There was tumult and the taste of salt on my upper lip

Turnings and airplanes and cold beds with multiple siblings

Where was I and when would it stop?

The night air raids were the worst

Begun with swift pulling down of blackout drapes

Dinner and early lights out no exceptions

because they could see our quarters if revealed

from the air if we even peeped out for a moment

And we would be reported and my father black marked

They had their exercises, their military preparedness

Oiled the machines, marched the soldiers in lines

Rumbled the old tanks for some general’s visit

These dressup military games were the business of the base

Children ran amongst the converted WWII barracks

And grass grew in sidewalk cracks and behind chain link fences

One night the low flying bombers came roaring overhead

Was this the night?  Was this it?  Little heart pounded.

But, I must not stir to wake my older sibling goliath

For she would shame me for my tears

Cold tracks slid down the side of my face and filled my ears

So still did I become in order for her not to know I held my breath.

That a nightmarish world war terror flew overhead at night.

In daytime, I read of Nuremberg war trials

The Stars and Stripes newspaper reported details

In tiny print and black and white with a finger

I could string together the few words

Someone had taken off their skin while alive

How could this happen where could we be

Mother said we were invited and defeated

A great enemy who might still pop out of a bunker

We could not be sure but we stayed strong

Because we were from land of the free and home

Of the brave somewhere far away and oceans apart

My body remembered those long hours planked

inside military transport prop planes over cement gray waves

Oceans to cross and worlds away the daddy’s stayed strong

We had won a war, mommy told me, and now the world is safer

But, not for long she had to tell me the rest

That, war is caused by greed and she told my tear-stained face

That she did not see an end to greed in my lifetime.

I’m glad my mother told me the truth.

I did have two feet and if war broke out at school

I could always run home, she said don’t let them catch you

My two feet have been running ever since

They are the only things which have travelled with me

Through continents and mountain ranges and treadmill of time

My same two feet are with me now

And, what if mommy what if a melting weapon comes

And, there is no home to return to, it is gone

She said the answer is the same thing honey

To look at our two feet, and know

Those two feet are the only things that go with us on our road

And, if we someday find our homes blown and our town gone

To make peace with our same good feet,

To make our new home where I stand

And, out of that tornado of early years 

Like rock out of hobbyist gem tumbler

We are all tumbling together like this 

Small chips on shoulders grazed off by friends

If we are lucky enough the decades sculpt

Around us a geode of angles and prismatic lights

Like looking in a dressing table mirror where faces multiply

And images spill into each other forever

The kaleidoscope of childhood settles in old age

Vignettes of colored glass captured in stained glass

I can remember being seven years old

And knowing that adults kill children in war

And nobody seems to care or listen to the children.

That child is within me still

She is the voice I never let go.

I will never forget what it is like to be a child

And see how our world is killing children.

I never lost my dog tags nor forgot the children.

I have carried them with me to this day.

I have run from danger and fought life threatening mud

Over decades I have come to see the world is the same

Our planet is still burning with hate and also coral bells now bloom in the spring.

The fire is still burning and the children are still home.

Pink Moon Easter

I’ve come home again to my secret place

My forest crying tree,

The years I released my tears on her sturdy bark shoulders 

In those old days with a young family at home

I could jog in this forest and actually feel my heart,

By the second mile in, I felt so deep in the woods.

I barely made it stumbling to that tree,

I leaned in on that trusty trunk for dear life,

My knees buckling and letting my tears go

But, quietly so as not to alarm the neighbors.

Nobody heard those muffled sorrows but the crying tree and me

She always held me as long as I could not stand on my own

There was a hillock of duff at her root so soft on my knees.

I am now very grateful for all of life’s gifts these many years later

My secret place is now grown round and full under a pink moon.

Pink Moon Easter

I’ve come home again to my secret place

My forest crying tree,

The years I released my tears on her sturdy bark shoulders 

In those old days with a young family at home

I could jog in this forest and actually feel my heart,

By the second mile in, I was also deep in the woods.

I barely made it stumbling to that tree,

I could lean in on that trusty trunk for dear life,

My knees buckling and letting my tears go

But, quietly so as not to alarm the neighbors.

Nobody heard those muffled sorrows but the crying tree and me

She always held me as long as I could not stand on my own

There was a hillock of duff at her root so soft on my knees.

I am now very grateful for all of life’s gifts these many years later

My secret place is now grown round and full under a pink moon.

Flat tires, fire ants, phone solicitation

We think of you with dread anticipation

Slapstick, turtle sex, tomato jello aspic

You’re as funny as worn-out elastic

Nightmare, pickled-pigs feet, IRS

We’d be pleased if you forgot our address

Queen bees, arthritic knees, balding pates

Remember, everything gets replaced

Root canals, bus exhaust, gelatinous Spam

Must we repeat it once again?

Charley-horses, mother-in-laws, old retriever bones

We’d be happier if you just left us alone

Full moon lays a lacy wreath

Below a shadowy seckle pear tree

Red fruits shone on branches

Bent heavy with full season weight

Pearl night all the better to see

A clear parting show

Always observe fully what is lost

Before embracing new gains

I remember my father with hose in hand

A spray of water arched expertly over new lawn

His curve of smile held me spellbound on the steps

Maybe he was happy like that at bowling alleys, too

When constant irritation at six kids and three jobs receded

His bull-neck and clenched jaw slacked in momentary relief

I didn’t know then that he was from a state called Illinois

His people weren’t farmers, just poor field hands

Just as we always were, in those Army dog years

Everywhere we moved he’d test the soil

Lift palmful of dirt to his nose for inspection

Sifting and sniffing in wordless appraisal

My father could grow green grass on any continent

New blades obediently rose to heed his command

Tonight I stand and water my new garden

Smell the dampening earth and aid seedlings take hold

My own smile of deep satisfaction comes bittersweet

For there is now so much I know

So very much too late

When I was seventeen and irksome

You knocked at my bedroom door

Swore through gritted teeth

That no matter what I did

No matter what my father’s booming voice decried

That I could always come home

Later, you were fifty-five and stupified

Slouched and spreading in tacky polyester

Your red-rimmed eyes were dulled

And I came to know what price your words

That kindness born only after many tears

See how the ground bulges each spring

And listen to the migrating birds call

Their return a recurring miracle

Like your gift to us of an angel sister

Or your bedtime readings of the rhymes

And wild tales written by Brothers Grimm

I shall always feel your soft hands on my back

This March, in stone light

The season of my birth

I am coming back to you

Just as I will always come back to you

With memories of tulips and spoken books

And your fountain in the backyard

From its center spouts a blue stream

-for my mother, Anita

I picked these long-stemmed pink roses

Turning each branch three times

Checking for its best side before I cut

Each stalk trimmed to perfection

The thorned rubbed off

A tiny white plump spider dislodged

From this bouquet, the best that I have got

I took care to smell the opened petals they were sweet

Now I have a five year old firstborn, bright as a July day

Who prints her name with your old letter press set

A special set of wooden stamps you let me first use as a child

You printed Anita Janice there in Nineteen-twenty-eight

She has added her Olivia Jane below your own

On the inside of the 64 year old cardboard lid

Anita and Olivia, today I watched you walk away together

Up the ramp, off the ferry Rhododendron

Roses in hand, a seamless branch between generations