A Monday (Spring, 2011)

These dreams are like demons

Where ice breeds fibrous

Before you were born

You were an ocean.

Here, everyone is moving

Their apologies like smoke

Still under the new road

An older one flows.

_

Sunday, YSO

This street reaches

all the way to the sun

These neighborhoods

are always memories

These doors half open

are half done grins

Blind, your own fool

and so ready for life

_

Happen

The quad is slippery with yesterday’s snow

His gaze is slippery with diffidence

Do I remember him?

I do! Mike! One of the best students in his class

But it’s another semester

And there’s another Mike in another class

Almost as good, just as loved.

Why do I love them anyway?

These Caitlins (F), Mikes (M), Alexes (F/M)

Love while it lasts, a semester’s worth

I mark them, meaning to mark their minds

_

Fish needs bicycle

Last spring, I taught Transnational Feminisms. Which was *wonderful*--but you know, they were the choir, there was absolutely no need to preach.

This year, I begged to be assigned the introductory Women’s Studies course with some romantic activist notion of grooming forty feminists out of a cohort of “my advisor says I have to take this course to graduate.”

Yeah. You know how this is going already. There were so many assertions of post-feminism and accusations of “reading too much into things.”

Until this: http://twitter.com/rulesforgirls

_

Old friends and older teachers

My high school FB group posted a newspaper article about our old P.E. teacher. And although I used to be terrified of her (mostly because of her somewhat bossy habit of checking if we were indeed wearing regulation bloomers under our Catholic school uniforms), it made me really nostalgic for days when my main fear was about getting picked to shoot hoops.

And on the same FB group page, an appeal for funds for another teacher whose husband has dementia. The end of Goodbye Mr. Chips always made me cry, and this does too.

_

Report

A clue that maybe listening to a lot of classical music

can make you a little too laidback:

"There will be snow tomorrow, mostly between the hours of 2 a.m. and 11 p.m."

Dude. Kind of unhelpful, you know.

Anyway. I’ve always wanted to ice-skate—

and today, I did.

A beautiful, curlicue “q”.

On the way to school/preschool/work,

in our sweet-silly, snub-nosed car.

Baby A squealed;

Li’l A gasped;

I trembled.

Fair to say we were all really surprised

and delighted/ excited /

outright panicked.

_

Questionnaire

Standing in the middle of all time

Ghosts and maharajas stare

We maintain tunes

Cartoons

The midday limbers

Like painted cake

Are you well?

Did you eat?

These twisted bases

are all alike

and all wrong

so I like them all

__

R.O. T. C. / Child

Tell me if we’re bringing you down

Taking back the beautiful invitation

To drop in upon those nations

Class = common noun

_

Read

Falling into holes

to keep on dancing

yes, keep on dancing

 

this common bird

sees love beyond

your ability to love

_

All by myself

My awesome M.I.L. came over to take the kids off to a sleepover at her place. 

I can't imagine that I did, but I must have looked wistful as I tugged mittens over my little kid kittens, because she asked if I was going to be okay. 

That made me break out in a huge smile because--What!? Are you kidding me?! 

But I gave her a big wink and said in my hammiest voice--I'll be ok, I'll find a way to manage.

But just to be sure, I texted Big A who's finishing up his charts at the E.R.:

"Safe to come home. Kids gone."

It's a movie and dive bar kinda night. If. 

IF Big A comes home soon.

_

Living January

Is to dream

of one blade of sea

on the far

side of a sandbox

 

Is to think skin

is no boundary

to waves

volatile as time

 

Is to plant

footprints and undress

prophecies too

delicate to translate

 

 _

New appointee?

 

Big A:  I was going to look at Haitian protest posters to design an introductory diagnostic for the postcolonial course.

Me: Ohh… (wishing I had thought of it first)

And I got my wish, because Big A seems to have some awesome pedagogical ideas--but only in *my* dreams :).

_

Prayer

Raise these ashes of snow.

Pace this abyss,

dismiss.

Ascend.

Upend.

Know,

flow.

_____________

Yet another snow day. White-out appointments and plans. I try to be understanding about the aesthetic-emotional compulsion for a white Christmas. But who needs snow after Dec 25th? Whoever you are, know that you're on my pout list.

_

Touch

 

Gift:

your reaction that continues mine

Sign:

the welcome of vulnerable circles 

 

this shushing of feet

through memories

then letting them go

to land unplanned

 

Letting it all go.

So. I lean forward listening

--alone like a colony--

and I know exactly who you are.

_

We still got it

Big A and I fell in love in New York. And though we’ve hung out with the kids heaps in the city since those early days, there is some lingering sense of surreality about revisiting places which were all about our passionate freefall with two kids, and as more responsible adults. Because, I guess, the “we” that we are in Yellow Springs is irrevocably tied to our personae as parents, but the “we” that started in New York is all us. In my head--at least--the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, Clinton Street Bakery, MOMA, Anthology Film Archives, KGB Room, Penn Station… exist merely as picturesque backdrops and bit players in some grand narrative about us and our self-centered fascination for each other. Barf :).

We drew up a complicated and ambitious list of where we wanted to eat that was typically Balthazar for breakfast, Saravanaa Bhavan for lunch, and Motorino’s for dinner. We skipped Balthazar, but I guess two out of three isn’t at all bad. And the night before that we got a corner booth at the fancy steak place, which meant that the kids could play pirates to their heart’s content and I could get tipsy off of beachy drinks (I didn’t realize until I typed that out that there was an ongoing ocean theme there!). At Saravanaa's my people were talking really loud and at Motorino’s the NYU kids were worse behaved than my own, so we made out ok.

2011: More New York!

_

Sunday, New York

The solstice sleeps

you understand

we may have dedicated

the guitars to silence

while the rocks, the day,

and the house unfold

the stiffening ponds

watch mountains march

and all the suns shine

falling in the snow.

_

On Broadway

Our wonderful dentist

who in a brilliant correspondence

of name and profession

is called Dr. Fang

Told Baby A

at her two-year dental check up

that her teeth were: "Strong!

Like Lion King!"

A whole year later

as we take our seats

in literally the last row

at the Minskoff

The toddler

bares her teeth

in friendly

affinity.

_________

It was a wonderful show. My dream room now has a swirling terrazzo and hovering bird mobiles. And given the seven-year difference between them, I'm constantly grateful for these few years when both Li'l A and Baby A can enjoy the same shows.

-

Out of Ohio

On our way to New York, I'm telling Big A about how the first time I heard John Boehner--just a few months ago--on NPR when he made a speech about his American dream and how I'd interpreted the quaver of tears in his voice as sincerity.

Since then of course I've become more familiar with Boehner's lachrymose tendencies, and increasingly embarrassed because there's no telling when I'll get emotional about a range of stuff from the perfect deep-fried veggie burger to an ad in a magazine I paid five dollars for asking for a two-dollar donation to The Hunger Project.

Me: I'm afraid I'm going to seem as fake as Boehner.

Big A: Nah, Puppy. Your tan is the real thing.

_

Gray Day

Ohio sun rises only for the sky

but sharp, sure stars swagger

about borders on oblate plains

Like people you have set free

who then disappear, unstable

as salt left out in the rains

_

With Plenty of Crybaby Juice

Your pain clears the windows.

Blind, your gaze can skip skies.

Tell me, was it you who visited,

slipped on these words, cried?

__________

Big A's first real day off in 15 days, and both Baby A and I made mad crybaby juice in little-little batches all day. Connection? Coincidence? Hmm.

_

Mornings with Children

The troubled light of December, seven o’ clock

the clucking annoyance of the second hand

These are the stains that describe your breakfast

your mouths are hovering-harmonium-talk

Now that the light is so bitter and literal

we lose one battle; we win other wars

You are made of just ghee and molasses--

and pools of unhurried, inundant memoirs.

_____________

And after all that, Li'l A made off with a medal in the spelling bee today. Perhaps slow and steady does win the race :).

_

So, HA!

Baby A turned three (in Oct), attends early Pre K now. (So not so much a baby, I know.) We'd like to blame Pre K for the following:

- playing with the stock photos of some fake/generic family that came with new photo frames.

- claiming to be "in love with this family."

- adding, "But they don't care about you; they only care about me. So, HA!"

- making Li'l A and me sitting with her at the kitchen table nearly die from laughing.

However, it would be nice if we had something to do with this next thing. With sweet J her 6-year-old-playmate, whose dad had taken all the kids to go see Miyazaki's Ponyo when it opened last summer:

Baby A: Ok. Let's play the Ponyo game. I'll be Soskye. You be Ponyo.

Sweet J: Ok. But no. YOU be Ponyo, I'll be Soskye. Ponyo is a girl.

Baby A: No. Ponyo is a little fishie from the sea. So, HA!

Is it horrible of me to be happy that my daughter is a bit of a brat too? Actually, I don't care. So, HA!

__

Growing

Today, Mama.

From yesterday

today is tomorrow.

Her smile opens.

________________

And just when I thought I was over FB, my high school (Sacred Heart, Church Park, Chennai) friends started an FB group and it's been amazing to see. Even all the once-skinny-15-year-old girls have boobs now! 

Once More

armored flowers

the moon at its turret

the pollen is rusty

but an easier size

and more 

like my own.

_________________

I've missed writing just for myself and any strangers Google sent my way. So the goals for the new year are:

* to write

* to keep in touch with family and friends like family on the phone or through visits 

(I guess, condensed, both those bullets signal my growing ennui with FB.)

________________

Crossing

My insect-like anticipation, the blind 

reach for a child's hand

I squeeze your small, wrinkled fingers,

call you my king

the curvaceous floating of laughter

flung from down the street

spilling empty, like letters faint 

but acidic with secrets

_

Ammama (1921-2010)

deep sleep of the night

at another day's still beginning

simplicity occupies the mind

simply.

see:

hours follow each other like breath

the nights of ordinary sleep

and days of unaccustomed deaths

_

A Sort of Buddhism for Beginners

Big A carries me to the couch because the floor is wet. (Yes, it doesn’t make sense.) He continues to hold me in a hug. It is a week where four of my/our friends have cancer or are undergoing treatment for cancer. It’s been a month of seeing children “removed” from their homes—some through guardian ad litem work, one of them Li’l A’s best friend. Which means that after I've been strong in front of my friends and my kids, Big A has been the one holding me through the frequent, circumlocutory, incomprehensible rampages.

He tells me:

One in five people that you know will have cancer at some point in their lives. Half of them will die from it.

And this next part was quite unnecessary, but he feels the need to tell me this every now and again:

You must know that 100% of all the people you know will ultimately die. 

_

Ode to the Coming of June

the clear virginity

of empty days

like plastic wrap

like creaky nights

 

And radio static

in remote patterns

like birds beginning 

to stutter in song

 

all our days of summer

all our years of childhood

slide like released ice

--one halcyon afternoon

_

Daughter

Her voice rises tiny from behind the Rodgers and Hammerstein. Her tone is imperious:

Mama!

That exclamation is summons. I kneel on the floor beside her bed. She is two; the bed is only a month old. Her old crib was about to fall to pieces from all the meaty-thighed jumping that took place in it.

She is in the new, improved, big-kid bed now, I am kneeling beside her.

What is it, Chuk-muk?

A glimmer of eyes in the growing dusk. The shine of her teeth,

I forgot.

Did you want mama to bring you another hug? Another kiss?

My arms and mouth demonstrate the words. My heart fills with happiness, and chokes my throat. Another stroke of her hair, a kiss planted directly into her palm. She holds it, falls asleep.

This child now--at this time in my life, has ways of making feel grown up, parent, knowing… in ways the first child, my companion, the brother I’d never had before, could not. 

_

About school children and their killers

This morning, dropping the kids off at elementary school and preschool, I could feel my hands tightening into claws, throat swelling, voice panicking as I said goodbye.

Violence towards kids--any kid, not just mine--is my trigger for anger, for desperation, suicidal ideation, cold rage, lately—thankfully--for action, but still most frequently for fat, bawly tears. And I know exactly how stupid that sounds.

They have adequate security at both schools (locked doors/ keypad entry), but on NPR they were talking about how you really can’t stop anyone if they’re determined. So I showed up to retrieve the two-year-old hours before her dimissal time. But I’ll be teaching my class tomorrow  and won’t be able to. Big A tries to point out the killings are all the way in China.

True. Kids are so small and trusting everywhere. Also true.

_

Passage

You help us all into the box.

It is shaped like a coffin.

We are to leave for Mars.

They say 

That Earth will be uninhabitable.

We are to lie inside

this box,

that is like a coffin,

for three days.

 

It takes that long to get to Mars.

 

For five hours I try 

to teach the children

to say,“uninhabitable.”

Their mouths fail to shape this noisy word.

 

I think about the

impossibility

of keeping 

the two-year-old quiet

 

or still. 

Three days.

I think of the improbability

of saving the child with Asthma.

 

I say, 

I’ll stay 

here on earth with our children.

Underneath sacrifice,

Artifice.

 

The anxious place 

of silence

in my deep 

and small space.

_ 

Substance

Drawers

hanging

off their hinges

are chicken litter

are anti

matter

 

Empty chairs

are time and tide

are burdens

shifting

shape

like water

_

Asides

 

In a dream

I took

(my husband)

 

(to)

your apartment

 

looking for

proof

of

(a different) life

 

all the pictures

you had

were of your brother

 

But you’d saved

(a colony of chittering mice

for) me

_

Order

The body is meek

weak

 

The winter is deep

deeper than water

 

Liquid with drink

are eyes, are ayes,

are yes

_

Fragment 1

Singing you who have lost it

tell me where you will find it

 

Inside his chest

the chirp of birds

inside his breath

 needles of air

_

Time was / Time is past

delight wheels like prayer

flinging night like doubt

on the parapet of dawn

our details are all spent

Nine

She knows that

the child and his friend

--another child--

read her words.

 

She hides small

messages

of hope

and love

 

Hardy as pebbles

as natural

shaking like leafy hands

on summer trees.

_