Sunday, April 18, 2010

napowrimo: april 18

A brass door handle, a glass of root beer, and someone's grandmother
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2 comments:

Deb Scott said...

Graduation Day at Boundary Bay
by Deb

we sit, yet again
after the formalities of the morning
my son, now the proud bearer
of his own cap with tassel
(when i graduated the first time,
he was 3 and asked for mine, i
said no, you must earn your own)
he remembers this and mentions it on this day

so after lunch with more
of his four, okay, five year friends
we gather with others
(ali with us still)
at boundary bay brew pub
a bellingham favorite
for more alcohol
and laughter

i look around at this room
in which my son took refuge
in his off time
down time, in the midst of his
learning labors
beautiful old wood
planks, trinkets and posters
and brass door handles
placed carefully to look haphazard
i enhale these sights
with the hop heavy air

ali tells me they
make their own root beer
a nod to the fact that i don't drink
even though she thinks it is funny
and laughs loud and hard
when i ask for a sip
of her oatmeal brew
and make a face
but she and the others
are well on their way
still many worried hours for me
before the keg rolls out
at my son's official
welcome to student loan repayment party

my head throbs a bit
hung over from Brandi Carlile's
concert the night before
her young talent leaves me weeping
the range of her words giving me hope
for those who hear her
but the meager three hours of sleep
on the heels of the grueling drive
the day before, leave me exhausted

my feelings all mixed
on this day so long anticipated
i will curl up with them
alone at the hotel
waiting to see my son and friends
again in the morning
one more meal to buy
before i reluctanly leave
bellingham and return home

as we rise to part ways for the evening
me to bed
the rest to red plastic cups
full of brewed happiness
i feel the stiffness
so out of place in this
rocking world of youth and possibility
and i am sure that if anyone
were to notice me at all
they would think
me, my son's grandmother

April 19, 2010 at 1:41 AM
Dot Hearn said...

ears and flies
by dot

"if these walls could talk"
my grandma said, repeatedly, year after year
after year
and i wondered
what they would say because no one
ever told me

"i'd like to be a fly on the wall"
my second grandma said, repeatedly, year after year
after year
and i wondered how being a fly
would help
and no one ever told me

but now
in the basement of the house where i
used
to hate to go where it smelled like
old people
where i didn't understand the whispered words
couldn't hear them
so i went down
to the basement where the guest rooms were
still are
and there are the shelves
filled with rows of jars
colorful shining half full or full full
of candies
sticky
probably now hard and stale
and beans
furry beans with dill stems and mustard's crunchy seeds
and over-pickled cukes, sweet or sour
the higher up shelves still
geodes
thunder eggs, some still uncracked
and the polisher, its wheels, its diamonds in the rough

there are no flies in the walls
no ears in the jars
memories
of midnight candy raids
of grownup secrets we pretended to not notice
of wondering how the crystal spikes
got inside the stone eggs

April 19, 2010 at 10:27 PM

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