I was in New York City with my person for our tenth wedding anniversary, and we had with us our young. The kids had kick-scooters and our second day there we easily covered six miles while following an itinerary that included a ferry ride, a transit museum, bagels, ice cream, several parks, and a sea-glass carousal. By 9:30pm our kids were in dizzy-night-land, where kids go when they find themselves awake in a strange city after bedtime, intoxicated by seeing an unfamiliar world in the dark.
We ended our day near Battery Park, scootering around a sculpture made up of rounded metal walls, like silver petals coming out of the ground, each petal encrusted with thousands of crystals that sparkled in the streetlight. It is called “Sunrise, Sunset (Revolution),” and a good-natured security guard, Rahsaan, was keeping watch. He reminded us to touch it softly, if we touched at all, and then asked where we were from.
His response I will never forget. I think he had expected us to say somewhere closer, and his entire face lit up with recognition. “Idaho!” he cried. “Potatoes!” He exuberantly shook my person’s hand. “This is the family to meet. Idaho,” he said, nodding to a person sitting nearby. “Best potatoes in the world.”
The Stranger: Rahsaan
The Word: Peaceful
The poem I wrote:
It was flu shot day, small hurt
to avoid big hurt, and I promised
ice cream after.
Sugared, she ran
from me and the sidewalk tripped
her before she hit traffic.
Small hurt: such relief. Still
she bawled, understanding only
the blood on her knee.
I found what I needed
on the road, told her, Look.
It used to be a squirrel. Now just
distended teats, flat skull,
intestines strung about, brown and red
like seaweed.
How long we looked.
I cannot say all she saw, but she says
she remembers.
Already she believes
Life is a peaceful affair,
a series of small
hurts followed by
conversations, and perhaps
my job is well done.
What I needed her to see, I think,
was the ultimate hurt,
and how everything we encounter
before it has beauty,
which is to say
sacredness, fascination, and luck,
and not-always-measurable distance
from what scenarios lurk just further
down the road,
their guts spilling out,
bidding us to look,
to look and remember.
The Challenge: Do you have a poem in you on this word? Write one here.