Bones and Bridges

for Micah

I think about my body,

and the way it stretches, bone under skin,

hip to knee, my knees and hips.

We started as cells in the universe,

twinkling lights and aerial somethings.

Yes, that space between my hip and knee

is enough to pull out my breath,

to get me seeing how small we start—

eyes and toes—

and there are elephants and whales,

inhaling rivers, breaching sand;

The oceans’ largest ivories could house us.

I think of skyscrapers

and the way a man looks at my smiling lips

like there is beauty inside these gaps—

shelves for miracles,

and a face that astounds.

We, life-sized and absolute,

have made our own mountains,

conquered the universe,

devoured frontiers: sea, land, sky.

We assembled steel elbows and joints,

built across rivers and continents.

But what rocks me, stops me quickest,

is the way the baby smiles—

eyelashes, fingernails —

cribbed and swaddled,

sees his mother’s face.

On his back he beams

and fuels her without words.

He knows: this is nature, this is love.

The baby’s mouth, one gap, no teeth.

His eyes catch me,

gaps, hands, faces.

Bones and bridges.

'Run For Your Brothers.'

"And I never wanted anything from you except everything you had and what was left after that too."
So listen, right now, yes, while you read. 

Some days come then go. Some come and weigh on you for the rest of your life, little moments, unacceptable realities. Certain snows on January Sundays that never melt.

Friday, four years, fast days, it did, I am, we are.

Tom, my step-dad, he wrote a poem about an umbrella once. And really it was about something much more important than that. [Now I get flustered when I see umbrellas, even in that ridiculous Glee mash-up of "Singin' in the Rain" and "Umbrella." (A high school auditorium could not handle that much precipitation.)] And I get side-tracked when I don't know how to say things.

This is what I want to say: Somebody we love died.

It was four years Friday if you ask a calendar. It's four years today if you ask a Bears fan.

But they won the championship that year. Then he went to start the truck.

I miss him in the achy kind of way, where my breath gets tight and my eyes burn. Like I'm chopping onions on the way down on the Giant Drop and I can't scream or breathe. I just sit and do try to pin my shoulders back, and stiffen my neck, and bite my cheek---to stop the burning before it becomes welling, then running.

Running. He was running. Right before that night, that game, those weeks, he was running. Not metaphorically, No I didn't say that. No listen, he was slapping his feet on pavement and pushing himself mile after mile with his little brother. They paced each other; yes, that's a metaphor. Do you hear? Do you hear their soles on suburban paths? Around waterfalls and lakes, sloughs? Can you see them in the Chicago crowd on marathon morning? Look at them, won't you? Look at them together, brothers, because I--I can't anymore.

I can't see them together.

I see the younger

and their mother

and the others,

but I can't see big brother.

Another metaphor. Where have all the biggest brothers gone?

Where have your brothers gone?

There's something we want from our brothers, and that's everything.

From the men who sit in our rows at church and talk like a Man from the Bible; our classmates who scream of insecurity and social justice; the policemen; our in-laws; musicians; actors; poets; writers; waiters; neighbors; drivers; builders; plumbers; doctors; cousins; uncles; grandfathers.

To our Brothers. And fathers and mothers and sisters and daughters, and sons--those sons are brothers.

I am unfinished. I am unresolved. I have a point yet to be made.

We want things. I want love, protection, security, commitment, consistency. I want brothers.

What do you want? Answer that--in your head, out loud, on paper, to me or yourself or your spouse--answer it. What do you want? And where are your brothers?

How well are you loving them? Have you left them behind?

"Leave all your loving, your longing behind.

You can't carry it with you if you want to survive."

Now don't you fear the paradox. Read again if you need to. Love your brothers.

This week I'm going to love mine. I don't just mean my brothers---my Tommy, my Sean, my Erik--I mean the men around me. Am I loving them? Am I being their sister? Would I talk myself to tears for them the way I would without pause when talking about an umbrella? Am I respecting his memory? I'm still loving him. Smiling at the thought of his daughter. Her brother.

Readers, an assignment: This week, love brothers well.

A treat while you reflect: Little Lion Man (excuse the language)

And always, thank you for reading.

Rage, Rage

Note: To enhance your experience in reading this poem, first read "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night," by Dylan Thomas. Full text can be found at the link here. This poem was written as a response to a piece of artwork created by an old ghost, and in tribute to Thomas's poem. A certain paradox is intended.

Autumn is on fire.
It is burning toward oblivion:
a summer camplight,
a winter hearth.
The trees are shooting flames
through crimson and pumpkin leaves.
The branches reach out
like external synapses from
a man’s brain, into the atmosphere.
And they are burning.
The light pops and pulses:
boiling blood in his veins
at the thought of a last kiss with this, his distanced lover.
The uproot-sounds of trees in the falling season
call to the edge of the universe where
the lover is alone in a winter of another world.
There she tiptoes in snow, on the spots of faraway stars,
her cogs in the sky: pegs to hold her in a gravity
that does not exist in her steps:
all the pieces of her life float in a child’s bubbles,
rising, spinning, bursting without warning.
There is darkness and air, cold and thin.
She returns from the past, from other spheres,
for the great fire of their autumnal histories.
Yes, autumn is on fire.
The season roars with his passion
for the lover who will not have him,
the girl who watches with open, dry eyes
as he moves toward the flame, knowing—
crisped and spent—they are altogether finished.
The love that calls to the borders of existence
is not sufficient to stop the heat and thickness.
The grass greens while the world burns;
the lovers smile as they join the dying of the light.

Note (Part II): If requested, I'll write follow-up posts to help extrapolate meaning from more difficult poems. Readers, let me know if you're at all interested. I understand that sometimes the mystery is more intriguing, though. Cheers, and thanks for reading.

I Wore an Emerald Gown

When I grew up, I tried to use my words,
spewed them from spoken to heard.
But they fell out like ugly music and flat champagne.
So with that we toasted abilities of the insane
and loyalties of the dead at the filthy brink
of the secrets we eat and the messes we drink.

Gowns and tuxedos floated charmingly by
but pearls and diamonds had no draw for mine eye.
Then with golden ales and foaming brews,
I let my lips fly with things about truths—
those were ugly green stories in oak tree waves
so after midnight toasts, I was branch-bound for days.

In the new year I remembered my words—
I fought to prove them truths to be heard.

Today, I Believe It

I've just started, and I'm already pretty encouraged. So thanks, everybody, for reading, following, commenting, and so on.

I had a great day with the roommates today. We went shopping up at Flatirons and I got a dress for Leigh's wedding. It didn't feel all that special, really, when we were standing at the service desk in juniors with a crazy woman named Sandra who had the glitteriest (made that one up) nails I've ever seen in my life, along with at least eight rings on her hands. She was crazy.

But as we walked out to the car, I had a moment--one of those, when did I grow up? And how? thoughts. My best friend is getting married. I'm an aunt. I'm deciding what city is the best place to plant roots in for my next move, which has potential to be the last for a long time.

And I'm finally getting my ears pierced. (No, never got to that before, but we're going in a little bit.)

I'm a person who pauses to think about life pretty often, but I'm still pretty shocked at how much of it has happened. Every time. Seasons, moments, songs, births, photos...

It just gets me.

But it's exciting: the scary kind.

Leigh will get married and slide right into the next phase of her life--newlywed-student-teaching-dom. And Concha's going on a date, a double date. And Kris is working and Chip is graduating. Annie's in college. And all the CCU freshman year friends are around, or not. Dating or single or getting engaged or whatever it is they're doing.

It's all still happening. And I'm here in the scary exciting part, watching them, waiting with and for them. Waiting on love that might someday come, or not. A career, or an opportunity, or a chance at some way to impact a world outside my own. Scary exciting. And beautiful.

My sister said something to me today that meant more than she probably realized: "You're not the kind of person someone can just drop without a thought."

I take a healthy pride in the fact that someone would even say that. I'm worth investing in, worthy of love. I forget that sometimes.

There's been cuts in these years--in my skin, at my pride, of my teammates--but I realize that I'm not a part of what's been left behind. I'm here, right here, in these places: my room, my senior year, Colorado, about to start a second job, writing, finishing. I've made the cut in a lot of people's lives, even if I got cut from the eighth grade soccer team. And I'm more beautiful for it.

I love my sister. And my mom, who made us the way we are. And the rest of my family. And my roommates. And my best friends. And everybody I've ever met really, even the ones I wouldn't say I even liked.

That's cheesey, I know. Dr. Woodruff would have a fit and write "TRITE" -- just like that, but bigger, if I had ever handed those words in for an assignment in her class. Maybe even with an explanation point. But I can laugh at it, and this: Life is trite. We live in cycles and make choices day in and out that put us where we are, and a lot of times, we repeat the same mistakes, but eventually, we learn and look at ourselves in special moments when we say, "I'm beautiful, and today, I believe it too."

----

A new poem coming shortly too! Thanks for loving me, each of you.

And as always, thanks for reading.

Everything Times Four

Eighty-four and ready for more

Grandma Becky turned 84 yesterday. That's four times the years I've lived.

I think about how the world's changed, what I've lost, what I've gained--

I can't imagine what life will be like twenty years from now, let alone forty or sixty, or sixty-three. My whole life, times four.

But she's there. Silver hair and those same old hands that aren't quite clammy and surely aren't smooth.

She's got a mark on each that proves her: angled fingers, deep wrinkles. The product of a crocheted afghan on beds and couches of each daughter, daughter-in-law, granddaughter. I can think of a dozen that I've seen, yarn with love in every stitch, as she says.

Those strings have wrapped us warm in California and the Midwest and between, and out to Boston. I should ask the widowed sister-in-law who never knew of my birth: did Grandma's stitches come abroad on the trip when the first of her line didn't return a breath of American air? Do you, Auntie, ever wrap your self in old stitches in January or May and June?

But Grandma's hands---they've rolled dough. Sour. Cookie. Aunt Alice.

They've iced and cooled and burned and held. Before meals in her pale kitchen--softer than pastels, safer than our own--her hands are what hold us to stand, not our feet.

There are stories of matriarchs of centuries ago. I don't know if the memoirs she asked for will ever be written, but that woman, B. B. Hanlon, Becky, little sister, Grandma, GG, beautiful, wonderful, spiritual, that impossible combination of grace and wisdom, she'll be one of those stories. Let's see to it.

Readers, I'll be printing comments on this and bringing them to Grandma Becky over the weekend. If you're a cousin, aunt, former in-law, CCU classmate, whatever---and you have a comment you'd like to share for her birthday, please post! She will be very blessed, even just to have a "Grandma Becky! Happy birthday! Thanks for the monster cookies and for being great!" note. If you don't have access to comment (I haven't quite figured out how that works yet), you can message or email me (emilyymariee@gmail.com). Love to all.

As always, thanks for reading.

Home

I leave,

drive,

carry-walk,

fly,

carry-walk,

stand.

I see license plates

outside Midway and

know that each of the miles between the Rockies and Lincoln's land have gone below.

I've come for you.

You're coming for me.

This Town

This town is built of poetry

with secrets drawn out in sidewalk chalk,

colors, concrete, cut limbs,

diced innocence.

The house beams are cedar conspiracies

and bricks are only metaphors

For the ties that hold houses together.

Stores stand only to hold all the words--

written, thought or told--

Piled in news columns and built in block quotes

for paper cities

and scissor-made men.

Cowboys

I sat in a ghost town saloon

with squealing doors and

cracks caked with dust on windows and mirrors.

The clouded water brown matched the filthy air

that never left me in those old days.

Then the cowboys, wild, rugged, bearded—

they pushed those swinging doors—filled

the bar, plunked piano keys, left prints.

The men came in and brought the town to life.

But they dirtied my water,

and pulled the dust from my air, and

I forgot to remember what never left,

because I didn’t feel it stifle my skin.

We were all breathing in that place

until I realized: all I needed was the air.

I sent the cowboys to their saddles,

sat alone in the saloon

to breathe with the ghost of the town.

On the Title: Not Perfect, Not Apathetic

I know, the headline makes me sound like an emo kid. Let me explain.

There has been a recurring tendency in my life to live in extremes and to practice binaries as a way of life. Let me tell you this: It's unhealthy.

The blog title "Breathing Between Apathy and Perfection" is not meant to suggest that I don't care or that I'm Whitman-reincarnate, the new standard of American poetic perfection.

It is meant to remind me in every moment I'm on the page that I live in a medium between these extremes; I should not neglect to attempt creative composition because I feel I'll never reach the apex of poetry, and I shouldn't get down on myself for that.

My hope is to bring poetry to this page so it might be shared with people who care about me or the art. Reminding myself of my humanity is only fair (see previous entry's comments on bloggers' tendency to get a bit vain) to the reader, as I hope you'll understand.

I advocate people having and pursuing passion, so let it be said that I don't mean to communicate mediocrity. I intend to present my very best work, and nothing that I find unworthy of reading. If you ever read a poem or creative piece that I've written and feel that your time has been wasted, tell me (gently! please!). Challenge me to keep a high standard--to write to you in the right place between apathy and perfection.

And now and every time, thanks for reading.

Typical Cliché "I Can't Believe I'm Blogging So Let Me Explain Myself" First Blog Post

I don't like blogs. I think they can be for good use within certain settings/individual's lives. But as for me, I just don't like them. I have fears of dishonesty and manipulation of morals in regard to intellectual property and plagiarism. I think people too easily become obsessed with their own voices (words) and become vain as a result to comments on their blogs. I think people (self included; see this post for support) make ignorant judgments about people based on their blogs, and further, that ignorant people post ignorant comments on blogs. I hate ignorance.

See how all those thoughts were about me? On to better things: peers, family, friends, community, and so on--why I'm doing this.

Some friends of mine have recently urged me to start a blog to post creative work so I can start establishing a readership. Reason being? This May I'll finish an English degree at Colorado Christian University and pack up all the wall decs I've had for the last four years and end up somewhere that isn't here. What comes next, I don't know. The hope--that is, my hope--is to work on my existing portfolio and have a manuscript for a collection of poems by September of this year. What I'm saying is, I want to be published, and I want the people in my life to be a part of my process.

So welcome. Leave comments. Send emails. Ask questions. Tell me what you think. Challenge me. Be a part of what comes next for me.

Now and every time, thanks for reading.