Teachings of the Grandmothers
We would listen to the stories of the
grandmothers as we sat around a ring
of fire.
They told us of the days of long ago when
women ruled the earth and their words
were wisdom and poetry.
It was a time when the moon called to them
as they slumbered and gave them their
dreams.
A time when they gathered moss and twigs
and made little altars where secrets were
planted and the stars were their guides.
They taught us which plants were sacred
and which ones to avoid. They taught us
to journey while sitting still.
They knew the language of the forest, bathed
naked in the river and learned from the pull of
the tides.
They foraged for berries and the mushrooms
that opened when lightning cracked the sky
and the screech owl issued a warning.
They came together and weaved stories
from the blood of their mothers and listened
as the fog twisted around the trees.
They conjured the wind to carry their
message and counted the fertile days and
divided them by the age of their sisters.
Even though we were young, we already
wondered what would happen to these
stories when the grandmothers were gone.
To All the Pretty Girls
I saw you as beautiful with your
grace, your Twiggy stature and
long, straight hair.
Your skin was Pond's soft, lips
dewy with gloss, your eyes lined
in black and nails polished to
match your fashionable clothes.
You looked like you belonged on
the cover of Seventeen.
With your dazzling smile and
perfect teeth, you walked down
the halls of our high school like
you owned it and caught the cat
calls from the boys in your hand
and blew them kisses in return.
You had a flair for conversation
and small talk and always said
the right thing. Your pout could
bring the devil to his knees and
keep you out of detention.
I imagined your home looked
like the cover of House Beautiful
magazine and your wishes were
handed to you on a silver platter.
I put you on a pedestal but my
own self doubt never imagined
yours.
Years later I saw you on a night
out and I noticed all that was once
pretty had faded and unlike you,
I was just beginning to bloom.
Bearing Witness
The moon rose like an egg from deep
within the womb of mother earth. That
night the wind was unstoppable and the
stars gathered in new formations never
seen before. The dream felt like it was
something new and ancient all at once
and I woke up tangled in the sheets staring
into the eyes of death and endured a tsunami
of epic loss. As the pieces of the dream
slowly slipped into a black obsidian hole,
I felt the pull of threads from a thousand
sorrows wind through me and felt so sad
that the moon and stars were the only ones
there to bear witness.
Eighteen
It was the night I got hammered by
a screwdriver. The night I fell from
a ladder as I reached for my dreams
and wrenched my heart on the edge
of a nightmare.
It was the night I clamped myself
to a bucket and poured out my soul.
My head was held in a vise grip of
agony as a bolt of lightning drilled
through me and I felt the teeth of a
saw gnawing at my brain.
Pounding glass after glass I became
unhinged and chaos became my
ruler. I pulled your knife from my
back and became putty in your
hands. You stroked me with the
bristles of your brush and shovelled
more lies into my mouth.
When the clock struck closing time
you pulled all the rusty nails from
my empty glass and levelled me with
an icy stare. It was then that I knew
that Alice really didn't know what he
was talking about. I had just turned
eighteen and to me there was nothing
to like.
Summer of '73
Nineteen seventy-three, the year I graduated
from high school, took off my thick lensed
wire glasses and began to look at the world
through new contacts. A world that took me
from angst filled journals to driving around
in cars with Annie Green Springs and rolling
papers. I wore my hair long and straight and
bell bottom jeans even longer. I shoved my
bras to the back of a dresser drawer and hid
tarot cards on a shelf in my closet. I read
Sylvia Plath and consulted my horoscope.
In my brother's room I saw Snoopy melt off
his dog house as the black light hit the poster
wall and I hit the bong pipe. Stoned, I watched
the vinyl spin as Neil Young sang something
about 'burned out basements' and I flew with
Pink Floyd to the 'dark side of the moon'. My
babysitting money went towards dime bags,
love beads and the latest albums. By this time
I knew Bob Dylan was the god of poets and rock
and roll was gospel. Trippin' on acid I'd watch
wax drip from the candle burning in an empty
bottle of Madeira wine and explode into canyons
of dreams. I stayed up until 3 a.m. reading and
slept until noon. Around me, freedom was all the
rage. By the end of summer I had shed my skin
and all of my childhood illusions had been driven
under ground.
Well done, Karen!
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