Buds of babies-breath
Dawn-scented weanlings
Cuddlier than teddy bears
Snuggles in cradles –
Ever so softly unfold
Like the youngest of winds
As pink as babies-breath
A four-toothed mouth
Beams with budding poems
Dripping with honey –
All syllabic – with mostly
Ba and Da and Pa
– Yala Korwin
I smiled all day:
this is the kind of news
that can set the tilting world
up straight.
A new person arrived,
eyes squeezed against the glare,
fists holding tight
the dreams of his prenatal sleep.
He is all possibility, watching
his narrow world with wide dark eyes,
searching for meaning
in sound and speech.
He has no opinions,
has yet to learn the stories, to taste
bread and onions, to flex muscles
in a great leap, or share ideas.
He knows nothing of how land folds
as it swells into mountains,
of garden fragrance coaxed onto night air
by the silver invitation of the moon.
I smiled all day,
rocking with the tilting world.
– Marion Frahm Tincknell
In the depth of this strange January
of bitter cold and spring-like melt
my granddaughter is waiting for the birth
of her daughter, strange that to me
to know the sex
have seen the shape of life within.
Would I have wanted this?
I keep presents wrapped
not wanting to spoil the suspense
reduce the element of surprise.
Not strange to her, what is
is trying to imagine how it was
I tell her you cannot walk
in the shoes of yesterday
try as you might
you can’t erase the present.
Nothing stays the same
now everything accelerates
moves quicker than scudding clouds
swifter than a coloured sunset.
Yesterday’s miracles are today’s norm
tomorrow’s obsolescence
but your new daughter will know
in those few seconds after the cord is cut
as she makes her first cry of outrage and surprise
that in the end the essential remains.
The rest is gift-wrap.
– Marion Beck
1. Elegy for a Fraternal Twin 1929
Our mother knew three days before our birth – couldn’t
catch her breath as though the cord had curled around her
throat instead while I lay kicking in my sac that curved so
perfectly to yours we wore each other’s shape and smell.
I tried to wake you with a nudge, the way a cat will rouse
the slow one in her litter ask your name – strained to see
the contours of your face – the mirror image of my own or
someone strange? The colour of your hair? Did you have
my eyes?
2. Finding Your Grave
A few square inches of grass lot 252, section H crowned
today with a solitary dandelion richly gold and sturdy
bursting out of grave #1 as you could not burst from the
womb but were booted out lifeless by my push towards
breath here you are at last eighty years later no marker
remains only a number on a cemetery map not even
your given name just “baby………” though Mother called you
Thomas what a chase you’ve led me Brother no records
but my sibling’s recollections crossing that big bridge bare
trees sodden leaves squishing underfoot father standing
alone holding a small white coffin quiet grown-ups
waiting patiently in the cold then tea served with raisin
cake sisters tiptoeing in with some for Mother
spent and silent in her bed
– M E St George
Now, the photo every day haunts me.
A constant reminder,
that I could not help her.
Forgive me Catherine.
I was not yet born.
The photo is old, blurry . . . faded by 80 years.
Innocent she lay snug in her carriage,
on the unknown sidewalk.
She is alone in the black and white photo . . . the street around her . . .
Deserted!
Desolate!
No one to comfort her.
Who took the photo?
I do not know.
It is all that survives of her.
My Sister.
From the carriage her tiny sad eyes search in vain
with infinite love for her unborn brother
. . . me
Thirteen months of age,
a baby when she died
alone,
discarded and forgotten
and left me . . . her unborn brother forlorn with the evil spirits.
Destiny dictated we should never meet.
Sister and Brother
I was not asked,
but soon, as I am old now.
No siblings followed my guardian angel,
just me
born to a woman we called mother.
A stranger we never knew.
Catherine, why did you leave me all alone?
I see you always.
You are in my wedding photos, a woman of middle age
with serene visage
looking with pride
at me your unborn brother.
My Sister
You are playing with my children and grandchildren.
Sister I never saw
Mother I never had
Sister, Mother, Aunt
All my photos, you are in every one,
watching over my family and me.
Catherine, why did you leave me all alone?
– John Corvese
Whoever Cock Robin was, Walpole or
some Norse demigod slain by mistletoe,
it’s the children who mourned him for generations:
the stiff body lying, breast up,
arrow straight and deep,
inkblot of blood neat and final,
sad hieroglyphs of feet pointing heavenwards.
They couldn’t imagine the mild-mannered sparrow
committing murder, although they could see
his talent for blending into a crowd
could be taken for cunning.
They were sure he confessed under duress.
Their prime suspect, the owl,
trowel poised, scowled from the lithograph,
gave them bad dreams.
He had motive and opportunity:
cursed the luck of those frequent flyers
wintering in the tropics;
slipped through darkness
while the others slept.
Not being able to close the file,
the children risked a lifetime
of guilt and inadequacy
that, pre-dating Freud, had no deliverance.
Poor Cock Robin.
Now even the children snub him, expand
their avian vocabulary with Big Bird,
never learn the teamwork
of putting a funeral together
so that everything scans and rhymes
and the dirge is catchy
leave a-sighin’ and a-sobbin’
to night-air stirrings
around those tiny, white crosses
in the garden, beyond the nursery walls.
– Sylvia Adams
here on this earth
there’s nothing
more fair to share
than a bare breast
full of milk
with a hungry helpless
infant sucker
a baby critter
that didn’t beg
to be begotten
on a hopeless
starving stage
– Jerry Andringa
Hand in hand we often went
Down the lane together to school,
To learn the rules of arithmetic –
Reading – the firmament.
Our lives were eagerly one – as we
Visited the playground – climbed the tree –
Slid down the slide – teetered on the totter –
We mounted the make-believe fort –
Skipped – hopped, and ran to be with others.
We read books – She – Little Women –
I, Tom Swift and The Rover Boys.
We became one – two little hearts
Growing – experiencing life together –
We two.
But many years have come and gone,
We have each led a separate way –
Seeking other worlds and realms.
She – becoming a nurse – found a new love –
I – a school teacher – found a new love.
Each of us became parents
And now, in the evening of our lives
I wonder if we have ever caught
The same feeling of belonging
One to another – as we had
When we were kids, walking down that lane –
Hand in hand – hearts beating as one –
Ecstatic and glowing – in that first love!
– David C Berry
In Rebecca’s school it was understood
Crowns were given to those who were good
I heard Rebecca lost her crown
From starry heights she went one down
Could she have done something really bad
That she will not tell her Mom or Dad
Did she make a terrible noise
Is she flirting with the boys
Did she refuse to clean up her mess
Make a remark she could not suppress
Did she talk aloud in class
Did she make faces in a glass
Did she refuse to eat her lunch
Did she deliver a well-aimed punch
Was it anarchy in the playground
Or was it notes from underground
Was it despite what grownups say
Impossible to remain a queen every day
Did she on Friday just embark
On a spell of naughtiness as a lark
Anyway accept this my rhyme
You’ll regain a crown in your own good time
– Ann Rempel
She stood outside the school beside her small charcoal burner
singing her aria, “Knishes, buy my knishes.”
The children delighted in seeing her there.
Eagerly they handed over their few coins for a taste of paradise.
Sometimes, there would be hot chickpeas or chestnuts,
but mostly there were knishes.
The winters were hard on the prima donna of knishes.
Her voice often cracked as she vocalized her wares.
“Knishes, buy my knishes.”
In the snow she was almost unseen,
a tiny bit of humanity desperately earning a few cents for survival.
“Buy my knishes, buy my knishes,”
she sang in a sotto voce voice lost amid
the many sweaters and scarves she wore,
the babushka almost covering her entire face.
The children could hardly wait
for the end of the school day
eagerly clutching their coins
as they swamped her with their orders.
“Missus, here missus. I got a nickel.
Please Missus, a knish, missus, a knish.”
One wintry day, she did not appear.
The children were disappointed and surprised.
“Perhaps she’ll come tomorrow,” they chorused
But the knish diva’s tomorrow never came.
She had disappeared like the snows of April,
a tiny fragment of humanity, unknown,
unsung, but not unmourned.
“The knish lady is no more,” wailed the children.
How happy she would have been
to know that her life had touched the lives of others.
– Lillian Kormendi
I was a depression child.
Depression, now a tropical storm,
then it was hunger.
We grew our own food or we didn’t eat.
Hand-me-downs were like new clothes.
Discipline was easy,
if you didn’t work you didn’t eat.
Sounds like communism,
who cared about politics on an empty stomach?
The kids teased me about my black sateen welfare shirt,
but Ms. Doty, my teacher, stopped this hurt,
“I like your beautiful shirt,” she said,
as her icy stare froze on their faces,
the room fell quiet.
– Dallas D Lassen
I used to fight at recess,
trading whopping thumps
and wild taunts
with almost anyone
who dared to snag my anger.
Except on days when
placed upon a slippy wooden chair
I’d listen to the principal plead
that surely I did not prefer
to spend recess in the office.
At those times I’d sit encased
in forged defiance,
scowling at my bitten nails,
Too cagey by far to tell her
that yes in fact
I did.
– Joan Newton
Do you remember Grade 9?
starched crinolines
all girls’ class G9G
conjugating the verbs to be
in French or Latin.
The bell rang
and we walked the halls
in one straight line
furtively eyeing
an all boys’ class
passing by the other side.
Those were the days of 3 ring binders
bulging with homework
that we dutifully completed
as we waited for a life
beyond G9G
– Marlene Monster
Martha Ellen Wham
Illinois – Wyoming
1861-1942
Your head rests on the dining room table
moved to the parlor for viewing by
cousins to-the-third twice-removed.
I don’t remember you in life, only the
silhouette I stood on my toes to see,
white as the chalk bluffs close by your
farmhouse, where wind carved deep furrows,
deep from water hauled three miles in barrels,
deep from wheat crops and children lost.
A face, harsh as the Pequod’s prow,
battered by storms, hardened by the
search for haven you never found,
calm waters to cradle you as gently as
the feather bed in the attic that kept
me warm three nights in December, 1942.
– Jay Payne
Squeak of cutter’s
steel runners
over hard-packed
moonlit snow
harness bells ajingle
I remember too
the round brown motion
of the chestnut mare
the barnyard scent of her
the warm plaid blanket
covering us three
my Great Aunt Clara
my young mom and me
a call of giddyup
into the frosted air
my ancient aunt
guiding black leather reins
to take us all the way
a dozen miles or so
from Mindemoya village
on to Providence Bay
– Norma West Linder
Mrs. Peppinger was the first American lady,
other than my first grade teacher,
whom I became acquainted with.
Mrs. Peppinger was the mother of Hermina
in my class – Hermina, who was the way
I wished I was.
Secretly I also wished my mother was
the way Hermina’s mother was: powdered
and even rouged and lipsticked,
and smelling sweet, like dollar bills.
Once, in Mr. Deetchock’s butcher store,
where my mother sent me for a soup bone
with still a little meat attached,
Mrs. Peppinger was by the counter.
I stood close to her, hoping somebody
would think me hers.
Mama, I am old now
and you are long in heaven.
Tomorrow is your 113th birthday
and I write you this apology.
I am so, so sorry, Mama.
I truly am.
– Ina Jones
Fried mush for breakfast,
All buttery crunch outside,
Soft and grainy within.
Turning me soft within, too,
With warm taste of memory.
Twelve around the table;
(That was lots of frying!)
Mush was possible, even during hard times
When Papa raised the corn
And all helped shell it around Mama’s washtub
Near the wood stove on long winter evenings.
In the wagon next day we little ones rode
With Papa to the mill
Anticipating mush and milk for supper
And fried mush for breakfast.
Ah yes, fried mush for breakfast!
Stirs memories of a preacher-farmer papa,
A patient, quiet mama,
Five boy children, five girl children.
Twelve around the table.
Lots of perseverance,
Lots of love,
Lots of hope,
In fried mush for breakfast!
– Viola Pearl Diener Stahl
I am ten years old and sitting on my grandfather’s
porch and my mother sits with her sisters and they
are talking about someone named Garnet and
My uncle nods slowly says When thieves fall out
to my grandfather who nods and says When
thieves fall out –
They pass this sentence back and forth a few times
nodding –
Who are they talking about? I whisper to my
mother
who says Shhh. I’ll tell you later –
Dragonflies flit and hover in the tall grass
next to the river which holds its own conversation
with itself –
My mother never told me who Garnet was or
if he were a thief –
All I was given was the stillness of cornfield
summer and the quiet voices on the porch –
– Eugene McNamara
I am in the Humble Administrator’s Garden
in China. One most of you will know from
its image rendered into perfect stillness
on china cups and saucers.
As a child I gazed deeply into that
painted landscape. I would enter
the path that twisted among unfamiliar
shrubs, purposefully placed rocks
as I strolled under dripping Willows
enchanted by miniature waterfalls.
I always met a Chinese Princess
taking tiny tortured steps across a bridge
on her tightly bound Lotus feet.
She never smiled, stoic in her pain.
Over her shoulder a parasol kept
sun’s burning fingers from her perfect
ivory skin.
Now suffering from jet lag, I listen to
the tour guide recite the garden’s long
history; the beauty of its trees and rocks
obscured by swirls of sweating tourists.
I close my eyes and see the cool blue
garden of my childhood – at this particular
moment, the one I prefer.
– Lois H Davis
His thoughts may be halting to our ear,
but we might forget to listen to his heart.
Dear god, my folks tell me
I am made in your image, is that true?
Do you have a limp,
and a tick in your right cheek
that embarrasses you,
or a bully you’re trying to avoid?
Do you have trouble
with numbers and triangles?
Are you curious about drugs
until you see someone wasted?
Is skin color a problem for you?
Are you a bit short for your age?
Do you find sports a bit too hard?
Do you have bad guys down the block?
Is there one you’re so in love with,
that you could lie down and die for,
that doesn’t even know you exist?
Are you in our neighborhood ever?
I bet I could recognize you
walking down Windermere Street,
you’d be the one that is limping,
hoping for something better than this,
just like me.
– Royal L Craig
When I was five,
mother thought
severe features of
an American Indian
belied her ethnic bambino’s
true identity, and
straight hair deserved a curl,
processed and cooked
until the coif was frizzed and teased.
No wonder the crone now refuses
any hint of cut or tint.
– Maria Keane
Sleep on sweet silent keeper of my heart
While gossamer smiles slip in and out
Around the corners of your pristine mouth.
Soon you will wake
To watch the storm clouds
Bumping in the sky
Or race between the dancing
Branches of the trees
Whispering child secrets
To the wind
And watching, I will smile
Knowing that God, thru you,
Has touched me
With His love.
– Louise O’Brien
To feel thirteen again
fill your pockets with wild rose petals
leave them there to dry
To feel thirteen again
go to the beach
flop down on a cold wet towel
on burning sand
open your ears to the waves
to the cries of children and seagulls
eat a bologna sandwich
on white bread smeared with mustard
To feel thirteen again
colour your restaurant place mat
make the trees purple, the sky green
Throw a snowball
at a passing stranger
Learn to play the guitar
Wish on the first star
Avoid mirrors
– Norma West Linder
This is our last day of camp. It’s August.
The weasel that we found in winter-white
in June trapped inside the ice-house by now
is sleek and fat and brown. On the last night,
we lie awake and listen to the loons.
All day they have been courting. Bill clicking,
head rubbing, splash diving. Now they rest,
white breast touching white breast, their shrill
cry stilled. Their garnet eyes closed. At daybreak,
we wade to where the waterlilies grow,
gliding our hands to their murky bottom so
that we can put them in a bowl, where, when
we’re gone, their petals will turn brown and die
and the slimy scum on their slippery stems
will break up, decay and decompose. Why
do we have to go? Must we leave this place?
In the empty ice-house, we find a few
pieces of ice in the sawdust to chill
our lemonade. Dragonflies with see-through
wings dart by us, glued to one another
by the tug of male for female. We sit
on the dock, then strip, and swim to the raft.
Cool water on flesh disturbs the slate-grey
lake sending ripple after ripple to
shore and it is the end of our last day.
– Margaret Kay
