even escapes bleed
with guilt-ridden winds of snow
that just can’t ice him
loss
The Last Plane
Red hair, green eyes, tall and sure of himself, he peeks into my room, searching for a familiar face after lunch. I have seen this look before, as my students often seek their native-language counterparts.
“Who are you looking for?” I ask, the after-lunch crowds raucously meandering around our conversation.
“I am looking for you. I am a new student.” His accent is smooth and meticulous, genteel and articulate.
“Oh, OK. What’s your name?”
“Arvin.”
“Where are you from?”
“Iran.”
“Iran? … And… how did you get here??” But I have to look away because the tears are already in my eyes.
“I boarded the plane on Friday morning. I was in the last group of Iranians to come.”
I want to continue the conversation, but I can’t. I can’t because the tears will fall. I can’t because I have to teach for the next ninety minutes. I can’t because every waking moment of my life since this election, since this inauguration, have become a cycle of servitude. Of serving this need or the next, of wishing for this and receiving that, of hoping for the best and seeing the worst.
Instead I tell him where to sit and hand him a hard copy of I Am Malala. We will listen to the lilting Pakistani accent from Audible today as we continue to highlight human rights violations from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (we will highlight thirteen incidents in three chapters; we will connect media suppression and fascism and women’s rights to an education too closely to our lives; we will hear Fazlullah’s rants with an American accent).
My weekly volunteer returns from the library after a time with a group of students. She meets with my Iranian student to explain to him his role in the group as they create posters connecting Malala’s experiences to the UDHR. He fits in well and tells the group he cannot draw very efficiently, so can he please have the role of interpreting the quotation from the chapter and connecting it to the UDHR document?
He has been here for five days. He got in on the LAST PLANE.
After class, my retired-white-woman volunteer asks, “If he just got here from Iran, how come he can speak English?”
And that is when I decide.
I have to start here. Right in this moment. With this woman who drives one mile from her upscale mansion in Cherry Creek North to “make a difference.”
“Pretty much all of the students who come here learned English before they came. Usually only the refugees have interrupted schooling. But most countries start teaching English when the kids are in kindergarten.”
I swear her jaw drops ten inches. She wants to say something, but she doesn’t have the words to describe her ignorance.
“Oh…”
And now you know, I want to say. But I don’t. I don’t cry when I want to, because I have to be strong for them. I don’t tell her that Trump’s America is not my America, not Arvin’s America. I don’t tell her that the combination of students in this room represents the values of our country better than most Americans I know. That a red-headed Iranian entering my classroom five days past an executive order banning Muslims is as beautiful to me as Ziauddin’s tears in the New York Times documentary as he sees Swat for the first time in three months (which we watch at the end of class).
Instead, I say, “Thank you for your help. I’ll see you next Wednesday.”
And that is all I can do to resist.
All for today.
Redemption, Please
our country is wrapped
in a cold and hateful tomb
i beg afterlife
Make My Marade
annual Marade
frosted with ice (years without)
but now winter’s here–
in Trump’s dark shadow
we march for all we have lost,
all there is to lose.
we resist snowflakes
that try and fail to stop us
from the truth we seek
we fight the good fight
in songs, in signs, in speeches
(and one day we’ll win)
Running Rabid
since the election,
somehow my days have become
a cataclysmic mix of mundane chores
and tearing my hair out over
what we’ve done to our democracy
it’s the gut wrenching choice
Travis must make as Riona and I
grapple with Old Yeller-–
do I shoot my best friend
or suffer the same fate?
only—
our fate is sealed, well after
the roan bull has staggered onto our property… and Yeller?
his last howl hovers over
a hydrophobic nation
God save us all.
Counting On It
once i wrote poems
without counting syllables–
rather, counting moments
that trickled through my mind
throughout the weariness of days,
with little money and lots of hope,
and now it’s little hope and lots of money,
and the twists and turns of reality click in
until i feel i can only control counting syllables,
and one haiku at a time record my days,
the in-between lines lost years later.
once i wrote poems
to put inside stories
that would spill from my pen with
lyrical language and little plot,
so similar to the mundane of everyday life,
when snow spins our tires and meetings suck our days and relationships wither with wear,
and i wasn’t afraid of the words
i so diligently drafted.
but i learned to count.
to be more cautious with words.
seventeen. now. then.
Closing Thoughts on 2016
The year closes with a slew of celebrity deaths, a frightful president-elect, and the hovering window of how hopeless humanity can be as we watch the genocidal and refugee crises erupt around us without comment, without help.
The year closes in my personal life: a new principal at my school, the second daughter in middle school, the first daughter preparing for high school, the third daughter closing out our family’s elementary education. Tumultuous tumbles with family and friends that make me question everything: what I write, what I think, how I speak, how I feel about the issues surrounding me… and whether or not I should publish it “for all the world to see.”
The year closes on my habits: in many failed attempts at fulfilling resolutions, such as writing every day and ditching dairy, I have at least wholly committed to one–not a drink, not a drop, of alcohol for 2016.
And here I am, posting this. Am I an alcoholic? Are any of us? Would anyone be willing to admit it if they were?
Here are my haikus from 13 January 2016, in a moment of reflection and redemption:
reasons why i stopped:
one–brutal voice in writing,
uncensored anger
two–not much laughter,
too much crying to count
(my tear-stained regrets)
three–exhausted sleep
from too many restless nights
swimming in nightmares
four–so much good lost
on the desire to numb,
to not fully live
five–waste of money
in times when we had little,
in times when we’re rich
six–lust and lack of
mediocre love-making
blurred by consumption
seven–fat belly
of someone too far along
to give up this quick
eight–every bad choice
i have made as an adult
came from that bottle
nine–joy i once felt
disappeared on icy rocks
of my lost chances
ten–my daughters’ eyes
watching every move i make
(and i’m making… them)
The year closes with sadness, with darkness, with fear. I lost friends, I came to realize how few I have, and yet… hold them in such a greater light because of their proximity, their understanding of me. I reconciled with my sister and mother. I worked through difficulties in my marriage. I, as always, struggled through the intricacies of teaching teenagers and raising them. I got a new new kitten… and lost her a month later.
I watched the world witness the election of an evil demagogue.
I cried and I cried and I cried.
I wrote less and worried more.
But I didn’t drink. (I didn’t go to AA either. I didn’t need to.) I just wanted to see what the world was like again without the rose-colored glasses.
And the world is a hard, cold place. Filled with people who only think for themselves. Who send text messages to end friendships three years in the making. Who disregard human rights to save themselves a buck. Who turn their backs on those in need for political safety nets.
And the world is a bright and beautiful place. With young eyes that light up and demand that the future sees them for the beauty that they are: conservative Muslim, flamboyant LGBT, bleeding heart liberal, hopeful to no end. With city lights and mountain views, blue skies and snow. With full moons over lapping waves and pink sunrises over quiet urban neighborhoods. With ancient ruins and family freedoms. With girl power and urban schools. With everything that surrounds my bubble of humanity, my hope for human rights, my need to know that it. Gets. Better.
The year closes, and my eyes have opened. I have come to realize how infiltrated in our culture drinking is (this never quite occurred to me before) as I enter restaurants and am immediately offered cocktails or beer; as I go to book club and happy hour and parties and barbecues and hanging out at anyone’s house; as I navigate the simple sentence, “Water for me, thanks.”
The year closes, and I haven’t been numb. I have been fully awake, fully aware, of the pain that sneaks up when your youngest hasn’t done her math homework in three weeks, when your oldest can’t answer a question without a smirk, when your middle child talks back as easily as she grins, when students refuse to relinquish phones and family members whisper and rejection seems to lie behind every unopened door.
The year closes, and it may have many mistakes. It may have many moments of hollowness. But it does not have a single moment of regret.
Because it has been me, uncensored, unaltered me, in every last word, every last post, every last turn around the long journey through life.
The year closes, so let me hold up a glass: Cheers to a new year, a new tomorrow, a new hope… cheers to a new way of looking at the world. Drink… or no drink.
Cheers.
Cheers to Santa
our new year baby
to wash away the heartbreak
that has plagued this year
Moon Searching
late nights, early morns:
moonlighting my way to hope
around each corner
(it rises despite
city business beating it
into a soft glow)
We Got This
postcard messages
and snowflakes cut into hope:
proof that love trumps hate
Step Write Up 