March - Poem 29

Lyric to Goodbye #1 / Kathleen Bednarek

It sounds like spy code, 
but here’s how the song went: 

Yellow mailbox, this is redrose bush.
& these are your blue eyes 
& your idea about tomorrow. 

I have a surprise, it's behind my back. 
They’re closed tomorrow 
& yesterday. 
So I can’t remember 
how to return it.

Where there's a surprise, there’s something 
completely unknown—
what is it? 

I’ve returned the outline of that moment.
In the shape of what you 
could only make—

(Tape ends)

By accident / Mymona Bibi

I left the door unlocked and the keys
on the floor by accident.

I thought we were free with our
toes in the water, free from accidents.

There is a scar you forgot to touch
and a story I forgot to tell about that accident.

This birth between the night and day
was to be a miracle, always an accident.

I slipped in a puddle and saw your face
in the clouds, all by accident.

A fear of drowning is a fear of playing
and these fears were not built by accident.

Let us kiss beneath stars until they fall and burn
my skin, we are not the last accident.

FROM THEIR JOURNEYS  / Susan Hankla

World tilts on its axis   / Amy Haworth

Second world war could have gone either way 
A matter of days, hours of difference 

Today could go either way
A matter of decisions, powers of difference.

Yesterday was currents of people 
marching as one, a

Calibrating force 
A matter of unity, none cower in deference.

In Longing, I Root / Christina McCleanhan

Poetry is juiced from the orneriness of our gut.

Today, I drove a road I learned to miss yesterday…Kinniconick was pooled at the place where March always visits... hands on the wheel… air softened by old bark and dried leaves…I drove by instinct… I went to my grandmother’s cemetery… sat on her tombstone, to be close to her plot of earth. I willed her to speak… scold my disrespect…waited for her to claim me as her own…cleared sticks, stepped on soft ground…it’s good the ticks are not hungry this early in the season...I forgot to wear socks.  

Our history got caught in the river tide.

On the way, I passed through my grandfather’s town…there was no music…at the four-way stop, I found a voicemail…played it until the tires bounced onto the railroad tracks. His death made my bones ache… for the first time in six years, the summoning to visit ghosts was louder than my fatigue…I was prepared to sit in silence…Instead, I spoke to the one who designs my days. I asked Him to love me…let me be useful…show me what to build with the sorrow I hold…His answer was a symphony of lawnmower, birds, and wind.

In silence, what is carried rests.