born

A child is born.  And a new mother too.

Last night I watched a mamma find her way.

"I love you," I said to her.  And I did.

I loved her eyes, shining in the candlelight.  Her mouth, open, teaching me a new language.  I loved her body, every part of it.  I witnessed her struggle, it was all hers.

On the other end of the phone connection was a new father,  heard through the noise of the Midway of a carnival, working and crying, loving and listening.

Laundry hummed in the dark of the basement.

Jars of homemade teas glistened and the sweet smell of rosemary rose from the pool in the middle of the room.

And when her baby came, I looked around me and knew that everything in this home was love.  Mother Mary watched from an altar in the corner, eyes watchful and trusting.   Sheets and other cloths hung in the windows, casting a different kind of light.

A child is born.

To be born into love is to be born into light, into hope.  And tonight I pray for all mammas, all women

That we may find our way to the light that strengthens and nourishes

Through all the pain and hopelessness

So that maybe one day our children will be received without fear

Born into light

And we will be born too

children who have been here forever

I sat on sacred land yesterday and then realized that

I am always on sacred land

Shopping carts and garbage litter the homes around me
Children laugh, and I smile at their teeth
Shining like stars against a Sepia backdrop of flesh

Sometimes in the glint of those very teeth
I see the ghost of what this neighborhood used to be

This graveyard of closed-down banks and broken windows
Seems like the only thing still shining is the children, so I follow them
Creep into shadows, see they’re still shining
This Sepia rivaled only by an Indigo sky

I want to paint them but I can’t capture such light
What I want to show is the flash
A captive firefly in the eyes of children who have been here forever

There are no words
There are no colours
I can only watch

Car Ride

His hair, or what is left of it, is blowing in the wind rushing in from the darkness outside. He is talking almost incessantly, and I listen with both ears, because I know what is coming.

A dog licks my hand and I am alone in the back seat, swimming in beige leather, listening to the sound of hearts breaking all around me. I myself am remembering things that I would rather not remember. I see my mother’s hands, empty , as she holds them out to me. I don’t know what I am supposed to do with these hands, only that they held me at one time, long ago, smelling of Red Door and detergent and sickness.

His voice startles me awake.

“I never wanted to cause that kind of pain to anyone,” he is saying, and keeps talking. I look out the window at the people flapping around like leaves on the street. I watch a drunken man lead a child across the street. The little boy`s hair shines like an otter pelt in the sun, and I direct my eyes away from him. Too bright, I think, and my head throbs.

He turns in his seat to look at me. His eyes are dark.

"I remember that," he says, and I hear my voice from somewhere far away asking him what he remembers.
`
"I remember suffering", and the world swirls around me, passing in and out of tinted windows. I remember suffering too, I think, but I cannot say this to him, because in front of me there are tunnels. Ones that you shield your eyes against because, like the little boy, they are too bright.

And the other kind.. the kind that you feel like you can't get out of, the ones filled with ghosts and men who drive in cars, whispering secrets to anyone who will listen.

A Walk to School

My daughter sits in a classroom with her arm in the air, waving an invisible flag of herself.

If I were to be watching her from the hallway, obstructing the bustle of teachers in tight black pants and thin painted mouths, it would be painful, so I wait until the last possible minute to enter the building. I can see it anyway, in the window of my imagination.

The children around her are shiny, like this year's pennies, and I wonder how they got that way. I grew up feeling like I entered the world through a second-hand store, like I had never been new.

I take my time getting to the school. In the beginning I never saw mothers, and now that school has started they emerge like butterflies whose wings have been removed.

Their younger children toddle far behind, noses running, and I want to pat their heads, but I know that I shouldn't, so I don't. I can't catch up with these mothers, so I walk slowly, taking my part in a parade of duty. My head down, I too feel like I want to be flying.

A boy steps off a school bus and disappears into the shambles of his home, like a cloud swallowed up by the sun. A man passing me shouts at his grandson in a language that I don't understand and I turn and watch them fall away.

Sasha is beside me now, and the wind is whistling in my ears so that I can barely hear her speak. She is telling me about who the helper of the day was. What I want to tell her is that it's all bullshit, but I listen, looking at the vacant lot beside us.

"That fence couldn't keep us out," she says, and I am stunned because I am thinking the same thing. I tell her this and she is pleased. She licks the ice cream that I bought her at the corner store, and skips ahead.

I run my fingers over the chainlink fence separating me from the concrete and weeds, thinking about how crawling over it with my daughter, who has the dark dark eyes of a priestess. We would kick the garbage to one side, and take our rightful places on the ground, on the earth, which belongs to all of us.

Bus Ride

Last night on the bus
I watched a baby fall asleep, drinking from a propped bottle. He was lying on his back and he was startled by the night/bus sounds off and on. His mom was looking out the window, but I never took my eyes off of him. His own eyes drifted open and closed as he drank his milk. I tried to talk to him in my mind.
"It's okay" I told him.
"The world is scary sometimes, but at least you have the sky, and that will be your blanket. The water will wash you. Sshhhh.... you are loved"
His eyes closed and stayed closed.

A man got on the bus shortly after that. He had cuts all over his arms and a big backpack and blanket. I tried to speak to him with my mind,
"Look at me," I said over and over again, and he would turn in my direction but wouldn't make eye contact.
"Shhh...." I said to him, and I knew he heard me. I rested my head against the window and wished I was home.