P A G E 11
N O R T H C O A S T T IM E S E A G L E , MARPRIL 2004
i
FORGIVENESS
THE WAY IT USED TO BE
Even through the booze
my dad was smart.
One year for the science fair he helped me make
a set of scales with an old broom handle, rubber bands
and sour cream containers.
We used to launch our inner tubes from Little Big Creek
in the icy water as early as April if
we could talk Mom into it.
She would follow alongside the stream
over barely paved roads
in the station wagon,
waving wildly, a m. radio turned up, all the windows down
as we floated two to a tube.
With shaking hands he used his set of
metal fishing weights to lower the buckets
while he marked
6 oz., 8 oz., 12 oz., along the broom handle
with a pencil he sharpened to a precise point
with his pocket knife
all the while singing mama don't let your babies grow up
to be cowboys
under his breath.
Seeing the overpass in the distance
we knew to look for a tree branch and grab hold
till she came along to load us up
take us back to the top for another ride.
Back home she would lay newspaper over low tables
setting big pots of crawfish, steamed clams and crab
fresh from my Dad’s pots while we each hovered over
our own cereal bowl full of butter to dip in.
He wasn't there when I won a prize
but it felt like he was.
There used to be a picture in our living room of my mother
in a creamy floor-length polyester dress
with a lacy shawl she must have ordered in advance
from the JC Penny catalog since no store in town
would have sold such a thing.
THERAPY
MELINDA BECK
My father is perched next to her on the chair
crisp shirt, dark socks
shoes with only four eyelets each
leaning towards her smiling in a way
that only older children remember.
EPITAPH
After my Grandma's funeral,
her only sister didn’t even come to the Moose Hall
for a piece of cake or
a drink.
She said it was
a long drive home
and she had to get back
My mother used to protest in the background
when my dad let me go out on the boat
to lay gillnet in the cold evening river
then get up before morning
to skip school & eat lemon meringue pie
for breakfast at the Svensen Café
before riding over gravel along the dike road
in the log truck for his first haul of the day.
My best friend didn't come at all.
She said she meant to.
It was what she wanted to do.
But she didn’t. She called a florist to send
flowers.
We would listen to Kenny Rogers sing about gambling
And call to my uncles across c.b. airwaves.
Dad would tell about sharing schoollunch with his
little sister & eating the round half of the sandwich
because she was afraid
it would keep rocking in her stomach.
In college, people used to ask me where I came from
even after I had told them. Give me something I can use
they would say. Your map is too small
to be of any help to me.
When I had my oldest child my Grandma
cashed in her Supersaver to
fly home early from
Las Vegas even though she had tickets for
Wayne Newton’s show that night and
she even brought me a keychain
from Harrahs.
The first time I went was after my divorce.
I had lost thirty pounds and was dating a man
half my age.
The doctor said this was all normal and gave me
Prozac.
The second time was after my mother died.
I couldn't get out of bed and the world seemed to be turning
slowly on its side.
The doctor told me I needed to grieve,
let me talk and burned candles in memory.
The third time I went,
I couldn’t stop worrying. My shoes had to be lined up facing North
by the door and I would leave the water running when I went to the
grocery store.
The doctor told me to wear a rubber band on my wrist and
snap myself every time I felt like worrying.
The last time I went, I told the doctor,
sometimes I just feel sad for no reason at all. My children seem
far away and some days I don’t feel much love for my husband.
I was hoping for the pill again but she just
bought me a cup of coffee and
sent me home.
BROWNSMEAD STORIES
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1 stopped drawing a line with a patient finger for strangers some time ago.
They have stories with beginnings and ends & prefer
places easily found & enthusiastically described
in guide books. 1 think it saves them the trouble
of finding anything.
IT’S POSSIBLE
TO BE A POET
There's a road, half gravel half pavement in a far country
with my last name on it.
The world used to be so small
I could walk down that road
to get to Brenda Saukko’s house or past
Auntie Mabel’s bobbing floathouse
or even the gnarled tree that grew the gravenstiens my
mother and grandmother made into sour applesauce.
V V
It’s possible to be a poet
and still raise a child,
though there’s no stability in it.
> ‘
It used to bfe I didn’t realize that not everyone comes from a place
with creeks that run swift & clear,
wireless roads lined with stacked sandbags to keep
water in its place & gravel paths alongside
rivers that beckon in the night.
You feed her stanzas for breakfast,
watching her crunch through some
and leave others sogging in the bowl.
It use to be that 1 would spend time wondering
what such people used for a guide
or what they considered good fortune.
You clothe her in similes
and metaphors,
draping them like silken and linen threads
over her smooth, white body
FOR MY LITTLE SISTER WHO CAN'T
REMEMBER THE GOOD TIMES
You house her with words
no fire can burn down
Listen. Can you hear the creaky alders rattling out
familiar names over and over in the branches that make a canopy
vaulting our mother's garden patch. In the distance, that's the sound the jake
break makes when the log truck crests the hill and starts down the other side
to home.
And your pen guides her
through all the days
of her life.
If you turn into the elbow of my road slowly enough,
the air stands still and hovers over Blind Slough.
The water twists wide like a freeway then narrows into a logjam ride
into the underbrush, joining the river and heading out to sea.
More people pass over the road like Lewis & Clark
looking for an ocean or a bridge. Hobos stayed long enough
for a hot meal marking the parallel railroad tracks with
chalk signs at friendly doors.
Despite my drops of island and city blood, I never went to town much.
Like the Finns and Norwegians before
the land and the climate said home to me.
Nowadays, most roads are paved and
I live among houses where everyone thinks
they’ve got a name. Sometimes the Mayor buys me a drink and
even Old Highway 30 has turn lanes.
In the next years, they say, 30 million people will pass by my road
looking for an ocean or a bridge
I say most of them
will just find a souvenir.
Bend your cheek down near your daughter’s
brand new one. Ask yourself if you really believe that much
in tuck. Look closely.
Whether you know it or not, you’ve been here before.
See the houses that sit so close, gathered together like old ladies on
one side of a large table with many empty seats.
Notice they all have the same shutters,
kittens, baskets of socks, rolls of waxed paper for wrapping
sandwiches to send off to work.
Let's pour out the last of the wine. If my glass comes up fullest,
let me make it up to you. I have
an agate in my jewelry box Mother and I
picked off Road’s End Beach in Lincoln City just about the time
you were born. I’ll give it to you.
Put it in your pocket so at odd times of the day
your hand can go to it
smoothing its glassy sides.
It is showing you a history that you can’t remember
But surely can tell.
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EULOGY FOR GRANDMA
I opened the gate in your backyard
at Sunset Lake
so I could go back to the dock behind
the trailer
and feed the ducks
soft slices of fresh Wonder bread tom
into little pieces
one more time.
OPEN YOUR MIND
M ental Illnesses Are Brain Disorders
NAMI CLATSOP COUNTY
373 ALTADENA, ASTORIA + 325-3733
An affiliate of National Alliance for the
Mentally III and of NAMI, Oregon
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