I see it. All of it.

There Sparky still frolics, an exuberant streak of gold in the yard.
There Benjamin rat plays tag with Abby, a little gray dog whose
enthusiasm for life outstrips her ability to understand it,
while a snake lies curled and still in his glassy home,
tree frogs escape from their confinement,
and a toad croaks his sad longing for the stream of his birth.
Watching them all, monarch and matriarch,
Heidi still pants and paces, head-aloft.

Do you see the sheet mansions giving way to a dream?
The best playhouse anywhere:
tall, and carpeted, with real windows and walls.
Granddaddy's strong hands pour the concrete,
form its wooden frame,
and run the wires that bring light into darkness.
I'm there, pressing my fingers into the fresh cement of the step,
never dreaming that the "little house" would stand
while Granddad would fall.

I can see the old cinderblock wall,
leaning towards me,
pushed by the reaching, sinister oleander.
Summoning my courage,
I clamber over the top, to fetch a beloved toy
and relieve my stomach of its skin on the way down the backside,
I cry and shriek as my mother dresses my wounds
and make silent plans to try again next week.

Later I tip-toe figure-8s through the tiny "big" house we shared,
evading my mother's sight as I couldn't her sound.
I lie on the old brown carpet,
and watch a baby rabbit, name starting with “P”, take tentative leaps
and nibble of pale ruffled lettuce;
By day I play in the closet, or worry a baby sister
At night, I watch for the shadows to enliven my room,
and huddle under the covers - out of sight,
or play the piano in the darkness,
until the demands of sleep are louder than music.
I hear muted voices through the newsprint walls,
and listen to the rumble of my father's sleep.

Though the wall be torn down, the big house remodeled,
while the mansion sheets and plastic pool molder mile-deep in a landfill.
Though the animals be still and the "little house" be reduced
to its foundations.
It's all there. All of it.
Ask the roses that still bloom,
and the aphids that still feast on their sweetness.
Ask the seeds of the dandelions that wage unrelenting war on the lawn,
floating, like the children of the house,
to greener pastures where they can put down new roots
in the glow of the sinking sun.

I can still see it,
every blade of grass,
every ray of light,
every faraway moment
that shapes my sight today.