Happy Samhain

On this day when the veil is thin between the worlds...light a candle...light a candle...

"I miss you"

Auntie is home tonight with her overnight health aide.
I called to check in.
Did she take her meds this afternoon?
Yes.
Does she have her sleeping pill for later?
Yes.

"Thank you for checking on me," she says.
"I miss you."

Oh, I miss you too.

I was there yesterday and the night before and the day before...

I miss her too.

I'll see you in the morning, I say.

Good night.

I love you.

We go out the way we come in

curled up like a kitten
(perhaps this is why kitten videos are so popular)
sleeping most of the day
burping without apology
when hungry
mouth open like a baby bird
when satiated
smiling broadly
when tickled in spirit
laughing

purring...

“ah,” we say,
standing in the doorway,
gazing into the room,
smiling broadly with our own eyes,
“isn't she beautiful when she sleeps?”



10.17.12

My mother’s body

                  with thanks to Marge Percy

                  circa 1994

Accessible

Hugging

in which I grew

from which I came

Mine

year to year

an earthly incarnation

of my future

the initial shame

discomfort

with being female

the eventual acceptance

joy

of

milk nourishing breasts

life giving vagina

words that encourage

hands that soothe

hands that scold

raging lungs

the voice I use

to scold my own children

a listening ear

pillowed chest

sorrowful eyes

strong hands.

            Use lotion, she

            says, noxema,

            not soap

            and don't shave

            too early

            exercise

            and

            don't just give

            your body away

            don't just give

            your self away.

My mother's body

mine for years

more of her

part of me

than I ever knew

beyond resemblance

so very basic

of her ovum did I come

of her rhythms I sing

of her dance I walk

and talk and think

and today more

joyously

I exclaim

now

in my thirty-first year

I am of my mother's body.

Peeling back the hairshirt of religion

        circa 1994, just before I met Unitarian Universalism…

At 4 o'clock on the verandah

while a gentle wind lifted her hair

and tickled her fantasies,

she imagined that she did not

wear her religion like a hairshirt

Adam and Eve were not ashamed

of their nakedness

and Aunt Charlotte did not send her

at 11, mortified,

down the stairs with a brassiere

in hand for all to see

announcing that the girl was getting too fat

to go without one

and that if she held her stomach in

her abdomen would learn

to hold in itself.

She imagined her ancestors

were not immigrants from

Papal ruled Italy

and religion-at-gun-point Ireland

instead they were Dionysian dancers

from Greek immersed Sicily

meeting nightly in the temples of life

filling their thirst with the wine

of their bodies

They were ancient Celts who made love

en masse in the oak groves

at Beltane each spring

suckling at the wells of

their own desire

consummating their marriages

of soul and body like no others

since!

Without her religion as a hairshirt

she would not have had to starve herself

near death to get attention in a house

wracked with generations of separation

without the influence of Beezelbub's angels

Parting from marriage would have been respected

honored and claimed not hidden and ignored

weighing down on all of them

with deceit and blame, she its contraband.

Without the hairshirt of religion

wonders would never cease

daylight and evening stars would hear

sonnets and love songs

and she would profess praises

to life: a gift of living

She would not cower in the darkness

fearing the flashback of torture and rapes

in Herzegovina and Jerusalem

holy wars all!

And yet the hair sticks to her skin

scratches and pricks

as she labors in the fields of God

tailor-made not by His sweat

but by some mortal who feared

life would become

too comfortable, enraptured, blissful, light

and the godless one

who never understood what life was anyway

laid down his hand

like a holy one -

and we listened

fearing his wrath

was true.

And so

the dance was lost

the wine spilled

mating games in the grass made sin

and the little girl

with the budding breasts

forced to be thin

dieting her flesh, her skin

her mortal frame

hiding her pleasure crevices

in fleece

denouncing love -

Still, she thought she had rebelled

grown her leggy hair

discarded the deodorant

and makeup of modern man's medieval skin

abandoned leather shoes

pushed aside the red meats

and the white grains

birthed out of wedlock

lived in sin

refused the corporate treads

She had rebelled, refused, broken through

ripped off that bag of quills

yet she still wore that hairshirt

trading old “shoulds” for others

new demands yet old.

Though on the verandah

on the verandah

in a blissful history turning

time traveling pre-Eden moment,

she threw off that hairshirt

and was

no more caught up

no more invested

no more proving and fighting

no more trading this demon for that

In that moment,

she surpassed her ancestral purgatories

and imagined that she

would no more

wear her religion

like a hairshirt!

My father's body

for Joe
circa 1994


I am his seed
his flesh
in this hammock
meant for him

I am he
his smile
his thoughts
his dreams

I am his immortality
his laissez-faire
his critique

I am he
hands
strong long
feet
flat wide
just an inch under
in height

I am his build
save the breasts
vagina ovaries
what if I had
been a boy?
I'd really be he.

I am still he
no matter gender
I take his form
I take his place

This is his ma jong chair
his hammock
still on its frame
enjoying the first
air of spring's summer

I take his place
I breathe for him
give weight to this
earth for him

I am him
his immortality
as I breathe
as I speak
as I dream
as I write

I smile
it is his grin
for this short while
for all of my days

I am my father's body, too.

Christmas 1964