DANDELIONS

 

Perhaps I have been too hard on the housing projects of my earliest years, as if they were merely prisons to be endured. We had yards, after all, as Louie Anderson reminded me. We had clean water and our own rooms, we had a washer and a dryer, and windows which kept out the winter air. We didn't even remember that we were trash, until someone at school reminded us. I learned to play soccer, albeit poorly, with the Vietnamese kids next door, only vaguely understanding the word refugee. We slurped our ramen at lunchtime, me inevitably making a mess with my chopsticks. I noticed that they laughed more easily than others around me, my family included. They grew their own vegetables in a small patch of earth out back, chomped on radishes and green onions right from the ground, washed clean with a garden hose. I loved most the dandelions which sprouted up everywhere overnight, like a thousand suns scattered across the sloping grass. I plucked and gathered them, careful in my choosing, brought them to the back door as a gift. But my mother refused them, saying they would only attract bees, and to throw them away outside. Many years later, when my little girl placed a small bunch of dandelions in my hand, something in me lifted and something in me mourned all over again. We brought them inside, placed them in a small vase, and the bees, busy with their tireless work elsewhere, paid us no mind at all.

LAYOVER

 

When I find myself walking through the airport,

the enormous glass walls filled with sky

and my own meager reflection, ostensibly

just another middle-aged traveler wandering lost,

I am, unbeknownst to others, suddenly

thirteen years old again, traversing that strange city

of flight alone, disregarding the instructions given

to me by the kindly airport attendant, a young woman

in a wine-colored smock and neatly-tied scarf

smelling vaguely of vanilla and lavender.

I had never flown, and found myself suddenly

on a solo endeavor, anxiously en route

to stay with my brother or sister out west --

no one had quite determined where

I would end up -- the quietly stubborn kid

enamored with music and poetry, the mysterious world

of girls from which they all seemed to emanate.

My mother, who no longer wanted the job,

would be staying where she was, taking yet another

sabbatical from her parenting career.

So, I found myself on layover, hovering between

cities, and between lives, daydreaming past

the gift shops and baggage carousels,

the lounges overflowing with beery conversation

as the Cubs struggled to pull out a win.

I suppose my mother meant to impart a lesson,

but I already knew how to leave

and not look back, knew how to get lost

in the secret rooms of self, or deep within a crowd.

Overhead, I could hear the formless voice

calling out gate numbers and departure times,

the soft-spoken warnings, as if this were all merely

a game of chance, some tickets better than

others. Who could say which was which?

I walked on, only half listening, for something

that sounded vaguely familiar, the right combination

coupled with a bit of urgency, something that

would lead me, for now, homeward.

AN AFTERNOON IN EARLY JUNE

 

It was the day of our neighborhood fair, the street closed from one end to the other to make room for carnival rides, local food vendors, and musicians. Kids with faces painted as jungle cats or superheroes strode up and down, panting dogs lapped up the water left out for them. Someone at the coffee shop had paid in advance for the next person's order, a gesture which was quickly taken up by the next, and the next, on and on, each new customer surprised by this mild act of generosity. The cash register grew quiet, the tip jar was emptied and filled again. I like to think this small, impromptu ritual went on long after I left, their smiles and nods, the polite raising of their glasses, stranger to stranger. "Kippis!," as my daughter and I say at home, a Finnish toast I first heard as "keep us" -- as in, keep us well, keep us together, keep us close to the source of this love, whatever the name. Keep us here, savoring that first sweet sip the whole length of the day.

BREAKDOWN

 

When my mother returned from the hospital -- the place where I was born a few short years before -- came back after several rounds of what were then known as shock treatments, she didn't come back all the way. Her cool blue eyes seemed to be somewhere else, her words slower and distant, as if trailing behind her from the next room. When she would occasionally forget the names of my brother and me, or get us mixed up, I didn't understand. I wondered who this woman was, and whether the right mother had been sent home to us. She spent much of her time in bed, unread magazines and bottles of pills balanced beside her, monotonous flicker of the black-and-white TV her only window to the outside. But I liked when she played her guitar for us, when whatever had been taken from her seemed to return, at least in part, her voice becoming almost a smile. She would sing those old country hymns and children's songs, murder ballads which I later found she had changed the words to, for our sake. Even within the beauty of such music, she seemed to be saying, the world was a frightening place, violent without warning, and whatever path you chose was yours to walk, and walk alone.

THE UMBRELLA MAN

 

The umbrella repair man in West London

will fix yours for a modest fee,

set its broken spokes upright again,

turning expertly those pin-screws

too small for ordinary hands.

He knows all about your bad luck days,

the series of calamities that brought you here --

the time the cat ran away,

or when your car wouldn't start

and you were already late for the funeral,

the morning you were nearly blown

into oncoming traffic, your hat

carried somewhere down the road,

your flimsy umbrella turned inside out

against the maddening wind.

He's here to lift your humble sail,

to repair what otherwise would have been

tossed aside, to right and steady your course,

if only in this small, ordinary way,

to send you back into the next downpour,

calm and confident, gray rain falling

hard all around you in a nearly perfect circle,

while you remain unbothered,

as though you were some kind of royalty,

as if you were hardly there at all.

FINNISH PANCAKES

 

We stand at the kitchen counter,

my young daughter and I, mixing together

the milk, flour, sugar, and eggs by hand,

and per the family recipe, we do not measure

too closely, and are careful not to over-mix.

This recipe, handed down from her great-aunts,

and much further back than that,

is more feel than science, I am reminded,

not so different than writing a poem or falling in love.

In other words, it's always the first time.

When in doubt, add more butter,

always remember who you are cooking for,

and don't be afraid of small mistakes.

We can never resist peeking into the secret realm

of the oven as it browns and bubbles up

over the rim of the pan, as if from the earth

itself, lovely in its imperfection. Moments later,

lingonberries and maple syrup dripping

from our lips, we agree that this must be the best

batch yet -- until the next, and the next.

This is sustenance, after all, but also

a kind of song, a calling back to a world

long past, before setting out into the bright

expanse of this new day.

BLUES FOR ROBERT BLY AND HONEYBOY EDWARDS

 

Robert Bly and Honeyboy Edwards would have

understood each other well, I think.

When I saw Honeyboy, already in his 90s

by then, small and sinewy, the bones of his face

shining through, his skin polished to

an elegant sheen that only comes with age,

he was playing to a small lecture hall

at the university, and when called back

for an encore, proceeded to play the same tune

he had played two songs in. He must have

known hundreds of songs by then, dating back

to the beginning of this American century,

but he wanted us, for whatever reason, to hear

that one again -- or he was simply playing it

for his own amusement, the particular joy and beauty

of doing whatever you damn well please,

another gift granted only to those who endure.

It reminded me of Bly, reading the same line

of poetry over again, pausing, gazing up

to see if it had resonated with those in attendance.

This, too, is the blues after all -- repeating

the refrain one has just sung, letting it linger,

roll off the tongue once more, in no hurry

for the resolution that may or may not come.

There is no end to this kind of song.

When a great singer says, "Take it from the top,"

what they mean is, "Go back all the way."