A Poem: Golden Home…

So, as my mother’s journey with cancer will soon end, I look at her still as a heroine– she fought her hardest and endured so much along the way.  I will miss her more than words can even articulate, but I try to look at it from the most positive perspective that I mentally can.  She will always be my mother and best friend, but my heart will always be broken from the eventual loss.  Live life to the fullest and praise ever day upon which you awaken.

Rachael

Golden Home

for Mom

My mom saw her first wren

In the yellow toes of spring’s

Gleam; today is a breath

She may be denied tomorrow.

The crow tones his darkness

In the vernal sky, and we know

That shade.  Chartreuse limbs

Frame the sun with their

 

Vitality as a foulness attempts

To loom its wings.  The wren

Is fearless, and knows her place

Amongst the forget-me-nots’

Shocking petals.  She waits

With her golden home in mind.

My foot walks against greenery,

Trying to photograph our journey

Through another blessed day.  We

 

Held a torch to hope; a candle

That will soon dim, but not

To memory.  The wren melodiously

Hums from my window—tulip

Petals leaning toward their

Seasonal demise.  I see the crow

Flow through the night, but

I know my breath will continue

When you have perched upon

Your golden home.

A Poem: Lilacs and a Peak

Lilacs and a Mountain Peak

 

The lilacs were bustled

Against my back, as he

Glared against the glaze

Of my topaz hair.  It was

November when the autumnal

Log ribboned its aroma

In the starry air, and he

 

Stood next to me with the mountain

Stained against his eye.

A higher distance between

One’s hand and their reach—

All that I could carry.  Now,

The purple stains are dead

On my favorite dress, and

 

There is not a place to peek:

Between a mountain and a lilac blossom.

Awwww, Davy Jones…

I took a “break” from the news last week, but was saddened to find out that Davy Jones has died from a heart attack.  He was such a dreamboat when he was younger, and although I was not even born when he was his prime, I did enjoy watching “The Monkees” reruns on the television.  This was probably one of he first crushes I remember; he looked even more appealing when he sang this song:

Was ever girl not jealous when Davy Jones was on “The Brady Bunch” and Marsha got to kiss him?!

My 31st Birthday Is Almost Here…

So, I have decided to get a tattoo for my 31st birthday.  I have never had a tattoo professionally done… other than the one my friend gave me in his basement while we were watching “Foxfire” (based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates).  Yes, that one is complete trash, but I said when I was a young, stupid teenager that I wanted a tattoo to him, and he said “I will give you one!”  This, of course, was because in the movie the girls were giving each other tattoos, and it was summer vacation and we were bored teenagers, so, it was something to do.

He took out a sculpting knife and India ink, and gave me a small star on my upper arm.  I remember coming home, and my mom saw it, and she freaked out saying “OH MY GOD, what the hell were you thinking?  You could get AIDS or hepatitis– one day you will hate that thing!”  Now, I am very embarrassed by it, but I decided not to have it covered up because it reminds me of where I have been.  It may sound foolish, I know, but it serves as a reminder that we all evolve and grow up.

So, I am off this week from work, and husband and I have decided to do some major painting to the house.  Hurray– I hate painting, but am rather pleased with the end product.  I just hope I can keep myself out of work, because I do get bored just sitting around– was never one of those little girls that said “I want to be a mommy…”  I love to be busy and have a routine; however, I need a mental break.

Later this week, I am going to get a real tattoo in honor of my mother.  A couple of months ago I asked her what she will come back to me as, and she said a “wren, because I just love them.”  Long before my grandmother got sick with Alzheimer’s, she told me she would come back to me as a butterfly.  So, every time I see a butterfly fluttering around, I say “hello” to her and tell her that I miss her.

I decided to get a tattoo because that way I will always have a reminder that my mother is with me.  It will be small and on my upper arm, right under my shoulder blade so only I will know it is there.  Husband is going to get it for me for my birthday.  Here is what I am going to get (minus the branch):

Shards in the Parlor: A Villanelle

Shards in the Parlor

Her weeping wail came crashing upon my threshold,

I thought I heard it on that crucified Friday.

I hide the daguerreotype that reflects on the parlor mirror.

Sweet Anna listens to their accusing shards and I

Knit my hands in the boned rosary.  I think I felt

Her weeping wail come crashing upon my threshold.

I heard that she had their hands crocheted at the playhouse.

Holy Mary, we are of the same forename.  Surely,

I hid the daguerreotype that reflects on the parlor mirror.

The Confederate drum still weighs heavily on my vision,

But I did not know such a savage slept upon my linens

As her weeping wail came crashing upon my threshold.

My son, I heard, has disguised himself in a Northern exile.

The crocheted lady has lost a son, the peddlers have said.

(I hope I hid the daguerreotype that reflects on the parlor mirror).

I mold my hands in prayer that I do not find myself

Upon the federal platform on which they are nailing.

Her weeping wail came crashing upon my threshold,

As I hid the daguerreotype that reflected in the parlor mirror.

Pearl: For My Mother

Pearl, 1/25/12

 

An I.V. needle stitches against a pearl.

Punctured vein mapping up to a finger, while

Knitting with my mother to ignore the chemo.

 

Avoidance does not shield the wintry shroud

From escaping a framed tear in my eye as an

I.V. needle stitches against a pearl.

 

Knit two, purl two; I must keep her crown cozy

Against the royal toll of January’s anguish, as I

Knit with my mother to ignore the chemo.

 

Fingers that have welded earthy metals

And have once breathed the first kiss of spring’s corollas, but now,

An I.V. needle stitches against a pearl.

 

A milky gem; it was a doll and her nickname.

My mom was once a girl and braided hair, giggling, while

Knitting with my mother to ignore the chemo.

 

I map our palmistries together,

just so that she knows the warmth of our life as,

An I.V. needle stitches against a pearl, while

My mother and I knit to avoid the chemo. 

“Grizabella, the Glamour Cat…”

for Leona  

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“Grizabella the Glamour Cat…”

Andrew Lloyd Weber

“Remark the cat who hesitates towards you.
In the light of the door which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her coat is torn and stained with sand.
And you see the corner of her eye twist like a crooked pin.

She haunted many a low resort near the grimy road of Tottenham court.
She flitted about the no-man’s land.
From “The Rising Sun” to “The Friend at hand”.
And the postman sighed as he scratched his head:
“You’d really hat thought she ought to be dead”.
And who woud ever suppose that that was Grizabella the Glamour Cat.

Grizabella the Glamour cat, Grizabella the Glamour cat.
Who would ever suppose that that was Grizabella the Glamour cat.”

-from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “CATS”

*Grizabella does not appear in T.S. Eliot’s  Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats