We Forget So Much

My grandparents tell me about the scientists, late at night
When the heat sighs under the door
About how the world believed that thinking and caring
Could be given over to others
But that world drowned and we play on the floor
Of the ocean that was
All of us, while the adults polish the last bright dish
Filling with hope from somewhere
Else.

The scientists knew about water, about oceans, fish
But none of that belongs to us
It was paid for to be hidden, to be resold to us
By the hope whispered
Into the dish we keep clean...as if there were gods
Say my grandparents

My parents say that we need to be careful, to walk
The sands with them, slowly
That the water will come when the disk is perfectly cleaned
Like a sun rolling down to us
It will shine a path directly through our eyes and wrists.
Height won't let them forget, nor will they abandon us
To the myth of scientists.

For me, poetry isn't a full conversation. It's the spark that will land upon what tinder exists in the reader. So what this isn't is a full and careful philosophical proposition that a certain thing is good or bad and what we should therefor do. Maybe it's something that worries me.

Sharing today with The Sunday Muse and Poets United.

-- Chrissa

Magic is Malleable

Mercer, Roadside 9/23/2019

Above, tiny, white-bellied planes sail silent
Across the evaporating crust of the moon
Into clouds that might be all that remains of her light
Steaming above us, day-blown

Here at the edge of the over-baked asphalt
In diamond paint splotched like an iceberg
Melted into plastic and crumbled into the weeds
She winks at me, and dreams

It was a good, cool morning and the small toad who was waiting by the table where I ended up this morning stayed nearby as the tree specialists cut down a few branches and then a few trunks not far away, inside the thin puddle of woodland that grows between the parking lot and the picnic area. There were an inchworm, minuscule ants, and a tiny jumping spider, all small as if we're starting over from scratch after the rains of last week.

No deer today, only bunnies and one squirrel and the sense that the rain was lurking in the puddles and waiting to breathe wyrms to coil among the pines once one's back was turned. It's the end of summer by the calendar and the rains are coming to wash away the dust and to bring the green to the backs of the trunks, like a rising crest. It's a delicate time of year, like a mushroom cap that's perfectly frilled and susceptible to the least drop of water from the branches above. Will the heat leave a hardy growth of story behind or will the fall knock it back to the ground? 

Too soon to tell, really. 

-- Chrissa 

The Apple Tree

There's still a house there, and before the house
There was that apple tree
And it's dusty and full and the fruit's growing old
But its still, probably, sweet

And that apple tree blooms and then sets it fruit
And we drive through, eyes on the street
And the families keep changing but not just there
But we think we still see their sheets

I don't know where that first garden grew
Not right down my street
But abandoned gardens and houses left behind
Are all I know of Eden

I'm older now and this is the yard
But where is the green?
All I've got left are the souvenirs, relics
Of the garden we've seen.

The apple tree brings the fruit to the scheme
And the snakes are brought by the weeds
I'll bring the guileless, wisdomless teeth
And rumors can flame through the screens

Hope y'all are having a good week! We had a surprise...hurricane? Tropical storm? last week, which really doesn't seem like it should be a thing but is, apparently. We were fortunate to just receive the rain and none of the flooding on my street while the it felt like the city was drowning once again. Which, I suppose, when we were able to get out and run around again, gave me fresh eyes, checking to see where water lingered and what made it through, checking the creek obsessively and worrying about our local library, and noticing an apple tree full of fruit in an abandoned (or possibly just temporarily deserted) yard. And then the image above. And there's a story there more than a poem...there's a power who's just pulled a relic from a flood and the land is drying all around but the music isn't playing and the birds aren't flying and there's just the sun and the smell of wet sinking down around the foundations and the way you think you remember something but it just doesn't break through the present haze. Or maybe that's just me.

-- Chrissa

Unawake

Courtesy of The Sunday Muse prompt

The best parts are the dark, gentle rewrites
Faces spun up to reassure you that old friends remember,
& old lovers are just a summer's coursework away...
Too obvious a mix of living and studying, but messier
Your brother's old carpet and legion of toys
Cityscaping a dim-lit dorm room beneath
Cerenkov string lights, blue underlid fluorescents
Setting your books among them, in the darkness, unread
Before you head back to the unlit auditorium
To be told by shadows the lecture was bad
But this row of unexpected friends will keep you
And your old boss apologizes in the form of a TA
Forgiving you for not doing the reading
Promise seeps back, like water in dry grass
Rising dark, cool on your toes and unreflecting

Sharing today with The Sunday Muse and Poets United for the Sunday verse round--poetry is an excellent way to start the week. I started this week with a round of writing in the arboretum, as the mornings are cooling nicely and I'm not crisping around the edges by 9 am. There were deer this morning on the drive in but none, thankfully, near the benches. Deer are the spirit animals of anxiety & I tend to imagine them creeping through the underbrush (because squirrels and birds sound fifty times their size when you can't see them). And because maybe I've watched too many bad 70's movies in which nature is definitely out to get you. And because of that one time I didn't see a tiny herd before it ran in front of me on the opposite side of the park. Anyway. Totes not obsessed with both seeing and avoiding deer. That would just be weird. :) 

Hope you have a good week!
-- Chrissa

New Minutes

Three dark-haired boys--wavy, curly, skull-cap straight
Walk out into the bare crosswalk;
Five in the afternoon, a slant of shadeless light;
These thick, flat streets are too new for trees.
That building's stone cladding is dappled by car shadow
And the second story--where the plastic tooth dressed as Santa
Grins down upon this river I'm driving through
Casts its form, tidily, to the back.

Sharing with The Sunday Muse for the Wednesday prompt "boketto." While the definition provided (gazing at the distant landscape with an empty mind) seems to refer to contemplation in nature, I find that this sense of openness also occurs when I'm in the car, particularly when it's a longer drive or we're heading somewhere along a new pathway. The piece above was prompted by my choosing an inefficient route on the way to pick up my husband, shortly after realizing I would be late. Traffic and road repairs/widening have picked up around us, lately, and earlier that day I'd found myself startled to be diverted onto a new road that swept up, bypassing the familiar street-level route.

Even if it is the car-infested landscape of an exurb growing with all the charm of a buckling lava flow...this is still my landscape. 

-- Chrissa

But You Misread My Meaning

Will I listen? Will you?
There are doors
Growing in my rootways
Tunnels
Like crypts and throne rooms
Lit by liquid albumin
Where heat crushed stone
Into crystal
Wicked from foundations
Sweating,
Birthing the world
I have brought dragons
Into the arms of their mothers
I am not fear or meat.
Will you listen?

Linking with The Sunday Muse and Poets United. This week is a bit of a mix in terms of the story; I've lately found myself at odds with several books I've tried to read and that's souring the writing a bit. So making nice with a grumpy lion? Relatable. :)

-- Chrissa

Just Another Nail

 Had the phone vibrated? Hannah squinted; twisted away from the window to focus. She tilted it and then gave in and brushed the screen. It was just past nine in the morning  but the glass was still dimmer than the oyster bone white of the table. No new messages.

She shifted the phone closer. The dark window glass interceded, but didn't block the sunlight. Sweating iced coffee slimed her wrist. She dragged her arm against her skirt, pulling it closer to her knees in the same move. She had over an hour to get to the interview. 

Deep breath, open another useless article full of petty revenges and annoyances.

A woman at a table near the wall started explaining how the assisted living facility hadn’t been able to schedule a tour and now she was going to have buy another plane ticket, fly out, and move her great aunt. Hannah could feel the tightness in the seams of her hose and skirt. The plane trip was going to cost the woman a place at her daycare.

 Hannah picked up her phone and went outside, leaving her bag and coffee. She could call and reschedule. The coffee was wringing her stomach. This side of the smoked windows, the coffee shop looked like a boutique, the interior silver-masked. It drank the sun.

White gravel caught Hannah’s eye. She bent to scoop it up for a worry stone and gagged when she realized it was a fake nail, still caked with glitter. Hannah turned to find the trash and the nail sank into her palm. She shrieked--too thick for a nail.

Something huge shimmered around her in the window. Her hand was only half visible, already caught in the maw of the daylight. It tugged her, she felt the jerk all the way up to her shoulder as her body slammed against the dark glass.

Linking to this week's Telling Tales with Magaly Guerrero:  Gothic Fiction. Thanks for forcing my brain into fall, Magaly. :) Well, forcing my brain to work according to theme, length, and schedule. Hope everyone is having a good week and a happy holiday, should you be celebrating Labor Day. 

-- Chrissa

Captain, Why?

Photography by Svetlana Belyaeva click HERE for website.

I've made myself

walk the plank,

Leap--

Let the ocean rise to meet me

Let the land rush beneath to the sands

I believe the plastic will catch me

We have built a new continent

A safety-coated landmass

Of bath toys...we've always

Been afraid of the water

Even when it was us.

I've made myself 

walk the plank,

Leap!

Sharing this week with The Sunday Muse & inspired by Ms. Belyaeva's lovely image, above...there's more joy in the image than the poem, I think. It's been a long time since I did something for the reckless joy of the fall. :)

-- Chrissa