That Kind of Relationship

First days of the season
and a thousand stories
dance untold

I listen to the rain
it tells of emptiness
in ten thousand tongues

Stings haughty
as thunderstorms,
is clear as nothing

_

Everyone Speaks

Took Li'l A to a showing of The People Speak a documentary/reading/performance based on Howard Zinn's work at The Little Art Theater.

Extreme celebrity kilowattage: Morgan Freeman, Bob Dylan, Matt Damon, Bruce Springsteen, Sean Penn, Run DMC, Don Cheadle and lots of etc., etc.

Li'l A's independent projects this year have centered on the every day life of people in different times and climes and he's been asking questions about how society and government work, so this was a perfect afternoon with him.

It made me want to go on a protest march immediately--and there are plenty of opportunities for that--what with Ohio's Heartbeat Bill and Senate Bill 5.

But also, it made me want to see my dad immediately, because I suddenly realized that Frederick Douglass looks like my dad, from the nose, eyes, chin, up to the serious horizontal furrow between his brows.

_

One Love

I went to hear the awesome Kwame Dawes at UD's Litfest yesterday, and suddenly, I'm cooking dinner for eleven. 


As my old professor and my current academic referee, he tried to make time in his two-day trip to have dinner with us--never mind that that involves my toddler who claims to be married to an elephant, because my extremely polite tween more than made up for it by claiming to remember my mentor's baritone back from when I attended Dawes's class when this child was in utero.


Memories, regrets, gossip, a bottle of rosé, and travel plans. I'd put this evening on repeat for a while if I could.


_

He gets it

"Aliens wake as early as my mom..."

(The first line of the narrative ditty Li'l A composed with his friends to accompany their viewing of the trailer to Skyline last week. So stuck in my head! Now that I've written it, I'm not entirely sure if that line is meant as a compliment--or a complaint.)

"Amma, if I get all A's on my report card this year, will you become a U.S. citizen?"

(Li'l A after witnessing the over-prepped folder of documents I--an alien resident--took to the DMV this morning. He gets a little mutinous when border/airport/transport security quiz me a little too ardently. And I don't think he's forgiven me for reneging on the promise I made Big A in 2008 about applying for U.S. citizenship if Obama were elected.)

_

Surprise Package

Enthusiastic
at the end
of March
is this snow
landing as plastic
and separate

as styrofoam pellets

strewn through
our disbelief
in sheafs
as though grit
from a package
damaged in transit.

Didn't we order Spring?
-

Object blaming

People--or at least my own family--know me as the type to have crushes on older professors. Perhaps one of the unintended consequences of this is that I probably give off dangerously high levels of "I crush on professors" pheromones? Is this why older professors like me?

May be?

Am I blaming myself too much?

Not enough?

The thing is, when an older elderly colleague can't seem to stop stroking my back for a good 20 seconds longer than is collegial, I feel like the dirty one for wondering if it's inappropriate.

And because I find it difficult to draw attention to their inappropriate attention and because I didn't say anything, it then makes them think it's ok to give me photocopies of Mary Mackey's "The Kamasutra of Kindness" poems. Not that there is anything particularly objectionable about the poems themselves. My feeling--that both the poet and my personal donor of these poems are guilty of coasting on referential (orientalist) titillation--are just feelings.

_

Just two girls and an inter-species conversation

Baby A toddles in as I'm prepping for class.

NuNu: My very own husband is making tea for me.

Me: Um. 

Me: Um. What?!?

NuNu: My very own husband. He is waiting for me to finish teaching. He's in my very own house across the street [bedroom across the hallway] with all our animal children.

Me: He sounds nice.

NuNu: He is. He's much nicer than yours. He is an elephant. Your husband is not an elephant. You like elephants, right?

_