Si es verdad
que en el cuerpo
humano,
cada célula se repone
en el trascurso de
siete años,
eres, entonces
un hombre nuevo–
y yo soy una mujer
diferente de
la que conociste
al atardecer
con el viento que soplaba
al mar.
Nuestros cuerpos,
hasta las células
cerebrales
donde viven las memorias
más secretas,
nunca se han conocido
el uno sin
el otro.
Tag: love
The Day of The Dead
Yesterday, November 2, was The Day of the Dead.
I love The Day of the Dead. We don’t really have The Day of the Dead in English (as my different lives are divided in my mind); I didn’t learn about it until I got to Costa Rica. Then when I heard it named, I thought it sounded awful. I’m already not a huge fan of Halloween (gasp) because I don’t like gory/scary things—and now we have ANOTHER day about dead people on its heels? Great.
But, lucky for me,The Day of the Dead is just the opposite; it’s a fiesta in the cemetery. And maybe there’s a clue as to why it isn’t celebrated where I come from: November is not exactly picnic weather in most of the northern hemisphere. That and to celebrate it properly you have to believe or at least tolerate the idea of saints and souls and other non-Mennonite/Puritanical stuff.
On The Day of the Dead in Latin America or where ever it is celebrated, people take flowers (real, cloth, plastic, home-made) to decorate the graves of their dead. And streamers and bows and every cheerful colorful thing you can imagine. They take food and gifts and in some countries spread picnic blankets on the grass and have meals with their deceased loved ones. Children run around and siblings squabble about how to place the decorations on grandma’s grave and dogs are constantly being scolded and ants crawl on the sandwiches and everybody is wearing their colorful best. Forget ghosts and goblins and fake bloody hands poking out of the grass.
I didn’t have very many dead when I first came to appreciate the celebration, and none at all in Costa Rica. Now I have them everywhere.
* * *
I cannot take flowers to all of my dead or even name you all anymore. You are from too many times and in too many places. But I am having a fiesta for you in the place I have buried you in my heart. It is covered with flowers and streamers and there is cake for everyone, including:
Janelle
A high school classmate who died in a car accident while we were still students. She is the first friend I ever lost.
Jenna
A few years older than I am and I worshiped the ground she walked on in high school and college. Everyone expected her to recover from Hodgkin’s’ Disease in her early 20s.
Grandpa Zimmerman
In his mid-seventies when he died of complications from a stroke or of a heart attack.
Great Grandpa Horning
Died in his sleep in at age 105.
A girl in college whose name I forget. I didn’t know her.
Disappeared while she was driving to her mother’s house and was found much later, murdered.
Jorge (Papa)
My Costa Rican father and he died of liver failure. Or that is how I remember it.
Randal
A friend in Costa Rica who died driving drunk on his motorcycle.
Oneida
My friend’s perfect 10-month-old perfect baby who flew out the window during a car accident and the angels took him away.
Uncle Earl, my dad’s brother
He was struck by a car while he was getting the mail out of his mailbox.
Jon
A close friend in high school and then we lost contact. He died a few years ago from complications of brain cancer surgery.
Chuck Cook
A father figure in Costa Rica who died of cancer.
Martin (Saul)
My ex-father-in-law who was kind and I loved him. I don’t remember the name of the disease.
Rafaele
A neighbor in Costa Rica, a butcher from Italy who was always joking and smiling. I did not expect that he would hang himself.
Lucho
We had Christmas dinner together in Costa Rica the year before he went to prison where he died.
Grandpa Brubaker
Starved to death as a result of advanced Alzheimer’s in his early 90s.
Grandma Brubaker
Died a few days after a massive stroke in her early 90s.
Lara
Crazy guy who used to cut my hair
Grandma Tina
Saul’s mother who lived to be 100. She called me her granddaughter and told me the best stories I ever heard while her mind was clear.
Grandma Paula
My other grandma in Costa Rica, matriarch of matriarchs.
Nazim
My friend in Costa Rica who always called me “Lady Di.” He died of a degenerative disease I cannot name.
Barbara
My dear friend Barbara disappeared a month after I left Costa Rica and is still missing.
A New Stepmother Story
i want a new story
where the stepmother
is good
where the mirror
is just a mirror and
she was never all
that fair anyway
i want a story
where the little girl
falls asleep in
her arms (i can
tell you one myself)
and the brothers
grow into men who
pick her up off the floor and
twirl her in squealing circles
when she walks through
the door
i want a story
where the stepmother
sees the girl turning
into a woman and
tells her about tampons
takes her to the mall
buys her blue jeans
listens to her secrets
promises not to tell
and doesn’t
i want a new story
(may I have a fair chance?)
where a finger prick brings
band-aids and the good stepmother
herself kisses
sleeping beauty
Quisás Así
nos hemos hecho
viejos, sabes, y todavía
te escribo poemas
yo me parezco a mi
mamá y tú
me asustas en lo
igualito que eres a
tu papá cuando
primero lo ví
se nos salió
todo mal, debo decir
o quizás
así es el verdadero
amor eterno
Embrace
swallow me
with your mouth
swallow me
with your arms
open wide and take me
down
bury me
in your belly
press me
to your heart
(hold me like a baby
hide me like a seed)
Hielo
otra vez
me esperaste
detrás de la cortina
del sueño
te sentaste
en el suelo
cerca de la puerta
volviéndome a ver
con esos ojos
pozos
me hablaste por
primera vez
por fin después
de tantas
en verdad
me has estado siguiendo estos
veinte años sólo
para pedirme
hielo?
Everything But the Words / Todo Menos las Palabras
(The same poem first in English, then in Spanish because I try to pick my favorite one and I can only pick both)
i remember the night you
borrowed flavio’s blue car
the bottom halves of trees i
could see through the
window where
we stopped along the
dusty road
what did we say to
each other
that night i
remember it all but
the words
* * * * *
recuerdo la noche en que
prestaste el coche azul de flavio
los troncos de los árboles que
veía por la
ventana donde
paramos en el
camino polvoroso
qué nos dijimos
esa noche yo lo
recuerdo todo menos
las palabras
(from Tell Me About The Telaraña, 2012)
Nido
me acurruco en
el nido sedoso de
tu pelo dorado.
if i were a squirrel
i would make my nest
here.
si supiera
te embrujaría
amor.
(from Tell Me About The Telaraña, 2012)
July night
Open the window
love
We can sleep
in the sky
that slips in
softly through the
screen
Black milk night
swirls around
our bellies
while we dream of
being born
at dawn
El Arcoiris / Para mi Ahijada
Ama como si te estuvieras ahogando
y siempre primero
a ti misma. Piérdete, y no
tengas miedo; cada día
hay un nuevo sol.
Saborea todo.
No esperes nada.
Mírate al espejo para no
olvidar.
Camina con la cabeza en alto.
Baila con el pelo suelto.
Canta a todo pulmón.
Cuenta las estrellas.
Bebe del rio.
Tírate al mar.
Porque la vida
es una
las noches
son largas
el corazón es de carne
el alma es de nubes
y tú eres
el arcoiris
hoy
Suitcases
You are sitting there in the living room with your shoes on and your hat.
And the tv is off which is impossible.
And there are suitcases beside you.
You say you are leaving. That much I can see for myself.
You say you shouldn’t have come here in the first place.
You say I don’t love you.
You say you read that in my diary.
I don’t say anything.
Clearly, you have helped yourself to my words.
You say the driver will be here for you any minute and he is.
I say goodbye.
The first time you left me you snuck away like coward and I nearly died of grief and rage.
But you begged to come back.
Maybe I wanted to see you walk away like a man; watch you walk out the door with your shoes on and your hat.
Maybe I wanted to remember you as the back of a hat and two sets of white knuckles clutching your suitcases.
Prayer To The Mantis
teach us, mother/sister
the moment for teeth
we are tender-skinned creatures
seduced by softness, softened
by a slow caress and close
breath
teach us, show us
when and where –
quick
before limbs are unraveled
just
below ear, left or right
(A very old poem I wrote once up on a time when I was very mad. It wasn’t supposed to be funny, but…)
Talking to Myself 