The hosts of the holiday party had a beautiful idea: everyone would tell a story to others they met, and you would give a small card to the person whose story you liked best. Whoever had the most cards by night’s end would tell their story to the whole party. The first conversation I had was with a woman named Kristin, and I handed her my card immediately. “You’re not supposed to give up your card at the first story you hear!” said my husband, always my best counter-argument. But I knew whatever story she told, Kristin would have my card. We sat on the sofa, leaned in, and listened to each other’s stories for the rest of the night.
The Stranger: Kristin
The Word: Lineage
The poem I wrote:
“Folding origami with my children”
In the grass,
on the stone steps,
by the pond,
they fold old pieces
of daylight
into different shapes:
each time,
a new animal
and its unnamable activity.
So these
are their paper childhoods:
one drop of water
and you forget
everything.
So this
will be their lineage:
creatures made
with their hands,
stories folded anew,
sunlight, water,
and somewhere,
from earth’s
farthest corner,
a mother watching.
The Challenge: Do you have a poem in you on this word? Write one here.
November 29, 2019 at 12:52 pm
Young Love
Mom, Dad! Great news!
Your going to love my new beau!
He’s the best! He is so handsome!
And he’s so smart, don’t y’know!
He had to leave school a bit early.
It seems he was misunderstood.
That locker gun was not his, he swears,
It’s his friend’s who lives in the hood.
He almost got a high diploma.
Might still go for a GED.
With a judge’s help, he wants to serve
A thousand hours for our community.
He comes from real good lineage.
That’s not something you can fix.
He actually knows who his father is
And his mom’s some exotic mix.
He plans to get a job,
Sometime soon, next year,
He promises before the baby comes
So, you should go and have no fear.
You don’t mind if I let him stay with us?
Just until he’s back up on his feet.
If you don’t want him in my room,
He can crash on that love seat.
He promises no booze or drugs.
He doesn’t like them anymore.
He says that I keep him high.
Let’s get him a key for the front door.
You said I could date when I’m sixteen.
That’s only two short years away.
I love him so very much!
Mom? Dad? Won’t you him stay?
Meanwhile, he’s got all his peeps
On who he can depend.
He says, there is nothing better
Than a gang and a girlfriend.
November 29, 2019 at 3:01 pm
She died in the 40’s in her 40’s.
Half her children had died.
She started with two, ended with one.
Catastrophic.
Her husband died. Then she,
Leaving behind a child barely beyond childhood.
His early death eluded her.
One fewer catastrophe.
She missed the deaths of her parents and her four sisters.
Spared grief. Missed mourning.
Her thread twisted, lost its way, snapped — the frayed edges safe from losses or breezes.
Her story was silent.
Mist on a mirror.
Untold. Unknown. Forgotten or lost.
Forty years later
A child unknown to her
Looks through eyes a moment old.
Reaches back, grasps the frayed thread.
Much later the child will ask about her hazel eyes.
December 1, 2019 at 8:08 am
Born in a Box
Take the blank form.
Fill in the boxes that hang
from the limbs of your family tree.
Even the small box,
asking only the name of an uncle,
carries a story for you,
a story whispered in your ear
when you were all ears.
A story not of days long gone,
but still waiting for you
like a taxi, meter running.
This is lineage,
a history,
ending with “me”,
already headed somewhere.
December 2, 2019 at 8:33 pm
In Hawaii, where I’ve been for two weeks
Lineage is everything
Hamekamekame I, II and III are on every sign I read
The heritage is interesting
But filled with violence and Gore
Ego loomed large and life was cheap
In service to the king
I came here for Sun and waves and shore
And peace which I wanted more
So I quit reading the signs
And listen for aloha at the door
April 3, 2020 at 9:41 am
Elaine sits stoically
at the chipped pentagon shaped table
in 3 North.
One floor above,
in 4 North,
her daughter paces a walkway – also chipped.
Astonishingly, her mother is also here –
in a brick and mortar wing
reserved for the terminally ill
yet indefinitely incarcerated.
About seven miles
to the west
Elaine’s son hangs his fingers lazily
on chain link topped in coiled barbs.
The lineage of her family tree
is locked
behind concrete block, glass windows and metal wire.
It began in 7th grade.
An adolescent’s argument
with a teacher
in a struggling school of repeaters
allowed Elaine
to find other ways to get an education.
Today, she faces me.
Pencil and paper in hand,
she struggles to complete a seven-sentence paragraph
about a habit in her life
she desires to change.
Tears drop silently onto her paper
as she wrestles
to organize details
that can be the evidence
she will break this cycle
of incarceration
and free her grandchildren
from the ancestry
which has been their story thus far.