fleeing on foot
what still haunts Grace
is the families fleeing on foot
holding hands
the little children with their flimsy school backpacks
meant for holding little more than a snack
now carrying all that they might come out with
and more than that –
driving past them without stopping –
having no room, no seats
being one more in the long line of cars
passing up those without
the penny dish: a dream I hope to awake to
Based on a prompt by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
back in the days of cash money
greenbacks soft as cotton
or crisp as pressed trousers
coins that made your palms smell of ore
and that ever-present jingle in my father’s restless pocket
often at the register you’d find
a small shallow dish
sometimes with an invitation:
need a penny? take one
have a penny? leave one
or something along those straightforward lines
never did I see someone
dump the whole plate into their handbag
or rake their fist through the copper discs
and clench them all triumphantly
worth next-to-nothing, no one coveted them
and no one stockpiled them
no one tried to shovel their
leaky bucket full of cents
no, people stuck to being reasonable.
they showed restraint
and took only what they needed.
they had sense.
twice the bang for my buck
for one year
I’ve been reading Howard Zinn with friends
slogging through endless accounts
of the machine’s extreme indifference
grappling with the incalculable odds anyone is up against
when demanding decency
getting schooled in
the countless pretenses for war
it’s been a hard go
but here’s what I’ve gathered:
oppose war always
support unions unequivocally
demand accountability
take care of one another
hope is all we have
today the United Food and Commercial Workers
International Union Local 7
sent my donated Hardship money back
saying since the strike was short and sweet
they don’t need it after all
but, since I managed to part with it once,
they invite the 850 of us who gave
$55,000 total
to send those dollars right back out again
to others in need
I tear up and grin when I read this –
this is how Zinn and I believe
we are supposed to live:
taking what we need
giving back the rest
helping someone else
when our ledger’s in the black
I surely don’t do enough
keep way too much for my hypothetical rainy day
but this time I’m so glad
to let this money work its magic twice
now these ones and zeroes are snaking
their way through cyberspace
ready to be a drop in the bucket
a Marshall Fire survivor needs
This is in response to a prompt from Radha Marcum’s workshop Write Your Life in Poetry offered by the Boulder Public Library.
Red-naped Sapsuckers, Early July
you can’t help but hear them
the insatiable insistent peeping
hungry beaks open and shut
almost as fast as hummingbird wings
inside a perfectly round O
perforating smooth beige aspen bark
with binoculars you can peek inside
and after a few seconds of dark blank staring
a small striped head and desperate beak
pop up into view
like the start of a puppet show
now and then she collapses
then eventually works her way
eye-level with her window on the world again
her pleas the same tempo and volume
wherever she is
the dogged parents fly in and out
red crests and napes brilliant
against backlit aspen emerald green
on approach they issue a rough nasal call
swoop in, load the mouths
take a deep breath
look out toward their next dead tree to loot
then fly off with great up-and-down flap-glides
it gets easier
I want to tell them
you should talk to the hairy woodpeckers
just up the road
their handsome son just joined them
out in the trees
and he calmly plink-calls them
now and then while they hunt together
and enjoy each other’s company
while sometimes just listening
to the quiet ruffle of wind
through needles and feathers
but the ragged sapsuckers don’t have time
to even listen to our encouragement –
the little mouths never stop begging
and the hole is never filled
