Month: April 2010

What I Learned Today

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One: squirrels are suicidal
dashing in front of tires in a race
that didn’t exist before
they saw me coming

Two: canals are the best
places to ride a bike along
(flat and meandering,
tree filled and peaceful)

Three: once again, fresh
homemade ice cream from
Bonnie Brae upholds its
“beautiful hill” standard.

Four: my girls are fish, in
and out of the water no
holds barred, ready for summer,
ready for anything.

Five: two hundred joggers in
Wash Park may look like a race to them,
but it’s just another Saturday in
Denver, just what my girls should see.

Six: the liquor store is also
known as the “licorice store”
because they have wine for us and
lollipops for them: a treat for all.

Seven: playing outside with
the neighbor kids is just as magical
for this generation as it was for mine,
just as free, and just the way to end the day.

In This Moment

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in this moment

I can find the pace I need to get me there stronger
Mythili can “read” a whole page in her elaborate story
Riona can say “I wuv you” seven times
Isabella can brush her top teeth by herself

and someone on the other side of the world
or right across town
is giving birth to a perfectly healthy baby
while another lost soul is pointing a gun to his head

in this moment

I can hear Alanis Morisette motivating my pedals
my students can see twenty pictures on Google
of the cedar trees they’ve never heard of
the teachers can track me down for brownies

and someone right across town
or on the other side of the world
is pounding a woman’s skull into the drywall,
while another is handing a ten-year-old his first pair of shoes.

in this moment

I will live
I will love
I will remember what I have
what we all have
(somewhere within us)

Baby Number One

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standing next to my bike
(baby number one)
just before sunrise
I adjust the straps on the saddlebag
and ask myself why I
didn’t pack gloves

the door clicks open
swings shut
forcing my heart rate to
race as if I’ve already begun
the uphill ride

my breath spills out
in gray wisps of
below freezing air as
I take a step around the corner
to see what has materialized

there she stands
barefoot in
her polar bear purple pajamas
her fuzzy morning braids
dangling on either side of her
grinning face, her arms out

“I came to say good-bye.”
I reach for my should-be-asleep
daughter, wrapping my warmth
around her shivering skin,
my always-a-morning-person girl,
my baby number one.

Soles (Souls)

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I will remember when I complain
of my aching feet,
my seemingly disconnected joints,
those tiny porters
(miniature gods)
who didn’t have the money
to go to the fancy running store
and have their strides analyzed,
buying new sneakers
for $100 to relieve the
pounding of pavement on soles (souls)

I will remember when I complain
the three overstuffed backpacks
they each strapped to their narrow backs,
the recycled tires
that didn’t cover the exposed soles (souls)
on their small, Peruvian feet,
the cans of propane and three dozen eggs
they carried in each hand
as they raced up the mountain
in front of us tired tourists,
setting up twenty tents, hot tea, and cookies
before any of us could make
half a step up the million along the Inca trail.

I will remember when I complain
that this is easy,
that anyone could run a half marathon,
that the weight I carry will never match
the burden of poverty
that pushes them beyond human strength
to the top of the mountain,
to the ruins famous worldwide,
to the place where we should all be equal,
where history plus nature creates a masterpiece,
the place where our souls (soles) may rest.

Tea Party

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don’t say you missed me when
every other day of the year
you swim in a pool of your own apathy
(while I drown in it)
and my bitterness rises to the top
floating in a foggy black cloud
as you dive in, trying to break through
and circle the currents until
you reach a depth where
I sit, criss-cross applesauce,
setting up my tea party just like
my first grade swim lessons,
holding my breath while simultaneously
showing you the talents
that you will never discover
because you never took the time
to dive deep, deep, deep enough.

Invalids

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we are a pair of invalids,
her with a bright red eye under a bag of tea,
me with swollen ankle under a bag of ice,
sharing our stories of sickness,
her version vibrant and missing-school excited,
mine grumpy and old just like me,
both of us waiting till the timer beeps,
the medicine comes off,
and we are ready to heal.

For the Ring Master

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everyone posted pics of Easter today
(some writing religious messages),
children in brightly colored dresses
or sweater vests searching for eggs
(me, too, the girls holding up candy
treasures and invading each other’s baskets)
some were bright-eyed babies, others
older kids who knew the game too well,
diving for eggs under trees or behind bushes,
their rainbow of baskets an afterthought in their palms.

but my favorites had to be my cousin
with his glaringly orange, silk-flowered,
feather-to-the-sky top hat, tinted orange glasses,
and his springy head-to-toe pink explosion of
daffodils, scarves, and feminine-beauty partner,
and their “gay meth lab,” (dyeing eggs that I
see hanging from a tree in the background)
for all the beauty of love, diversity of celebration,
for the “Ring Master of the gayest Easter on Earth!”
for a new rainbow of love on this holiday.

My Own Middle Place

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Please tell me why
when I read books like The Middle Place
I think of you and want to scream,
to relive my childhood:
I want a do-over

I don’t want the rants and raves
the banging on doors
the sharks in your eyes
swimming at me with their
hatchets of hatred

I want a mother who could cuddle
with me on the couch,
read me stories while I curl up,
thumb in mouth,
and before the sun even sets
share a moment of joy with me

not one who’s so obsessed
with the food that has to
go on the table that she
trades her smiles for sour looks
before even closing the door at work

Please tell me why I can’t have
that imaginary childhood,
why I cannot gratify my memories
with some sort of happiness
that will last beyond
the closing of this book,

a place where I am comforted,
I am safe,
a place where I know my mother
loves me,
a place where she has shed her tiger’s skin
and wrapped her arms
around my aching soul.

Carte du Jour

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what’s the difference? simple, really.
with you, everything is vague and humorous.
with them, direct and consequential.
for me, I would rather take my chances
with a small taste of brutal honesty than
with a whole menu of unknowns.

it amazes me how they, having never
been that close to me, seem to understand
that better than you, who have
opened (and closed) the menus on the food
we share so many times that you’ve
forgotten that I have been here all along.

perhaps you will notice my absence
(perhaps not). either way, I will be taking
delectable nibbles from the dishes they share,
throwing in my hot spices, my sweet vanilla,
and together we will create a carte du jour
that you might admire, but will never taste.

Ode to Pod

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for years I’ve dreamed of this day
so why am I not smiling? my own
classroom, my own walls, my desk
in the corner with no one to bother me,
no one to pester me with the constant
openings and closings of doors,
students incessantly filing in and out,
no little pod desk accessible only
by interrupting someone else’s teaching.

but if I hadn’t been here I wouldn’t
have heard Hanna wondering about
lessons that I then reached out to share
(making our co-teaching the best
teaching I’ve done so far);
been close enough to Karen to see
the endless hours she puts into teaching those kids;
heard Bill complain about the toilet
overflowing and everyone in homeroom
giving him crap about it (punny, I know!);
I wouldn’t have caught clips of those
conversations Bill and Scott had with
their students (the ones in trouble,
the bullies, the ones with family issues)
and witness, firsthand, how to mix humor
with discipline in a way that is nothing
shy of teaching’s greatest masterpiece;
I wouldn’t have visited Tammy’s lab
to see the limitless ways that students
could be brought to think for themselves.

if it weren’t for my little windowless pod,
my small desk that Bill cleared his crap for
(with nothing overflowing), I wouldn’t
have the friends who make me feel
less departmentalized (in my solo
department), I wouldn’t have even
had a brownie list, I wouldn’t have seen
the best teachers in the school, but would
be in the dark, just like I thought I would be
when (during the overcrowded days)
they put me in this dark space
that, in fact, has brought nothing less
than a world of light into my life.