All sleepers seem helpless, snuggled up or spread out limp snoring a little breathing slowly completely at ease maybe some twitches when they dream, but they are not helpless. They are whole. They are sturdy.
They are filled with joy.
Category Archives: hope
Sleepers
Filed under dreams, eternal, faith, forgiveness, hope, kindness, love, mortality, prose poetry, soul, spirit, transcendence, transitions
My Mother, My Mother
My Mother, My Mother
My mother, my mother, my mother.
Where to start?
She remembered the scandal about broadcasting Elvis‘s pelvis on national television. “Elvis the pelvis,” she’d laugh.
She wasn’t a huge Elvis fan. She liked Johnny Mathis, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, Maria Callas, Broadway show tunes, opera, folk, not so much rock ‘n’ roll.
My mother, she was soft. She was a soft girl, melting on the beach, into the waves, like the sea foam in her poem. Rolling on the beach with a magical someone, merging with the waves, and like seafoam, being swept away, swept away.
My mother wanted to be swept away from her feelings, from her deep, deep insecurity and shame, so much shame, my mother carried so much shame
First for leaving her mother behind at 14, and second for coming back divorced at 21, with a toddler and an ex-husband who was capable of paying exactly zero child support. The shame.
From the infinite promise to the dust of shame, my poor mother.
So sad all the time, she just wanted to blot it out.
Once in a while she’d be happy, once in a while.
That was the rare exception, for my mother to smile genuinely, and to laugh genuinely, and her eyes would clear, and they would look at mine and I could see her in there, not just a wall of shame and fear and alcohol.
A gypsy told me once that my mother was my soulmate, and that my heart broke the day I was born, because she was mine, but I wasn’t hers. That’s what the gypsy said, of course, then she wanted $10,000 to tell me more, which I did not pay, by the way
My mother, where to start?
Like one of the white flowers that smells like heaven, but you cannot touch because you will bruise it, my mother.
Even 40 years after losing her, 40 years later, the rusty sharp knife of it can still get you, right at the belly button. Right there. A kick in the solar plexus, 40 years later, it can still happen. It surprises you.
That’s how broken I was by losing her, broken by the whole thing, the whole sad episode, never on the track of my life again, always having to stay between the lines, for dear life.
Like that time I successfully hydroplaned in my car on the interstate, my child asleep in her carseat in the back, hydroplaned and lived to tell about it at the next rest stop, where I learned that a driver ahead of me hadn’t managed to hydroplane successfully, and their car skied up and over the concrete barrier into the oncoming traffic, and they were instantly killed.
I pulled into the next rest stop, which fortunately was not far, and I could not stop shaking, and my daughter was still peacefully asleep in her car seat. I shook and I shook, and eventually I recovered and drove another 150 miles to get back to my hometown, my dear little hometown.
My mother would be proud. She loved me.
Filed under acceptance, adult children of alcoholics, birth, compassion, courage, daughter, death, divorce, family, forgiveness, grief, hope, loss, love, mother, mourning
The Man From Tomorrow, a short story
When the next big war started, Grandpa grew grave. There can be only one captain of a ship, he said. He’d been in the Navy, and I knew by ship he meant only himself. He may have steered the outside of my life, but inside of myself, inside my body, I knew I alone was in charge. I had heard all the stories about him, figuring some of them were true, some of them not.
Always remember the patriarchy was designed to raise the population, Grandpa said. Control of human bodies was wealth, before common currency. Before title, before paper, before symbols, he said. Who were human beings, before symbols? First, we drew, he said. We took sticks & pushed them through the sand, making shapes our eyes had seen. We planted our handprints wherever we felt most moved, most compelled. We drew our prey; we drew our predators, he said.
More importantly, we drew each other: the eye first. The eye contains the soul. Truth is in the eye. It is a living, breathing process, Grandpa said. Up from the roots, up through the trunk, and up into the sky. Then truth comes back again, around & around in an infinite loop. You are its center… but only for yourself, Grandpa said. In every dimension, mathematically speaking, each human being must define their own truth he said. So much science; so much language; so much sound, he said.
He had never uttered the letters C-I-A. in his life. Listen to everyone around you, Grandpa said. Whomever you decide is most trustworthy in the room, Grandpa said? Listen to them! All liars have tells, he said. Staying patient, staying calm at a molecular level is an acquired skill & takes much time to develop. And then, he wept.
Filed under acceptance, courage, grief, history, hope, human beings, humanity, mysterious, parenting, personal responsibility, politics, short stories, war
Decorating, a poem
When I went away to college,
I was just a girl who collected pigs,
painted her kitchen bright yellow,
and had a three-foot-long, satin pillow
curved like Marilyn’s lips on my living room sofa.
November 23, 2023 · 10:38 am
Prayer, a prose poem
Prayer
Oh! It happened with the first naked, helpless chicken in the oven I recognized… Mommy, get it out, let it out, I cried… chickens have their own heaven, my mother lied.
At six, I dressed as Saint Teresa of Avila for Halloween… that year, I felt sinful accepting candy. More than anything, I yearned to bless their dear hands moving with generosity toward my outstretched pillowcase.
Later, I tried bright blue skin, leading my perfumed cows to drink. I wore robe of scarlet and gold, a red galero atop my head. I wore fragrant saffron in my hair, eating nothing except fruit from the ground, sweeping the earth bare before my steps… with a broom I made myself.
I danced in green meadows, wrapped ribbons around a Maypole, reached high for a golden ring. I sank into plushy new grass. Once more, the earth herself said to me, you will be all right, you will always be all right, as I lay upon her — a small, breakable doll. I lay on my mother like that (like that) (like that) (like that) for hours, eyes shut, and felt her words eternal lift off the roof of my skull and cleanse me of my fear and shame like fast-running, silvery water.
Filed under beauty, born again, compassion, dream, eternal, faith, god, hope, human beings, humanity, love, mama, mother, mothers, mysterious, peace, poetry, prose poetry, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence
Jasmine
The old lady didn’t know she sat under poet’s jasmine. She didn’t know the plant was native to Iran and of course, she didn’t know another name for it was common jasmine. The coffee was nice & hot and her sprinkle cookie was nice & sweet. Did you know every time a love song made you cry, an angel got its wings?
So she sat at her table, outdoors in the cool shade, writing & editing & surprised every so often by a whiff of some heavenly perfume. She kept writing & smelling heaven, writing & smelling heaven. Someone once said that every love song was really about god.
For a while, she thought this gift was courtesy of a young woman at the table in front of her, but she left and the puffs of light sweet perfume kept right on puffing. She nibbled what was left of her glorious cookie. Your soul is a mirror, my soul is a mirror, she thought.
She saw, reflected in a pane of glass, the image of vines. She lifted her head and saw dozens of jasmine blossoms swaying high above, each tiny, white star the universe’s own perfumery. Right there in a coffee shop, on Sixth Avenue.
Mercy
Every moment of her life had been marked by her soul, waiting and restless, trying to elevate itself. Yearning. In the end, she had done what she had HAD to do… she recognized herself only from a great distance. Was she Mary Poppins? Pollyanna? A doe-eyed Disney princess? She remembered driving across Western flatlands, as fast as she could, her head out the window, her face into the sere wind.
She, an Air Force pilot’s daughter, felt bad for the poor stewardesses, who knew what was coming in a way mere passengers could not know… stoically dumping everyone’s shoes in the bathroom. Collecting all sharp things, taking people’s eye-glasses away from them. She remembered walking along the edges of the Atlantic, feeling the cool sand under her toes. Mother Universe keeps her eyes on us all.
Someone reached out to grasp her hand, solid & firm. She grasped back. She looked at the sun through the little window, a flashing brilliant light, and lightly closed her eyes. It would be quick, merciful, and good. And right now? Right now she was still alive. She was still a witness. There was no other way to get through life. Mercy was revealed, and blinded her. Everyone was waiting.
Rain for Remembrance, a poem
Rain
The woman sits up all night, listening to it rain. The woman has often sat up all night waiting for one thing or another to either leave or arrive: bandaged fingers, whooping cough, her own lookalike grandchildren. When she can, she sleeps next to her dying mother in the king-sized bed; she bangs her own shins on the high rails, climbing in. Her arms and hands are able to lift the wasted body of her dying mother with amazing ease.
She watches & waters the great rack of African violets in the living room; grows wheat grass for her mother’s cat. Other times, she sits in a high-backed wooden chair, needlepointing forests in wool, chain-smoking for hours. Her mother will die very soon; then the daughter will put on her navy dress with a large, elaborate organdy collar and fail to draw a deep breath for several days. The woman’s several brothers and their children will fly in from all over the country, and flower offerings will dwarf the grave itself.
After the burial, the woman will pack all sorts of mementoes into her mother’s old cedar “hope” chest: yearbooks, diaries, photographs, diplomas, invitations, programs, baby booties, baby spoons, baby cups, even a rather grisly alligator purse, complete with the head, legs, tail & feet and sharp black claws. When she has nightmares, more often now, she sits up all night, her fluffy gray tabby queen on her lap like a hot-water bottle. The cat’s purring leads the woman away from the perilous mountain passes & rocky cliffsides inside her head and back to level ground, so she can help her mother die properly. That is what proper love looks like, she thinks.
Where Does It Begin? a poem
.
Where Does It Begin?
(originally published in The Charlotte Poetry Review)
Possibly with well-steeped tea,
gooseberry jam on raisin bread,
lots and lots of idle chatter;
later, he could try daily walks
through the woods — though she
has resolved she is finished with
nature — still he persists
in pointing out the log in the creek
holding five mossy-backed turtles;
if all else fails he could try
brushing her hair in the rough manner
of a mother, offhand, impatient fussing
to decipher knots. He could place her
in a room filled with the images
of budding spring trees, on a wide,
comfortable sofa, her stockinged feet
perched lightly upon the armrest
as she reads. The sight
of the frail new leaves will work
upon her, surely? Better yet,
he could fill a bowl with fruit,
three kinds of berries,
layering green upon yellow
upon blue upon red, teasing her
with a few squares of chocolate,
protesting all the while
that he always says the opposite
of what he means. Who lived my life
until this day? she will say. I could
ask myself the same question, he will
say by way of answer, placing his hands
lightly, lightly upon her shoulders
War, a very short story
The woman thought of God a hundred times a day. A thousand. An infinite number of times. Consciousness on the quantum level. And each day, she grew unhappier. More discouraged. Bleaker. Uglier. Sadder. More uncertain. In the trenches. Wanting to know for sure, and be done with it. The big picture… could anyone see it… could anyone imagine it… could she, or anyone she knew, ever have a clue to its subject… its matter. Most people seem strong until something goes wrong. Could time really heal?
Her belly grew heavy and cold, a dizzying pit of endless space. Would she ever be able to see it through to the end? Where was the end? When was it reasonable to stop trying. When was it the right time to stop trying… too hard. Where were people when you needed them. Bullets never did any body any good. The first human-killing weapons led to more, and more deadly, machinery for war… cannons and tanks and bombers. Land mines. Napalm. Nukes. Propaganda. Poison. Secrecy. It all boiled down into the same rotten thing, in the end.
Terror. The dog barked and barked and yelped and whined and barked some more. He was single-minded; his existence that moment was all about the cat, the cat behind the sofa. She refused to be ruled by terror. She growled and hissed back. She sat just outside his reach and baited him. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it backfired. Sometimes the dog came so close to her, his mouth closed in on the long, silky fluff of her tail. He bore a complex pattern of red scratches on his black and white snout. The man wanted the cat gone in the morning. What if he insisted? The man, or the cat? She preferred the cat tonight. No telling about tomorrow.
Filed under anger, courage, death, fear, fiction, grief, heart, hope, human beings, humanity, loss, love, mourning, murder, peace, personal responsibility, prose poetry, relationships, short stories, soul, spirit, united states of america, war, wish
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 