Golden Mourning

 

Golden Mourning was created as part of a Writing Workshop in Second Life.
The prompt was this picture from Debra Kelly Makeup Pinterest page.

Golden Mourning

by Stephanie Mesler

The sun invades too early, changing sterile white to blinding gold.

My own pale hands, yellowed in this light --

The spot next to me vacant a year to the day,

loss ferments in my gut, so much virulent anguish.

How to commemorate the day that dares to start with saffron glory

when it should have been the day the world ends?

I have prepared to face this day assuming it would rain,

that the sky would be black with clouds and the streets filled with dirty water.  

But here I stand, looking out the window toward the hill where you are buried,  

naked except for this unnatural auric glaze.

© 2021 Stephanie Mesler

Coming Full Circle

Written July 6, 2015

Coming Full Circle

By Stephanie Mesler

There are constellations I would not see and cries I would not hear,

had I not learned to live with my insides always turned out, 

exposed and bleeding, open

to life and experience, to knowledge and pain and joy and fury.

You made me who I am.  

Sometimes, I think that’s a good thing.

You were the daddy who built swings and filled my sandbox.  

You tied my rubber raft with rope so I could not drift into waters above my head.  

You made a chicken wire playpen, so that I could crawl on lush bluegrass 

while you read the world’s great books, sometimes out loud, 

and sang me opera and spirituals and talked with passersby.

You were the unpredictable dad, who sometimes went AWOL,

who was quick to rage, impossible to please.  

Sometimes, you hit.  Often, you bullied.  

You were competitive for me 

and against me.

You were the father everyone envied

because I did not tell them what might have made you look less than…

I tried to be one of your accomplishments

It was never enough.

You did not love 

the daughter,

the girl,

the child who could not be molded in your image

I tried to get it right,

dated men like you,

men you mostly hated.  

You saw yourself in them and could not look in the mirror without flinching.

That is, I suppose, a sign of...something.  

Through the decades of my life

I have fallen again and again into the trap of happy memory,

allowed the danger of relationship to be outweighed by shimmering, gooey, optimism.

Last time ‘round, I said I was done, and I am.

Now, we do not speak --

having hit a wall too high for me to climb again 

(I’m not young anymore myself, you know)

I slammed a door shut behind me so that you can never again walk through uninvited.

When I think of you, it is mostly in shades of yellow and blue, happy thoughts that tell half the tale:

the Christmas of 100 books,

singing together from a balcony,

watching live ballet,

the way you cooked white fish in red sauce when Mom was away,

how we made up fantastic stories about complete strangers to pass the time on long trips.  

I remember the charm and humor, the intellect and art.  

There are dreams I would not have,

stories I could not tell, 

songs I could not sing,

had it not been you Mother chose, though no one will ever know why she did.

You will be dead soon.

For better or for worse, that will bring relief.

Then, I will dispel the somber murk of darker memory and 

create a vast and glowing void to be refilled with more of what made you Daddy.  

In my fantasy, it is safe to be your child,

safe to open the door one last time before it’s too late,

safe to say goodbye, face to face.  

I will one day write that scene, though it will never happen.

I will give myself the gift of coming full circle.  

© Stephanie Mesler 2015

Black Bird January 7. 2021

Black Bird January 7. 2021

By Stephanie Mesler

Black Bird, I see you there,

alone on the tip-toppiest branch of the barest tree,

just the other side of the building across the pool from where I sit, 

eating my breakfast in silence,

trying not to disturb others isolated in this time and place with me,

waiting for the contagion to pass,

for covid-19 to take its leave.  

Husband growls almost inaudibly at his work computer.

Daughter studies.  

Dog and cat sleep at opposite ends of the couch in determined ignorance of one another’s presence.  

I don’t mind the quiet; This day, I relish it.  

It is the morning after the almost-coup.  

I am emotionally and physically drained.  

I hunger for silence; in it, there is peace.  

I see you there, Black Bird.  

You wait.. Listening…

Wind gently shifting the bare branches around you.  

Somehow, you are still and solid, unmoved,

there on that  tip-toppiest branch.  

You are strength.  

You are peace.  

© Stephanie Mesler 2021

New Poem: Election Day Eve 2020

 Election Day Eve 2020

by Stephanie Mesler

He commands an army of duds with nothing better to do and nothing much to lose.

They fly his machismo flag over their trucks with big dicks.

They stop traffic and make noise, demanding attention - 

dateless boys who can't get a girl into the backseat without threats or bribes or both.  

They're proud now,  their king is proof that human shit can be shitty and still bask in glory.

They shout for a while and laugh -- they think they own the road and that's enough for the moment, owning the road is proof they can own the world.

But no one pays attention to toddlers stamping their feet

Traffic backs away or goes around them, spinning gravel, ignoring their tantrum.

They are alone with just each other and their combined insecurities.

They have no binkies and no blankies.  

They are cold and hungry and afraid.  

They go home to bed without any cookies.

Perhaps tomorrow they will grow up.

Election Day Eve 2020 is © 2020 Stephanie Mesler 

New Poem: Remembering Love

 Remembering Love

By Stephanie Mesler

Will you think of me as the wind blows across a mountaintop and will you know that it's me brushing my fingertips across your back, shoulder blade to shoulder blade, so slowly that it's like not moving at all?  

Will you remember that my eyes are the color of borage just after it's rained and that I love the rain, even when there is work to be done in the garden?  

When you taste bergamot and lemon, will it transport you to that tea shop we found at the edge of that town that wasn't big enough to have a stoplight?  Will you wish for the cookies that were iced with rose water by the man who looked like he could raise a cadillac over his head and toss it into the river that ran outside his kitchen window?  

Will you hear my voice at night when you sit alone on the porch, waiting for moonlight to fall on our willow for the 100th time since I left?  

If a winter storm comes and icicles hang from the gutters, will you see how they sparkle in the sun and know that I would have cried for their glory?  Will you leave them hanging until they melt because that's what I would have wanted?  

Will you wish for me to return?  Will you waste the years after me, remembering?  

I want you to forget.  

Forget how much we needed one another and how we swore to be one another's one and only.

Forget the promises and the vows.

Forget the pain.  

Remember only that our life together was no miracle, 

That we had love because we were love.  

We earned love because we did love.  

Remember this - love begets love.  

I want you to love again and remember that we taught one another what is possible.

Do not settle for less.  

Remembering Love is © Stephanie Mesler 2020

Weeping For My Old Hometown

Weeping For My Old Hometown

by Stephanie Mesler

I weep.  

My old hometown is on fire.  

It is burning with the fury of a thousand mothers whose sons were shot just for living in dark skin.  

It burns with the fear of old men who once held power just because, but are now told they must earn a place around a table that used to be rectangular.

It burns with the passion of the ignorant who follow whoever makes them feel smarter than...well...smarter than they are.  

I weep.

My old hometown is shattered glass and broken beams.   

I watch on my phone as my old friends make themselves shields.

They use their white skin 

(not really white at all, BTW, more like slightly pink)

They use their pink skin to get between the men in blue 

(not really blue at all, BTW.

Except where they are swathed in camo, like they think they are going to war on Main Street, these men in blue are covered in black, head to toe, even the weapons strapped to their belts are shiny black.   

They look like they wanna join Vlad’s Alpha Group and fight for domination of a continent.  Their horses are black and so are the clubs they use to beat back resistance.)

My old friends use their pink skin to get between the men in blue that isn’t blue and the people of color.

And they really are colorful, these people; their skin comes in many shades of brown, from tortilla to umber and everything in between.  

I watch as the men in blue that isn’t blue open fire, sending rubber bullets into the shins and bellies and faces of the pink.

The rubber bullets bring my old friends to the ground where they are trampled as the men in blue that isn’t blue move on the people of color, raising their black cannons and firing orange gas at the crowd.  

All the while, even as they go blind and fall, they chant:  “No justice, no peace.”  

I weep.

My old hometown is flooded.  

Blood is in the streets.  

The river overflows with the blood of the city herself

She’s been cut by her native sons and daughters as they sort themselves out, 

many generations later than expected, 

probably too late to save my hometown.

She will die because she does not deserve to live.  

She will be a memory, a page in a future history book, a wikipedia entry about the city once ruled by men in blue that wasn’t blue.  

I weep.

My old hometown is gone.  

There are no more untended flames threatening the safety of the many.

All that shattered glass has been used to decorate a new city’s towers and spires that rise toward the sky.

The blood is gone from the streets and pulses through the veins of living men and women who come in enough rainbow colors to populate their own big box of crayons.  

From a distance, you can hear that blood thrumming and feel the city’s pulse.  

My old hometown glistens, reflecting the faces of its people, all of them.  

I weep because my old hometown has made me proud.  

Copyright © Stephanie Mesler 2020

Tough As Nails Triolet

Tough As Nails Triolet

By Stephanie Mesler

Tough as nails,
like Grandma's legendary will.
or alligator scales.
Tough as nails,
with the strength of a scorpion's tail,
ready and willing to kill.
Tough as nails
like Grandma's legendary will.

© Stephanie Mesler 2019