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One about Words

Poetry, Uncategorized

Pondering “Hey”

You know, “hey” is an interesting word.

It can be attention-getting. “Hey, over here!”

Or friendly, “Hey, Luke.”

But, hey, it could also be casual.

It can be all manner of things, in every imaginable hue.

A three-year-old whine or Dad’s eyebrows up, “remember what we talked about…”

But here’s the contrast that got me thinking—

“Hey” can have the most cutting edge to it,

Or it can be the softest whisper, a hand on the shoulder,

“It’s all right.”

A simple word, it doesn’t mean much,

So it can mean a lot.

It’s all in the tone, the face, the heart.

Just a thought.

—

Written in Late July—

Words piling up like thoughts in a traffic jam.

Waiting on the light to change.

Be home soon.

Legacy in Sweat and Stone

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Twelve or fourteen greats ago, I don’t remember, a man named Louis looked to land across the ocean, and he dared to claim it–a place for him and for sons and daughters yet to be born. Fourteen in all.

August of 1647, his feet touched the shores of New France. Among the second wave who journeyed from France to the fresh forests of Canada, Louis Houde followed in the tracks of intrepid pioneers and did what any good settler does. He built.

Stonemason. Father. Visionary.

Laying stones, he helped build a city. Giving land, he helped build the church. Raising sons, he helped build French Canada.

And Madeline stood by his side.

—

On other shores, maybe some of my ancestors twelve or fourteen greats ago boarded ship by force, not by choice, and helped build other people’s houses under a southern island sun where the French sounds Caribbean.

Harder to trace back on that side, except in Abuelita’s veins and maybe in her Mama’s family name. It’s a story of hard work done between the sea and the sky, of love and loss and a tear-filled eye. Of backs half-broken, and nearly the will, but justice dies never, and God is good still.

Endurance, this legacy hidden in our veins–a love that suffers but never complains. Thank you for building, though I don’t know your names. Thank you for living in spite of the chains.

The Cottage, two sketches

Outdoors, Ponderings, Uncategorized

(written 6.26.19 while gazing at a watercolor on my desk)

Thatch flecked by ocean spray, dappled with sunlight through the cotton-bottomed clouds holds a shield over our heads. We cut it from the marshy edge–wiry grass on permanent tilt from the ocean’s wind. Plucking up reeds with knife and scythe we paused to ponder. Watching the shorebirds, we marveled at life beside our bundles of living things now marked for death. We’ll loft them high above our heads; they’ll keep us warm, their wet will be our dry.

There’s a life in their dying, a purpose, a plan. Held between the dew and the smoke of the hearth, held between the sun and the cool of the stone. A haven, a border, for a span. And then return to the marsh from whence they came. To serve another purpose.

And the grass springs up green again.

Stones stacked tight against Atlantic gusts. Holding up strong on the outside so all is soft and close within. We splashed them white in late spring, laughing as we worked, brightening the landscape with our steady cottage home.

Crazy Happens

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I’ve seen a lot of miracles in my life. Maybe it’s my way of looking at the world. Maybe I truly have seen a lot of amazing things. I one time adopted the slogan “crazy happens”–the unbelievable unfolding right before your eyes. Sometimes you have to wait until hope gets real skinny and starts looking at you like you’re the crazy one. Sometimes hope gets bigger as the waiting goes on. Then you know who’s the crazy one.

My family was waiting to buy a house when I said that with a little shrug and eyes that gleamed–“crazy happens.” Crazy did happen. It didn’t look like what I pictured, but let me tell you, it was even better. This very moment, I’m sitting in the house we built, right down the street from the house I had been so set on. Some of our best friends live directly behind us. They watched the house going up.

Who knows if we would have met them had we moved into the house with five acres and a sunset porch? We got one acre. We got to build. Exactly what we asked for at the outset. Down to the price, even. And then we built a sunrise patio, cool on a Texas summer evening. I don’t know if the friends were the icing or the cake.

Did I mention that the first time we met them they invited us to a Labor Day cookout at their place that night? A small town welcome. Open doors and open hearts.

Home. I love this place.

The Day You Forget

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The day you forget what it’s like to be a child is the day the leaves drop from the old maple, and all you see is the work piling up in the driveway.

It’s the day you don’t notice the flyaway bubbles that squirt out of the dish soap. You don’t smile at the plucky little escapees because all you see is the stack of dishes and too little time.

It’s the day you lose your patience with the sluggish driver ahead of you instead of making up a story about why she’s going 25 in a 40.

Just because there’s no one to give you time out doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it.

Time outdoors.
Time out of the helter-skelter.
Time out of your habits. Out of your routine thoughts.
Time out of this world.
Time to imagine, to rediscover.
To remember.
To wonder.

When the Duster Came Through

Poetry, Uncategorized

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, [LC-DIG-fsa-8b26998]

Pulled this out of a drawer yesterday…

Ma was rocking Jonas on the porch when the duster came though,
Rattling this town where all the rain we’d got was a half-scorched dew
For weeks, for months. I can’t remember. Nothin’ but hot, searing wind.
And mocking wisp of cloud—‘til this—colossal, end-of-the-world, hellfire whirling round,
Black-hearted beast, full of fury and sound,
Wind that makes the house shake—
What is this awful black nightmare that leaves grit in its wake?
We don’t know what to call it.
 
But the newspapers do.
The next morning they tell us that dread cloud of dirt was a black blizzard.
A week later they tell us we’d had another one.
Don’t need a story in the paper to know—look around.
See the dunes where this plain was once level ground.
See the brown where once it was green with rye, gold with wheat.
Feel the dust all over you from hair to feet.
Don’t need a paper to tell me what I seen. I remember when it used to be green.
 
Ma was cooking supper on the stove when the duster came through.
By now we forgot to panic—this was blizzard number forty-two.
It got real dark, Jonas started breathing all quick and shallow like he’s ‘bout to cry.
But he can’t—the air’s so thick, eyes so dry.
I wrap a towel ‘round his face and pray it keeps the dust from his lungs,
Remember that the laundry’s out hung—
Probably getting ripped to shreds—we’ll have to turn our rags into rags.
 
Jonas coughs. Ma sighs. And I…close my eyes.
Close out the stinging grains.
Close out the hunger pangs.
Close out the look on Ma’s face when the man came from the bank
And our hearts sank ‘cause we have nowhere to go.
Eight years on this land and nothin’ to show.
Ma was rocking Jonas on the porch when the duster came through.