Sarah
Sarah unpacks
A huge blue rucksack
Pulling out heavy produce: peppers, zucchini, garlic,
Cauliflower, cabbage, chard; and olives,
Olive oil, couscous, rice, polenta,
Bottles of wine and giant chocolate bars: no high tech
Dehydrated camping food for this
Welsh woman. She’ll carry
The real thing up any mountain,
And a plump white candle,
Too.
Sarah is ferocious, kind, dismissive, grave,
Outrageous and sublime, wrapping it all into a full warm hug
And straight look deep into the eyes. Goat milk streams ring loud
Against a silver pail,
Jetting from her fingers clenched about the teats.
Carrying the real thing, Sarah, you have carried us so far.
Now unpack your load and marvel at the climb;
Hear the garlic sizzle and make ready for the feast. |
Frédéric
Frédéric teaches me
To ski, almost by chance,
Tips here and there (so to speak).
Also to write numbers Swiss,
Prepare for School Inspectors, open apple juice,
And talk to weathermen. I act
As if I know, or half-know,
As his points click into place. But yes. Of course.
Patiently, with head tipped toward a child on the Haupthaus stoop,
He listens wholly, soon to advocate
At the intersection of ideals and children
For them both. Wooden swords and rennet,
Eagle feathers and the rising moon, Frédéric nudges into being
The universe that blessed my children
With immediacy and archetype.
At Fasnacht in a clown suit he lets loose,
Daring dicey disquisitions,
Dangerous dueling
On a bopping banjo
As jaws drop wide — Did he really say that?
He is battered but not beaten,
His raw belief sees our school through
Some of its darkest hours and his own,
Vindicated and released by a shrewd judge
Who builds a wicked narrative
That keeps us guessing to the end,
Then sweeps away the state’s case with an unambiguous avowal,
While in the courtyard
Plump red Interlaken raspberries
Ripen in the evening sun.
Now, Grandfather,
You can lay this burden down with pride,
Having seen us to the thick of a new millennium
With the wiles of a fox
But hedgehog constancy. Taste and enjoy.
The Wildschnee waits, the river and the sun, Australia.
To the next great adventure!
Salaam and thank you, who have won your gray hairs in the morning secrecy.
I have seen you there, at dawn, shaving,
As the high snows lighten on the Wetterhorn.
|
Kathleen
Kathleen jumps in, jumps out, jumps in again,
No parachute this time,
Daring, reckless, for the cause, beyond the call.
Courageous woman,
Laughing woman, talking woman, Kentuckian, big sister,
Talking woman talks it out, talks it through, talks it down,
Talks it off.
Kathleen tells me how to talk so kids will listen,
How to listen so kids will talk. I listen to Kathleen talk.
I listen to Kathleen laugh. How to laugh so kids will listen,
How to talk so kids will laugh, how to kid so laughs will talk.
Bus driver schnautzes at Kathleen. Kathleen schnautzes back at bus driver,
Then says,
You must have had a hard day. Bus driver shares woes with Kathleen,
Kathleen listening so bus driver will talk, talking so that bus driver will listen.
Listen, talk, talk, listen, laugh, kid, be:
Kathleen.
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