My daughter comes to visit
I know it’s not for fun
She feels an obligation and
Is always on the run
She also has two grandkids
And babysits a lot
No doubt she dearly loves them
But is really in a spot
She is a sandwich filling
And is caught on either side
By kids and old folk
Without a place to hide
Am I too late to teach her
The magic word of “NO”
Can I be the nosy preacher
With only love to show?
I do hope so.
– Diana Jamieson
They’re gone. All of them. A whole generation.
They who upheld the family name.
My grandparents. My parents.
The aunts with their crafts,
The uncles with their war stories.
The last has gone and only I remember them.
They’re gone. A new awareness overtakes me.
I am free of family traditions.
No one is left to criticize me:
No elders I can embarrass
No family name to ruin.
No one to say, “What will the neighbors think?”
They’re gone. I study their faces in my albums.
No one is left to set my boundaries.
I can act with abandon if I wish:
Insult rude people I dislike,
Take a lover of my choice.
What does it matter – the family reputation?
They’re gone. The generations pass on.
I am challenged by my new choices:
By the passing of time,
By gaining control.
No need now to embrace the old culture.
They’re gone. But am I really free?
There are new voices to whom I must answer.
I am both parent and grandparent now:
Admonishing the young,
Criticizing their new ways.
I remain, Carrying on the family traditions.
– Joan S Stark
Jason and Jamie, and two-year-old, Pat,
Sitting cross-legged on the worn orange mat,
Staring, intense at a flickering screen,
Slaves to their era’s infernal machine.
Beginning so innocent, there on the floor,
Invisible guests of the “Polka Dot Door”.
Round eyed and wond’ring, while each little seat
Gradually numbs throughout “Sesame Street” .
The fleeting years pass; they are toddlers no more,
But still, scorning chairs, for a place on the floor.
Each face cupped in hands, on their bellies they lie,
And continue to gaze, while the years pass them by.
They could name every car that zooms past their fixed gaze,
They could name the top ten of the DVD craze.
Yet, ask them to name any poet of rank,
And their brows are drawn down, and their faces a blank.
Oh, Jason and Jamie, and dear pre-teen, Pat,
Still jostling for space on the old orange mat
I haven’t the heart to forbid you to look –
But I wish that your pleasures were found in a book.
No doubt you would reckon my own youth deprived,
For I was full grown before TV arrived,
Yet my childhood was rich with the stories and plays
That I read to myself in those good olden days!
– Yvonne Garry
My daughter said “come visit me.” I hate to fly.
There are no roads from our house to hers.
I get seasick on a ship.
I decided to walk on water.
I packed my gear, in waterproof sac,
Including GPS and cellular phone,
to let her know my ETA.
The cab driver stared at my flippered feet
when he dropped me off at the beach.
I waded into water and waved goodbye to land.
I caught a swell which like a salver borne from Neptune
carried me along the sea
then gently served me upright on the golden shore.
“I’m here!” I called my daughter, announcing
I was ready to walk on land again.
– Eloise Van Niel
I look deeply
into the gorilla’s eyes
and she looks back at me
for a long minute.
She holds her baby
as I held mine.
A rush of recognition,
Sisterhood.
A young mother in the mall,
rushing, frowning,
dragging her toddler.
I look into her eyes,
I feel her pain.
I send her understanding
and love.
An old woman
in a wheelchair
reaches out to me.
I take her hand and see
myself along the road.
I see in her the girl she was,
remembering my younger self.
Recognition. Sisterhood.
– Naomi C Wingfield
Let me tell you about my granddaughter Jessica.
I, Nana, took care of her while her mother gave birth to her baby brother.
In the morning I woke her up and said, “We must get up and dress for the new day.”
She answered, “I can do it myself.”
Up she went to her room and down she came with a pile of clothes.
She said, “Do they match?”
Ever since then, I, Nana, have to have all my clothes match too!
– Harriet Fields
Hazel’s mother grew up
during the Depression
lived by “waste not, want not”
made hash from leftover beef
boiled soap scraps and formed new bars
turned shirt collars and cuffs
sewed quilts from old suit jackets
mended overalls
until the patches sported patches.
After her mother moved to a nursing home
Hazel cleared out her house.
In a kitchen cupboard she found a jar labeled
string too short for anything.
– S MacFarlane
