Measured child

Measured child

  
First thing he read in a newspaper was only a shape.  Taken from the backside, held by other hands.  The carpet floor was rather thin.

Four feet measured the threadbare couch.  Two more the chair next door.  Paper and yarn in hand.  The third fretted about something fret worthy we suppose.

Clouds would seem closer than the ceiling was.  Summer up there, winter here.  Doors were polite, not sentinels.  A child is a rose with thorns inside.

Five feet, six feet tall, moved like wind passing through the living room.  Maybe more storms than wind.  Just a matter of kinetic momentum, not intent.

More than squares and circles, some people moved like spears, just that swift.  Might as well be more printed words, just that much mystery far.

There were potato chips on a plate ten feet tall.  Melted cheese among grandmother’s plants.  Ballpoint pens weren’t invented yet, nor better clues.

Down from the backporch a cabin with rusty window screens.  Later that would be a mistake.  Till then a young man slept but his feet were already wind.

Faster than a black crow one day the cabin held only dust.  And no one seems to say goodbye to a child that much young.  Snow sheets and he was out of sight.

Grandmother’s nose inside a rose. Then, what you’d expect.
 
 

neil reid © february 2012

 
 
could say stolen but it’s not really the same, different as ink blotted on another page. besides I think she’d understand, the one who makes me look this way. best not take me seriously.

Read Full Post »

Sister

S i s t e r

She remembers when milk stars were on
fingertips.  when warm bread came ringing
at the door.  when She was the taller of two.

She said, here in my arms your weight will fit.
your limbs in mine become olive trusses, said
these are braided bridge

these are rings on the cat
these are bare knees on the front steps.

said, her nose in the bloom, never
seeing the bee that never stung,

like it was ripe no matter how much
we ever forgot or would.

just the way She spoke to me
in a photograph.

 

neil reid © october 2011

 
comments:
Someone asked me how I’m doing. This is how I’m doing.

It would be an easy temptation to say that writing is hard for me to do right now. But not true; the writing itself is easy enough. However getting to that place (sort of like peaceful or maybe focused inside), that’s what’s elusive at this time.

This poem landed with one simple line: the first one. The rest just fell into place. That writing process was rather meaningful for me; don’t know if the result will be for anyone else. So be it.

My sister is real, but also a myth. Thus capitalized “She’s” used for the poem. And localized repetitions (for which there’s probably some name I don’t know) which are easy enough to see cascading through the poem. My play with form to create small rhythms that seemed appropriate within the lyric whole (maybe a love note to someone I only know just this much and no more).

And the form becomes rule. But just within the breath of this one poem. (and MR you know, for a time I wanted to resist common rule, but don’t feel that way any more. now I want to honor them, but the ones I choose to want and make. although me, fair in general to say, I’m not outside the lines even if they’re mostly chalk.)

Read Full Post »

Robert

Robert

 
His name was Robert.  Family called him Bob.

He was the brother, the son, who couldn’t settle
for the farm.  There just weren’t enough flavors
that way, planted in the dirt.

No ill regard ever spoken of you.  But you
were just the one who couldn’t stay.

A fine turned storm was not just inconvenience
nor hazard to the crops.  It was the chance to
enjoin a greater dance of sky.

Like your feet upon a frozen tall masted deck.
You drew the line, a sixtieth latitude with native
handed ivory in your pocket.

I wonder if you traded craft for craft, those
watered colors of one small farming town,
exotic carved wood, or sister child Ione

all limbs and braids in ceramic night.

What would you of all my kin have taught
me Bob?  Only a child when your ship left
a westerly port, yet perhaps I did

without a single word.

But then you died, young man in full bloom.
I suppose even then, you were just the one
who couldn’t stay.
 

neil reid © september 2011

 
for my young uncle, Robert Coates
 
comments:
Wish I could remember now what provoked this poem. Something about names or kin or speaking to the past? Could be, but I don’t think it was that. In any case I’m glad for the result, written most on my lunch hour at work. Perhaps it could be called, “conversations never had”, although it only slightly touches that. Can we voice what others might say? Well poetically, yes. And I think I’m still finding family.

(And look Margo,
it’s all in normal English talk and write, punctuation and everything! Hope you’re mollified. But really, it just felt right this time, so I let it be.)

Read Full Post »

Finding freedom brothers

Finding freedom brothers

Marineros en el mar, hay una regla
usted viene ayudar alguien.
Pero ese día ellos no vinieron.

Until that day I jumped into the water

and left my home. Left my best friend.

Left everything.

Everything, sadness was one drop

of my heart, and I walked into the sea.

One could hardly believe.

One could barely breath.

It was crowded in the sea, lots of fish.

We crowded into a boat, hardly dry.

Thirst came with me onto the sea.

But it wasn’t about water, you must

understand. How to quench a heart!

Why I was on the boat on the sea,

why I was myself become another

face. Does horizon see me yet?

Will you come? Sit table with me.

Break this bread upon our lips,

taste salt and tears and a brother’s

love. Dare surrender stones?

The sea is not wider than this.

Here, leap with me!

neil reid © december 2009  revised & amended july 2011

translation:
Sailors at sea, there is a rule
someone comes to help you.
But they did not come that day.

Commentary:
This poem was written in response to a documentary on the lives of two brothers, two Cuban brothers.  Each loved family. One who found right home where he was.  Another who felt his best right expression could only bloom in another land.  Yet neither respective nations really allowed this difference to be easily addressed.  For the one it meant leaving brother, leaving family, and risking all on a short but perilous travel across the sea.  He did ultimately safely arrive, however a price of distance was indeed paid by both.

Eventually the brother who remained in Cuba did find the opportunity to come and briefly visit his brother in the United States; and well evident despite all distances, brotherhood did remain intact.  But such a price (why do we do this to ourselves?) both brothers had to endure.

And yes, for this poem I did take the sea crossing as allegory for something more about relationship and our “environment of nations” that do or do not support who we are at root as family.

At heart they took no sides, and neither do I, except for compassion and care and freedom to be as we honestly are.

technical note:
If you have not used it as yet, Google does provide a very useable language translation facility (as used here to write the leading poetic phrases).

Read Full Post »

Pocket guide

P o c k e t g u i d e

i.

Small steps. You know,

those at both ends of the coin.

She stands waving a few steps outside

her kitchen door. Vigilant. Woven into

that basket named grandmother.

Some voice of me these decades

later still resists saying the perfect words,

lest in fair expression they evaporate.

I keep her life in my pocket,

close at hand.

I am jealous at even the hint of

a passing far thought, leaving without

my open palms.

In the doubt dark of some nights

me and the cats miss you still.

ii.

Small steps. You know,

those at both ends of the coin.

A daughter and parents. Three chimes

through the door. She chews her food

carefully. Father leans in.

How high is a paper wall?

Across the room another page turns.

More like a window opens perhaps?

Small yellow-jacketed, he smiles

at me. I move my thought filled

hand from in front of my face.

I smile back.

Crow pleads the rain on the roof

outside. Please, one more feast!

Father holds the door, they all depart.

I still stir the wonder, what her

letter meant the other night.

And how to reply?

I leave with work undone.

Neil Reid © November 2009

Read Full Post »

Sister lost

Sister lost

You called my name before

my voice broke from dawn, entered day.

Your nile dark braid of hair, a sister’s

rope to pull me from the river flood.

Tall yet near. Your hand a cradled nest.

That photograph.

My eyes found yours. I’m sure they did.

No milky sky could confuse. No olive

moon had your scent.

I’ve grown into years, decades now.

All that you gave, all that we lost, are

rendered in one old box.

Even so dire as white and black, that old

photograph paints your Mediterranean skin.

I carry it now. A pocket keeps.

Sister, do you hear me now?

I am the one with olive groves

upon my cheeks.

Neil Reid © November 2009

Read Full Post »

You asked

 

 

read write prompt #93 – Make it a whopper

by Deb Scott

This week, tell a lie.  Make it big or make it small.  Take some seed from that and see what poem comes.  Not so easy for me (or too easy?), and this was actually the third poem that I finally settled on.  And interesting the other responses I’ve read, the many that resist telling a lie.  Some ways that also includes me!  Like I never do!  However I don’t mind “making something up”.  Wonder the difference there.  Maybe just that it’s true, if only inside my mind?  Here’s one.

 

You asked

 

 

You asked with your long blonde hair

trailing itself like snow across my face,

would I come along with you?  It was hard 

just to step outside that siren’s dream,

answer you.

 

I bought a map of the Hawaiian Islands,

just where we’d live.  And where the two

babies would be born.  Where we’d be

hungry for a while, but then it would

work out just fine in the end, like it has.

 

I wrote a poem that day, just how I felt and 

how it would be tomorrow and tomorrow.

You smiled.  You kissed my lips, my eyes.

Your smiles were always, always

broader than the horizon is.

 

We lived like right now into graceful

grateful age.  The children smile at us.

There’s a log in the stove heating

the meal we’re about to share,

the spoon that’s worn.

 

And I still hear the waves on the

shoreline of your lingering gaze.

 

If only I’d said, yes.

 

 

Neil Reid © September 2009

Read Full Post »

Five days

For my mother, Virginia 1911-2005

 

Five days

 

 

Climbing high in memory’s eye, this

raptor’s peak nine decades and one,

woven nest of gathered thread.

 

Five days, one doctor said.

Only his single voice on the telephone.

And I understand how reason arrives.

She’s coming home.

 

Like valley snow, plum blossom white

settled far and wide as eye could hope.

Spring like sleep awakes.  Seen from

her child’s home, now long painted ash.

 

A gentle slope’s summit west of here.

One of a paragraph or two she shared

with me, her mother’s lap like a faded

map.  Hush, she said to me.

 

The full rich hair, a naval officer’s neat

lapels and uniform, the face in a mirror,

exactly me.  Even to my unused name.

One husband gone, one secret kept.

 

It was just a fall’s broken wrist, wrapped,

but it was the last.  A handful’s years

lost of memory, how then now this choice?

No food, the least the most, her silence spoke.

 

Five days at most they said.  Sent

behind, those more to comfort attend.

Was it the third day perhaps, please

allow this to lessen the pain, one nurse

of those gathered spoke, adjusted her.

 

Mother turned her glance, a temptress breeze

of spring, impishly said clear and sweet,

     You wanna make love to me?

     We smiled, understood.

 

In all that history tucked and blanketed,

here was twenty and something again.

Something I had never seen, like a

window now.  Sure it wasn’t quite real

like real, but it was, once upon a time.

 

One sweet page from a secret book.

 

 

Neil Reid © August 2009

 

Read Full Post »

Grandmother’s thumbs

For Janet

 

Grandmother’s thumbs

 

Redeemer of a two-toed cat.  Kitten so slight

so lost, would have starved except she dared

him kernel by kernel of corn out from behind

a leaf, into her home, into bright hands,

welcome gaze.

 

A little red wagon, you know the kind, that

I spied short before one Christmas week.

And in all mock sincerity, explained, not for me,

but for a little boy down the block.  A rouse that

worked, if almost too well, and to my 

Christmas morning surprise.  Genuine.

 

And what does a boy-child do first discovering

a blue-ball-point pen?  Fill in the spaces,

like white on green leaves, a bedroom plant

living in the shade.  And only her gentle request,

a tear or two she couldn’t restrain, was more than

enough for me to understand consequence.

 

Dimes she left out for me on her bedroom

dresser.  A little box, a secret box, that she

told me about to find all for myself.

 

A two-wheeled cart we rolled back and forth,

the grocery store, Uncle Ben’s steamed white

rice.  No one ever made rice like you!  One

of her many small mysteries.

 

Everything grew by her touch, everything.

Anything green, certainly.  Her slightest touch

a blossom’s blush.  Everything wanted to

please her eye.  Really, if you were there,

you’d understand, you too would want her

glance.  Everything grew, everything!

 

Careful about those Mexicans, she’d say,

nearly like a recording, obliged to repeat.

However now guess who lived next door,

and to whom she’d oft deliver a neighborly

bowl.  Observe, was how she really taught.

 

After lunch, another Vermont farm feast,

or anytime, posed and poised, rooted firm

she’d stand just outside the kitchen door.

Her hand held high, her eye in sight until

beyond goodbye.  Without exception,

every breath she gave away willingly.

 

And now my turn, even though she’s

long past gone afar, to stand and wave

while my eyes hold this evening light.

 

I give these words.  And wave to you.

 

 

Neil Reid © August 2009

Read Full Post »

Burnished

Burnished

 

I am my mother’s eyes.

I am my father’s hair.

 

Borne of cold maple and

sweet hot humid southern stone.

 

My grandmother’s gingham,

a cat beside the kitchen sink.

A jar of nails unbent in my

great uncle’s backyard shed.

 

Smooth old paint, three layers deep 

upon a farm bred captain’s chair.

Mother tried to refinish it when he was gone,

find its charm under days of labor spent.

 

But the charm was before, part of

a promise unkept in a dusty shed.

Uncomfortable, when she was done.

 

I liked it best in his shed.

 

 

Neil Reid © April 2009

 

Read Full Post »