Influences on the Poetry of my Life
The two women you see in the above photos are my beloved grandmas. (Top: Grandma Holton, Bottom/Left: Grandma Beavers) Each taught me valuable lessons. Grandma Beavers is the one you already 'met' in my blog To Versus For. They have both passed, but I was so fortunate to have had them in my life for a time. Their presence is still tenderly missed. This is a small tribute.
ODE TO PRESENCE
Grandma in a blue striped cotton dress
standing at the back screen door,
an apron of fried chicken stains -
the one she took from its nesting
place that morning...
I ventured into her closet. I took that
dress, kept its smell. Her Vaseline jar
is still in my cabinet. Skinny lips smile
back at me as I try to run from her punishing
switch because I had no shoes on...
The other. Grandma clinging to me
as I sat on the sofa filled with constant
nightgowns of bottled drugs and soft confusion.
Her heart was fighting the empty. I pushed to
fill her with color words and roasted warmth.
Her gentle touch with fingers of long spent
dreams engulfed my veins. Lost stillness.
Told me, 'it's ok'---with eyes of relentless
torture of dark unfulfillment , hanging onto
mossy rocks in a despairing stream of fog.
Their footprints still linger with charcoal
sketchings on a blank page of white,
like fur which you cannot feel. Their indentations
are left in pillows and scents remain on door frames.
My skin is surrounded
by icy absence.
--jcbeavers 2003
ODE TO PRESENCE
Grandma in a blue striped cotton dress
standing at the back screen door,
an apron of fried chicken stains -
the one she took from its nesting
place that morning...
I ventured into her closet. I took that
dress, kept its smell. Her Vaseline jar
is still in my cabinet. Skinny lips smile
back at me as I try to run from her punishing
switch because I had no shoes on...
The other. Grandma clinging to me
as I sat on the sofa filled with constant
nightgowns of bottled drugs and soft confusion.
Her heart was fighting the empty. I pushed to
fill her with color words and roasted warmth.
Her gentle touch with fingers of long spent
dreams engulfed my veins. Lost stillness.
Told me, 'it's ok'---with eyes of relentless
torture of dark unfulfillment , hanging onto
mossy rocks in a despairing stream of fog.
Their footprints still linger with charcoal
sketchings on a blank page of white,
like fur which you cannot feel. Their indentations
are left in pillows and scents remain on door frames.
My skin is surrounded
by icy absence.
--jcbeavers 2003