This Big Little Life

I stood behind your scooter as you joked around with the grocery cashier who played along and said, “Come on now ma’am, there are ten people in line behind you”, and since it was just me standing there, you turned and said, “You hear that? You’re worth ten.” Almost 100 years old and still down with the quickness. On the way home we visited Opa’s grave. You showed me your spot next to him and said, “So you’ll always know where to find me.” You asked if I believe in God and I said, “Absolutely, I do.”

Tea, cookies, chocolates, macaroni, I wasn’t allowed to help with anything that day except the dishes, which is nice since there is nothing better for a mother than to be taken care of every once in a while. You mercilessly destroyed me at Yahtzee, with dice that we’ve played since before I could count, and you laughed maniacally all the while. Old memories surfaced that I had not heard before, like when your family first got electricity in the house and you took turns with your siblings flipping the switch once the streetlights came on outside. Favorite stories repeated about little me, like when I used a top-shelf word on the bus and the driver thought you lied about my age to get a cheaper ticket.

You certainly have not understood every decision I’ve ever made, but your pride in me is so tangible that I can lean on it when I need to lean. When times come to bear the unbearable I remind myself of everything that you have lived through, and what you have conquered, all in your own big little life. Mother of nine, grandmother and great-grandmother of I’ve lost count, there is a small army of stubborn, defiantly joyful, radiant know-it-alls living their own big little lives who wouldn’t exist without you. I get to live this big little life because of you, and God knows it’s a gift. I know that we can’t keep you forever and that you’re ready for the other side, so I will try to be ready to let you rest. I get my strength from you, and I am thankful, Omi. Today I am most thankful for you. Try to wait for me if you can, and if you can’t, I will see you on the other side when my own big little life comes to its end. You know, when I’m almost 100 and still down with the quickness. I love you.

-Thanksgiving, November 24, 2016

Think of Something Beautiful

Like when we ran laps around
The house in France, crawled
Through yellowed grass avoiding
Slugs, bare arms and legs
Sidled up to blue spruce
Tall and scented memories

Parents on the porch, pretended
Not to hear or see our spying
Game breathlessly narrated
Imagined, our minds turned inward
Porch-shaded wine and olives
Invisibility cloaked kids

The spiders hovering with babies
Beneath the windowsill we climbed
Through, careful to avoid
Their round creepy bodies
With our stucco scratched knees

We named the two ponies that lived
Down the bubbled asphalt road
That ruined shoes when we stepped
Past the barking shepherd, and past
Our Great-Uncle’s house, three
Aging brothers on one country road

Uncle Bernard had blackberries and
Uncle Jacques had fish, koi or gold
Opa had the round pool we whirled
Les oiseaux se lavent dans la piscine
Buckets of fromage neige
French voiced anime cartoons

In the mornings, we sang Beach Boys
Jumped antique beds against the rules
From one to other, and yelled
International nonsense about
Eskimo ice cream to the boys, across
The street next to the pigeon house

Read and re-read “Kruistocht
In Spijkerbroek” the translation
Of which doesn’t deserve to be
Named and maybe I’ll rewrite it
Flashlit in tented walls
On the nights we slept outside

Too dry earth once crumbled
Beneath my feet as I turned
And fell into the ditch with
Queen Anne’s Lace and white
Morning-glories, when we would hike
I found a baby bird one time

Brought it home and tried to save it
But magpies eat meat not seeds
So I didn’t, but I tried

Gasoline still smells like Opa’s garage
In my mind, hay rolls and burning
Brush only belong in Meillonnas
Childhood scented memories

– November 1, 2016

*Note: This poem was published by Vox Poetica on March 1, 2017