Tag: sisters

poetry

mapping the damage

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mapping the damage

We don’t know the world
the way the crow flies
or embers blow.

So when my friend says her sister
across from Warembourg
is displaced, I don’t understand why.

But where did the ash come from there?
I ask, puzzled.
From our street! she says (with the obviously! implied).

I think about it,
consult the map,
and of course she’s right –

it’s straight east of Mulberry
in a way the winding suburban streets
and bike paths make you forget.

There are burned chunks
of other people’s houses in her attic
she says,

and I finally grasp
how one sister’s home could have
lit the other’s up.

But, thankfully,
my friend’s house held
and they were both spared that fate.

Now they try on simpler smaller lives
in different parts
of this parched brown valley.

We’re all relearning this landscape
with a new level of intimacy,
a gift we wouldn’t have asked for
that changes us anyway.

poetry

Learning about the Marshall Fire

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My sister took this photo from her home on LaFarge Avenue shortly before evacuating.

This is in response to a prompt by Peter Rousmaniere, who is coordinating a project about the Marshall Fire involving local writers and photographers. He suggests, “Write down how you learned on December 30, what you did, and what were your very initial thoughts. Try to recall the details, for with details we often store in memory our emotions.” If you’d like to participate, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/cdD4q1bMyhTkgzgo8. I have posted this photo before, but it is exactly how I learned about the fire.

Learning about the Marshall Fire

the news reached me vacationing in Fairplay
as a text from my sister who lives three blocks from us
a photo of the grey view from her Old Town upstairs
complaining about the smoke saying two fires were burning

too thick to be distant
but too deep into winter to seem threatening
and there not being much else to do in our cabin
I checked the Daily Camera website to see what I could learn

a grass fire in Marshall, fairly unremarkable
until I saw the single line that meant things weren’t okay:
Superior also released a statement
calling for all residents to be evacuated.

(our border is somewhat arbitrary
I’d thought Highway 36 until earlier this fall
when my booster shot appointment at the “Louisville” Walgreens
on McCaslin proved to have a Superior address)

I sent my sister a screenshot
and she texted back What?!?!
I went on Facebook and then Twitter
and found homes had begun to burn

when I saw the post of burning shrubs
at Via Appia and McCaslin
flames already uncomfortably close to Old Town
I called her and said I think you need to leave

How am I supposed to do that? she asked
meaning escape with toddler and four-year old and skittish dog
meaning grab some essentials and safely hustle into the car
meaning manage all the meltdowns and figure out where to go

There are flames at Via Appia and McCaslin
I repeated urgently
you need to get in the car and go.
Come to us in Fairplay, but get out now.

She called from the stalled traffic
and I tried not to think of flames advancing
warned her don’t go west
and 93 is closed

I didn’t take a deep breath until she was safely in Boulder
and then turned my attention to our three Louisville homes:
hers, my mom’s, and ours.
it wasn’t until the next day we learned that all three still stood

poetry

Mother’s Day Poems 2020

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sacrifices

the very hardest part
of this hard scary spring
is not hugging
my own mom

Amma in a time of Covid

from the smallest world
of anyone I know
she sends 50-year-old postcards
from all over the globe
elegant puzzles with intricate pieces
novels about whatever’s going on
(foxes, Incas, Aborigines)
she sends a tube of sock supplies
and the needles to make them
questions and answers
and a basket going over a balcony
to keep everyone safe
most of all
she sends her love

Molly

she keeps the vacuum calendar
and the trusty stopwatch
she buys masks
for the mailman
she funds the nanny
and the housekeeper
while they stay home
she reins in Gram
and a bouncy son
when you stop by
she can’t stop giving

Kira

in her outpost
far from the other mothers of her line
she waits for sun and sand and snowmelt
braiding a story
that will become a song

May

in my binder
of delicious delights
I spy her handwriting
over and over
she’s making life sweeter
one opened oven door
at a closed-up time

poetry

the specific sadness of my father’s legs laid bare

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the specific sadness of my father’s legs laid bare

my father’s legs
bent together knees left
wasted bony
too long to lie straight
in the hospital bed
shins covered with claret bruises
his feet in blue protective booties
heels hidden by white dressings
his skin too thin
to take all the lying around

after visiting hours
my sister and I
apply pressure to
our own open wounds
with a bottle of red

poetry

language loom

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language loom

alone together so long
we’ve nearly forgotten
how others sound
how to weave an exchange
with another willing soul
until the tones hold more than
simple senseless waves

slowly we remember
to listen and ask until
there’s a tough cupped palm heart
sturdy enough to hold tears
threaded together
one under-over-under dip
of our verbal dance at a time