beliefs

Estamos Bien

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

mañana tenemos el
Acción de Día de Gracias tercera

he stands in an airport
with laughter at the back of his voice,
the emotion so close to tears
that they sit waiting
on the edges of my lids

estamos bien.
tenemos una avión mañana por la mañana

because we are all well
with them in our midst–
so un-American to be grateful
for a night longer,
a missed flight,
a smile that we’ve all tucked away
inside ourselves
(that he fishes out
as easily as catching
tadpoles on a hot June day)

Thanksgiving dos,
we sit and share thanks:
one of the four girls
mentions her extra parents
(the highlight of the evening)

i bring forth my Spaniards
(absent)
but with an ever-present influence
on every thought i have,
on every emotion that has crossed my heart
in the four short months
that i have made them mine

Isabella gives me the look
as if i could forget
the reason we are all gathered,
for without these four girls,
none of this happiness
could float in the room
carrying the
feliz día de los padres
mylar balloon
up to the ceiling,
zhuzhu pet attached,
miracle in place
(can you see it?)

and the Spaniards?
they would live somewhere else,
and our surrealistic vision
of tomorrow
would be so.
real.
so.
unimaginative.

instead?
i hear him laugh
about fumando el toro,
the night in the airport
and our third,
and final,
Thanksgiving meal.

The Sun of this Sunday

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

they take bottles of clear liquid
wipe the sinks, mirrors, toilets
while we toil with decluttering
and four levels of vacuuming
all before eleven when we
snap ourselves into the tiny car
and drive along sun-streamed streets,
the leaves dancing before us,
letting loose green and gold shade.
we stop and walk to the apple stand
and buy small imperfects
that their hands grasp, juice dripping
before we’ve even ordered souvlaki gyros
to sit on the bench in the shade
and eat with Greek lemon-chicken soup
(i’ll never remember the name).
they skip back to the car
a menagerie of dresses and pants,
and trick-or-treat street awaits
as they measure their steps on the map
sucking in the sun of this Sunday.
we move on to the store that started it all,
the giant scoops of homemade dreams
melting along the sides of the cones
and as we buy our drinks for another day
we move to the library, their singsong voices
unable to contain their excitement over books.
we stop for gas, pack tomorrow’s clothes, lunch,
and evening seeps in to the autumn afternoon
they sit down to veggie sliders
and question our music
and ride their bikes into the night
and remind me
again
again
again
how simply perfect life can be.

Specters

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

we are specters zipping along
this curvacious path,
our beams reaching for morning,
longing for night.

before i can blink
our tires zip by.
you are gone from
my limited view.

i will remember the
moon-touched path,
its snakelike guidance along
the grassland’s edge.

but i will never remember
your face unseen,
my morning specter,
my divergent shadow

September (2011) Daughters

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

Mythili

you are still my little girl
though you try to pop out
adult (somewhat crooked) teeth
and blend Spanish and English
easily into your imaginary life

among friends you are a leader
(no tag-along little sister role)
and you wait
so anxiously wait
until you are big enough to ride
Isabella’s bike,
to read Isabella’s stories,
to find the right way to
wake up on early school mornings

in our troop,
you are Magical Mythili,
the perfect name
for the creative artist
born from the
destined-to-be-crone
little baby whose head
turned to see me walk
into the room
forty-eight hours
after birth.

Isabella

all of a sudden
you have decided
that you’re a reader

it is a simple statement,
one you would wash off your back
like the layers of shampoo
you push aside

but to me
watching you read
Laura Ingalls Wilder
just like i used to

it means more than
the thousands of words
filling your brain,
making you mine

Riona

every day a new song
a new dance
a new Spanish phrase
a new smile
from my newly school-aged girl

i was worried.
you know that
or you don’t.
you’re small.
tire easily.
timid.
dependent.

oh so calm and pleasant
the perfect student
who hugs goodbye
a friend
whose name you won’t mention
who shies away from
the video of your
performance at the assembly
who is everything
and more
than i could ever
ask you to be.

System

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

Dear System:

You are broken.
Some say beyond repair.
You let them fall into
cracks so wide they
can be seen from airplanes.
You ignore the best and brightest
to honor those who
slip easily into nonchalance.

You offer little.
You take more than we can give.
You let the parents
command the details of our profession
as if they’re our salvation.
You forget the long hours,
heavy with lack of sleep,
sick with worry like mothers
of all our lost children.

Yet we trust you.
We need your broken-down support.
Without you we wouldn’t be here
to hold their hands,
to guide them through addition,
subtraction, how to think, see, be.
So we must be grateful.
We must offer our gratitude
to the cracks, the nonchalance,
the helicopter parents.

What we cannot do.
What I cannot do
is allow you to beat down
the ones who love them best
the ones who trust you most
the ones who are our best and brightest
the ones I hope someday
you will repair yourself enough to see.

Película

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

i send my camera
zoomed in and out
around our table of twelve
their words slip
like bubbles from their tongues
escaping into the heat
popping before i can catch them

drinks go to lips
songs emerge as naturally
as water flowing from the mountains
they have no idea
they are being filmed

sleep pushes at my eyelids
as the Taiwanese pasta
settles in my belly
but i could stay here forever
listening to the language
i crave to understand
immersing myself in the people
whose home i’ll never know

it is like a dream really
and i pinch myself awake
so full of life
they are so full of life
that no language
could define
just what my video
will never capture

To-Do List

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

email daughter’s teacher
who doesn’t know how to read
pick up nuts
because i’m going crazy
learn Castilian Spanish
so i can speak to roommates
intervene in group work
for groups who won’t work
teach daughter to read
because schools don’t work
sit in meetings that don’t apply to me
so i can’t do my work
ride my bike to work
so i can see the moonset/sunrise
try to remember
that i cannot
make a list
that will quite
change the way the world works

Journal: September 11, 2001

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

Dear Brittany, Tuesday, September 11, 2001 8:30 p.m.

I just keep hearing it. A line from a movie? A speech from a long-dead political leader? Or a description, so precise, so harsh, so true of this very day in the history of the world.

“A day that will live in infamy.”

I don’t even know where to begin. Should I repeat, in this journal, the story that I’ve heard from 20 journalists, seen video and photos of over 100 times, repeated in over 100 ways? Or, when I look back at this entry years from now, perhaps as a mother, a grandmother, a dying old woman, will the date alone strike a chord and bring back the terror of this day?

Will I be able to look back, many years from now, or will this journal be ashes in the rubble remaining from days of nuclear warfare?

I face the same questions as everyone else; the questions I ask my students to answer every time they read a story or write a paper: Who? What? Where? When?

WHY?

HOW?

Are these the keys to good writing, or unanswerable interrogations about our country, our world, our humanity?

No, I cannot answer today; maybe not ever. I stare blankly at the muted screen, its words that so quickly skid across the bottom, blurry to my tired eyes. I can’t listen anymore. I look at the seriousness of the journalists’ faces, the grave, reserved anxiety, unable to keep my thoughts on track. What track? Where am I going? Where are we going? The questions again, endless, like the questions you ask yourself when you’re reading a great story.

Only, this isn’t a story.

–KMV

Netbook

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

the same book that binds us
tears us along the spine
where we’ve fallen into cracks
unseen by words on the page

if we could close the cover
or open up to page one
perhaps we could see
where the story would take us

instead we skim
unable to truly read
forgetting how without the words
we wouldn’t be here

Teach

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

if eighty-five percent
of EVERYONE
actually did what they
were supposed to do
then we wouldn’t need
pay for performance.

we could just…
teach.
what a concept.