Push, Soar, Thud, Rescue

Edgar Degas, Three Ballet Dancers, One with Dark Crimson Waist 
1899 (170 Kb); Pastel on paper, 23 1/4 x 19 1/4 in; Barnes Foundation; Photograph by Charalambos Amvrosiou 

Push, Soar, Thud, and Rescue

I pushed myself.  I wanted the chance, you see.  Without the afternoons, Saturdays, hours alone, there’d be no Firebird, no Swan Queen. I was greedy-not for name fame, never that. What pulled me was having the stage, the music, the risk, the irretrievable moments-all to myself. You, in the audience, all to myself. And if you’d be there, rapt, I would give you everything, all that I had. And I knew our spirits would dance together.

By the time I was ten, play was all but over. I had too much work to do. My legs didn’t lift as high as they needed to and clumsiness interfered with fast, intricate footwork. I took more classes; got on the train after school so that I could take class in a studio in another town from a different teacher, one who didn’t care deeply for me, as my first teacher did. I practiced in the basement at the barre my father installed. Down there on the cement floor, somehow missing the poles that supported our suburban house, I flew to the allegros in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, suffered with strange longings when the slow themes took over my child’s body. There are children who dance, play piano, write poems, sing, long before experience informs them, and yet they get it right. I don’t understand this now, and I certainly didn’t understand it then, but I danced to Chopin with emotions I had no names for, would have no names for until adulthood when I christened them.

As a teenager I wore tiaras and was partnered by princes. Finally I could take some pride in my “line,” my extensions, my pirouettes. For a brief, innocent time, dancing was joy. But I moved to New York and more accomplished dancers were everywhere. Passion and “musicality” were not enough; I needed strength, technique.  I studied under teachers who were gifted, cruel, inspiring, relentless, and impossibly sophisticated. The worst they could do to me was ignore me in class.  Indifference was devastating. Of course I cried, but I-never considered quitting. I was aware of a larger world, cared about it too, but dance was where I lived, had lived, continued to live, even successfully, even with some fame, until I turned thirty and tore my Achilles heel; the ironic injury. A month went by without daily class, then two, then the doctors advised limits. Two hours a day, then two hours of rest. No jumping at all. Idiots! They understood nothing.  I stopped dancing and landed with a thump in a flat world, old at thirty. I deconstructed and became a sodden heap, without motive while dance slowly, painfully drained out of me. After living through two stark years of empty spirit, humble wishes (hardly ambitions) rescued me: I wanted only to walk, head erect, feet on the ground, simply and, possibly, with grace; I wanted to regain dignity, but only my rightful share. I learned, slowly, to extend, to stretch, to share in an off-stage world, without the practice, without techniques. I am still learning.

Sleeping with Lowell Nesbitt

I’ve just returned from my January poetry road trip. I grew up in a family with a penchant for traditions. It seemed if we did anything two years running, on, say, Christmas Eve, it became an annual practice for us and I’ve continued to roll the same way as an adult. So, even though there are excellent festivals and conferences for writers during the other eleven months, trips in January to study with poets has been my tradition for four years now. This year my imperturbable 2005 Buick LeSabre and I drove to New Smyrna Beach, Florida, for the Blue Flower Arts Winter Writers Conference at The Atlantic Center for the Arts. (Lots of capital letters needed for that sentence, eh?)

Marjorie's writing table

On the way, (sort of) I stayed at a B&B in Micanopy for two nights. I’d been off B&B’s for awhile. I suppose I became weary of gimcracks. This one, Herlong Mansion, is on the National Registry of Historic Places and is, more importantly, only a few minutes away from Cross Creek State Park, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ farm. (I’m not going to be bothered by capital letters from here on. They can appear, or not, as they will.) I had a chilly morning at the farm, saw the small table on which the author wrote The Yearling, her nonfiction books, and her astounding short stories, (try “Jacob’s Ladder”) saw the tiny guest room and the single bed that Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Maxwell Perkins, Robert Frost, Gregory Peck and lord knows who else slept on, picked tangerines, with the park ranger’s permission, (frost was on its way) soaked up as much of Marjorie’s aura as I could, and in the afternoon meandered through a few antique shops in the tiny, no stoplight town of Micanopy, the oldest inland town in Florida. At the Mansion I had the Carriage House and there was a huge jacuzzi tub smack dab in the same room as the bed! There was a separate bathroom, too, but man, I got a charge out of taking my bath “out in the open” like that. I forgave the B&B its furbelows because Caroline West, the owner, was so delightful. And she liked my poetry.

Cross Creek: Camillias and kitchen garden

The Atlantic Center for the Arts is stunning. The exteriors of the buildings are rustic and smooth themselves into the setting of palmetto, pine, and exquisite quiet without a single jarring note, but within them are state of the art facilities for musicians, visual artists, dancers, writers, and artists-who-work-with-electronics (how does one say that more efficiently, one wonders?) Each participant has a room of her/his own, with a bath, lots of places to put things away, a long desk, enough plugs, good WiFi, and big windows that open and that look onto the green, green, green expanse of the Center’s park. Nice. I was in the Lowell Nesbitt (he was an early Artist-in-Residence) room all week. His photograph hung opposite my bed and he watched me, with approval I thought, as I wrote, drank tea, and slept.

Everyone eats together. Everyone. I was shy on the first night and then I forgot about it. Richard Blanco, my workshop leader, and I had most of our meals together. There were always others at our table, of course, but we shared his attention amiably. The poets met in the library every morning for five days and we worked hard and we laughed a lot, too. I can see myself becoming a Richard Blanco groupie. You know, following him around from reading to reading, conference to conference. Maybe he would take me on as a Tia Nonnie, and I could learn to cook him arroz con pollo ( or something) at a moment’s notice or staple his teacher’s packets together for him. I could become a whiz with printers, even irritating, impossible to get along with, slow as mud printers. I’d do those things for him, because he was so generous to me and to the other fine, funny, interesting poets in my workshop.

Talking while eating

Working in the Library

Me and Richard Blanco!

In the intelligently designed, intimate,“black box” theater, Mark Doty, (Memoir workshop) Pam Houston, (Fiction) and Richard (I can call him Richard, now) gave readings in the evening. Jeffrey Shotts, the edtior from Greywolf Press gave a talk here called “The Art of Rejection,” and despite the title of his talk he was engaging and supportive both in the theater and later when he and I had a private consultation.The audience for these readings and Jeffrey’s talk was small each night, mostly the thirty or so participants, but each of them behaved as if they were sharing their writing and thoughts at Lincoln Center. Awesome, giving, devoted professionals gave us their best and I’ll never forget it.

Open Mic Night

So. I had a good time. I even got to spend a couple of evenings with my brother, Robert, who flew down from Philly, and Cormac, a friend I’ve had since I was three and who lives in New Smyrna Beach with his wife, Lovely Nancy. My Buick and I got a bit lost on the way home to Panama City Beach, but we’re used to doing that and were not upset, and when we did get home, three cats and a little dog who live inside the house and the six backyard cats were as happy to see me as I was to see them. My brother/housemate Drago got home from work a couple of hours later bearing Chinese take-out. I enjoy my road trips, but I am so grateful that I also enjoy getting home as much as I do. This has not always been the case with me and it is not the case for too many people. With poetry, pets, a trusty Buick, loving brothers, cousins, and friends, I know I have it good. I’m a lucky duck swimming around on a small pond that suits me and I’m amazed at how well things are working out for me. “Appreciate” has become one of my favorite verbs.

"Big Bend" (near Appalachacola)

Good news for moi!

Time for the secret (see last blog if you want to know what it wasn’t)  to be told! A couple of months ago my credit card bought a Kirkus Review. This isn’t how it sounds. You have to pay them to review your book without any guarantee whatsobloodyever that they will like your book and give you a good review. You might only eke out a sentence from an otherwise bad review (there’s an article by a Kirkus reviewer, Melissa Faliveno, in the Nov/Dec 2013 issue of Poets & Writers explaining how it all works at Kirkus) and if that is the case you just have to lump it. For a not starving but not flush either author, this was a big gamble. But my cousin many times removed, Evie Robillard, who is an extraordinary poet and was a librarian, told me to go for it because librarians check the Kirkus magazine for likely books to order (okay, I know I’m over-explaining but I’ve never made a list before, well, cast lists when I danced but that's another blog post) and so I plunked down the money and asked them to review my poetry collection, “One Day Tells its Tale to Another.” And they did and the when I read the review I felt astounding relief. But the secret that I’ve known for a few giddy weeks and couldn’t tell you is that my book was “"Named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2013" !!! They picked 100 books for this list out of 3,000 “Indies” submitted to them to review. Mine! Poetry! Here’s the review:

BOOK REVIEW

“Like a well-wrought memoir, this medley of free- and fixed-verse poems combines vivid personal narrative with probing self-reflection.

“So, I did the thing / I would never do,” confesses a young dancer upon landing an art-smothering, body-pulverizing contract job in “Paid to Dance,” one of many seemingly autobiographical poems in Augustine’s debut collection. One can easily imagine the same confession from the older narrator sleeping with her friend’s husband in “Wine and Cheese Villanelle” or the jaded lover of “Sestina” who “learned to play double, just like him.” Compromise and disillusionment are frequent themes here, but so are resilience and learning, although the narrators are often too busy navigating their lives to recognize their growing wisdom. Augustine often layers the perspectives of the narrator, author and reader to bolster the poems’ realism and emotional sincerity, and it’s a technique she hones to near-perfection. On rare occasions, the poet usurps the narrator and lapses into bathos: “As we sit at this café table / in Montmartre, sheltered / from the downpour, I see our future. / I will write it down on torn paper, / using a sapphire pen,” seemingly taking seriously Billy Collins’ satirical advice in his poem “The Student” that poets should, “[w]hen at a loss for an ending, / have some brown hens standing in the rain.” On the whole, however, Augustine demonstrates much greater control and precision as she works through multiple iterations of love and loss, employing to great effect forms as varied as the prose poem, the concrete poem, the villanelle, the sestina, the sonnet and the ballad. She reimagines fairy tales, evokes foreign lands through bodily sensation, valorizes women’s perseverance, and revels in the rollicking pleasures of sex, even when they come with risk. As her narrators age, she tightens the circle, mourning and celebrating with equal intensity. One narrator contemplates the “Three Things That Did Not Happen”: “I almost saw Nessie,” “I almost won the jackpot” and “I almost had a child. / She was there in my womb / until chromosomes killed her. / My God, that would have been something.” Among the losses, though, it “appears gone for good are dramas and bothers, / threats and therapists, drunk, needy lovers. / And...lovely, lovely, lovely is my cat’s furry belly.”

Poetry that often transcends its own bounds, spilling over into readers’ lives and forcing them to confront their own narratives.”

Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Rd., Austin, TX 78744 indie@kirkusreviews.com

And here’s the link to the Kirkus newsletter—my book is 4^th in the first row, because my last name begins with “A.” I’m really full of myself today, but I can’t take special credit for that. Right, the link: Kirkus Review

Trustworthy Nonnie

                                           

Mountain of Backyard Cats

I have a secret that I have to keep until December 16^th. Difficult as this is, I will do it. Oh, I have told a few people known for their discretion or at least they are not known for being blabbermouths. I’m sure of that... Anyway, it’s not really about them, it’s about me and it will be easier for my confidantes to keep a secret about about me and not them. So, we’re good, right?

I can say these things:

I am not getting married or flying to Paris or a taking off for a hot weekend at some enchanted destination destined to fulfill my every dream, invigorate, inspire, and pamper me as I sip ambrosia with the reincarnation of William Powell.

I did not win 47 million dollars, or any sum whatsobloodyever in the Lottery.

I did not finish a new book. I can say, however, that I am five poems into a new book. This may not sound like much, but the five, no, let’s say six, poems I have written came together after extensive research, meanderings on the Internet, heart-rending plunges into the depths of my very soul, and filling up with literature by authors having (or having had) fine sensibilities. I’m currently reading William Faulkner who may or may not help me write another poem for this new book that I am definitely going to finish because I am a committed, serious, strenuous writer...brutal, even. I am amazed that I had to get this old to appreciate Faulkner. I do, now, though. It’s possible all I needed was more time.

It isn’t a bad thing like another open-heart surgery or a colonoscopy or a prison sentence for God knows what crime I may have been falsely accused of. That wouldn’t be a secret in the town I live in now, anyway. If you’ll notice, I don’t call it “my” town. It’s not mine; it’s theirs.

My brother and I are not getting another pet on December 16^th. That would be extravagant. We have three excellent cats and a tender dog who live in the house with us and six more cats who have come to us and live in the backyard. We feed the backyard cats and they have my brother’s outside shower stall, which he misses, but there you go, to pile up in and get out of the wind and rain. We’re in Florida, so winter isn’t much of an issue. Although I should rub a rabbit’s foot or something because with the weather getting weirder every year, who knows?  They are all remarkable, people-cuddling, funny cats but they have to live outside. That’s all there is to it. I’ve taken two for their operations and rabies shots and the others are all scheduled to go next month. Responsibility almost rules me.

This secret is good news. That’s why it’s driving me crazy. Who doesn’t like to shout good news? No one. Some people seem to get a kick out of sharing bad news, though. I’ve known and even loved people who slam bad news in your face like slapstick comedians with coconut cream pies. That’s not my particular thrill. But, when I know something lovely, and you don’t, it’s hard for me not to give it up. Good secrets itch and tickle, and sometimes feel like happy burps bubbling up. But, I promised and I am a brutal promise-keeper. Sorry. You’ll have to wait.

On Feeling a Certain Age

That’s me in the photo. I was 19, performing in a Juilliard dance concert. My partner, Mark, was not looking at my ass; he was looking at my supporting leg, making sure that he was supporting me en pointe. I’m posting this photo of me at 19 and these poems because I don’t feel strong today, and in the tradition of Emily Dickinson’s “This is My Letter to the World” sometimes you just want to throw it out there. I have some nerve including poems of my own with one of Emily’s, but there you go.

This is my letter to the world,

That never wrote to me,-- 

The simple news that Nature told, 

With tender majesty. 

Her message is committed 

To hands I cannot see; 

For love of her, sweet countrymen,

Judge tenderly of me! 

Emily Dickinson

-------------------------

Whirl

Wanna,wanna, whoop de loop.

Hold my baby, kiss my mom,

dance the way I used to do.

Desktops, blacktops, cut and paste,

speed down hills, learn the rules,

Sister Saint Marion, married to Christ.

Sixteen, life-green, pink tights, Swan Lake,

an Italian summer, a Venetian romance,

NYC my campus, Matisse, Philip Glass,

then mountains, desert, New Mexico’s gold, 

headstrong, headlong, swayed by applause,

wandering through canyons colored by God.

A year spent in England, the Isle of Wight,

rock seafronts in Cornwall, Land’s End of the world,

a pause for the Maritimes, soft greens, booming tides.

Then my bearings got lost. I was drunk on the street--

had nothing but loathing till they lent me a hand.

Wanna,wanna, whoop de loop.

Hold my baby, kiss my mom,

dance the way I used to do.

My mind’s got some fluff but she copes well enough. 

I’ve foundered in Florida with its heat and humidity, 

glorious beaches, and churchy stupidity.

I have a sick heart so I do less and less, 

but I write at an old French writing desk.

I could use a cruise, a steadier step, 

a long walk in Paris with Johnny Depp.

It appears gone for good are dramas and bothers, 

threats and therapists, drunk, needy lovers. 

And... lovely, lovely, lovely is my cat’s furry belly.

After Another Reading of Raymond Carver's "All of Us"

Young, strong, brave me, doing all that!

Dancing, teaching, performing, making this,

making that. I drank great draughts

of art, all kinds, you name it.

Used the fine work out there

to define, refine, defend my being,

my sincere effort to soar.

It was almost glorious.

There was, of course, a catch. For many

of those nearly triumphant years, I slogged

through a swampy mess each night.

Yes, every night. I'll stand by that.

Same old, same old. So and so loved me, but

I wanted you and you wanted her, then her.

And for all that time I couldn't get free,

couldn't toss you off, over, away, used Scotch

to dull my fury and so became more pitiful.

From here, out of all that, well-rested,

I can see that awful catch of mine

has a place at the table, in fact, near

the head, across from the almost glory.

My foolishness can be read, watched,

listened to, painted. And it has been.

Will be. Now it's time for some lunch.

Alice Turns Adam Down

"So, you see, you are simply the wrong partner

for this part of the dance. I'd thought 

someone in a blue shirt, with a side part 

in his blond hair, and your hair is red. 

So even if you changed your shirt to a blue,  

I wouldn't, simply couldn't, choose you.

Dance with someone else, why don't you?

You could dance with the woman over there 

wearing that very long string of pearls.

Or how about that woman in the long red dress. 

Do you like long dresses? Or someone else?

Oh. You often wear blue shirts, do you? 

You don't care for long dresses or pearls? 

You like my green eyes and so choose me? 

But that doesn't matter, to me, you see. 

You’re simply all wrong for this part of the dance."

Classical Radio

Claude Debussy

I am listening to Debussy and so here are two romantic pages from my book, One Day Tells its Tale to Another. We all have these moods, don't we?

All is Ready

I have bathed in patchouli oil and my heavy hair is lustrous from brushing.  I am wearing my gold ankle bracelets with the ruby charms that my love gave me when we had been married one year.  My robe is fuchsia silk and under it I wear black satin that bares so much of my olive skin. Anise and cinnamon tea is prepared and I have purchased date and nut sweets.  Our home is cool as the breeze from the Bosporus flies through our rooms with the movement of the fans.  Aimee’s husky voice drifts through the apartment.  My public garments hang out of sight.  I do not need their black modesty here.  Gold brilliants hang from the veil I wear tonight. He will remove it when I finish my dance.  Or maybe he will not wait for my dance to finish.  My husband will return soon from the dangerous West, and I am ready for him.  We will recline on tasseled pillows and I will tell him of the baby that is growing in my womb; we two will become three. I am happy to be so beautiful, so beautiful for him.

At Harry’s Bar

The piano player stole souls.

They came close--to cling to the wool 

of his trousers, his foulard tie,                           

his worn jacket and blue cotton shirt. 

They nestled in the creases lining

his slight smile and hung from his arms

as they ranged across the keyboard 

with soft or scorching fingerings.

Melisande resisted, remained intact, 

in place, unbent. Her's was an anima

with defenses against bar room thieves.

Notes sailed past her pale skin--

could not pierce pores and steal in 

to capture her bruised and tender core.

As he played on through the hours

his power soared and dismayed Melisande. 

He would not have her. He would not.

Sipping gin, she glanced up from the safe, worn

mahogany where she’d fastened her gaze.

The patient mirror behind the bar

had been waiting for her dark blue look.

There the melody in his eyes, his soft brown eyes,

shot through glass to reach for her, gently.

Through the haze his invitation glowed with promise.

Slipping from her stool, conceding once again,

Melisande went to him, body and soul.

Me at the Thomasville reading. I don't know why my hands are in fists.

One-Stop Book Tour, More Kittens, A Bigot, A Nazi, Jesus, and Folk Singers.

In the middle of August I drove to Thomasville, Georgia to participate in a book event, sponsored by The Bookshelf, an independent book store, at the Thomas County Public Library. I had a fine time reading from my poetry collection, One Day Tells its Tale to Another, sitting at a table among 17 other authors, chatting, listening, networking (I think), enjoying the bookish milieu. For luck I wore both strands of pearls my mother left me, and they worked: I didn’t stumble, wobble, freeze, faint or burp. I even sold some books. After the reading I drove to Tallahassee, checked into a swankish hotel and read or watched movies on TV for two days because it poured off and on my whole weekend away. I did visit the old state Capitol, had it all to myself, and read about the political history of Florida. Most of that was as heart-wrenching as I expected it to be, but there were shining moments. Did you know that the pioneers in protecting the state’s ecosystems were  women?

Another litter of backyard kittens was born in June. Their mother has disappeared, but they have a champion in Peach, a gorgeous little guy who was born in the spring. He watches over the four toddlers and my brother and housemate Drago and I feed them twice a day. I am going to get them all fixed (somehow) when they are old enough, or our backyard will, at least in terms of cat population, will be like Venice or Rome.

Last week there was a raging bigot hanging out in our Florida room.  It was the first time I've been afraid of being alone in our house with a man, or woman, for that matter. I didn't like the way he called me "dear" and I didn't like the way he went out of his way to assure me I'd be safe with him--he wasn't going to cause no trouble. Bud the roofer finally came to fix the leaks. This has been a summer of deluges here on the Panhandle. Bud has MS and the heat is bad for him and I'm sorry about that. He came inside every now and then to cool off and drink ice water. I was watching the ceremony commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The first time Bud saw the camera pan to Pres. Obama, he said "I'd like to shoot that man." He's ruining this country." I said, in a civil voice, I'm a Democrat and I voted for him twice. Bud shook his head a few times at the speaker, King's daughter, I think, then went back to the roof. He came back in later when Obama was on screen again, and let it rip. "He has no right to be President-he's not a citizen-he should be in jail-he's a Communist, a Socialist, a Muslim, not a Christian. I said something about it was the 1% who hold the wealth in this country that are hurting it and Bud said, "If they have that much money they worked for it or inherited it," and I, raising my voice, said that they stole it or their family stole it, and he said, "Every man is entitled to the money he works to git," and I said I didn't want to talk about this anymore, that I was getting upset, and thank you for fixing the roof. Luckily, he was finished with his work and as soon as he went out the door I locked it. I was shaking. Smoked one of my brother's cigarettes. My gut told me to get out of Florida-then I thought, no. We all can't leave the state to people like him.

I went to the bank Saturday to cash a royalty check for $19.60. The guy in front of me had an Iron Cross tattooed on his neck. I wondered, hopefully, if it was a sloppily done Maltese Cross. Then I looked down and he had a big swastika on his calf and other mean looking tats. I put more space between us. What's was going on with my Karma last week? The bigot roofer Wednesday, and and then a Nazi?  Jayzus!

Speaking of Jesus, I’m halfway through Reza Aslan’s fascinating book Zealot. I often promise myself I’ll read more nonfiction, and when Drago finished this book, and I’d finished another Donna Leon mystery, (speaking of Venice) I plunged into the first century, Common Era. I recommend Zealot to anyone who is curious about the historical life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. And who wouldn’t be? Okay. Many of us. One thing though: there is a hell of a lot of rampaging, bathing in blood, chopping off of heads, all that. Aslan reassures us that violence has been with us all along. I knew that, but damn!

Yesterday I read again, but this time close to home. My friend Katrina and I went to an open mic and music performance in Lynnhaven (so, one town away--a tiny tour.) The other performers were folk singers and storytellers. The afternoon tripped along with guitars, bass fiddles and some heart-stopping voices. Warm people, good music--the best parts of Southern. It was a fine start to September.

Getting Out

Holding the sleeping infant on her shoulder, a young mother sat on the bench in the Greyhound station waiting for her nine p.m. bus. She was taking her baby home, back to the Maritimes, back to Prince Edward Island. Adair Brodie had given Boston her best shot and she was finished with it. The Marathon Bombings and the chaos and fear following the explosions pushed her into a decision she had been struggling to make since her baby's birth. Adair was going to bring little Cameron up to the vast Brodie clan. She wore no wedding ring, and had no regrets about that because Matthew Barnes, the father, was a bastard. She'd gotten money for the trip and assurances from her mother that all of them, even her strict Presbyterian McKenzie grandparents, would welcome the two of them, not before some scolding to be sure, but she could weather all that. She’d grown tougher during the two years she’d been away.

Adair and the baby were startled by shouts. The old man sitting next to her jerked awake and the toddler playing with his balloon let go of the string and wailed as it floated to the ceiling. Two policemen ran into the station with their guns drawn. Within seconds the dozen or so people about were crouching with their heads down, fearful that more violence was about to happen. Cameron, tiny as she was, sensed the tension and started crying. Adair rocked her baby in her arms as best as she could in her hunkered down position and watched the cops run into the men's room. They came out again quickly, separated and searched the station. Then they talked in low voices with the ticket agents. When they turned to the still frightened travelers scattered around the station, they'd finally holstered their guns.

“Sorry, folks,” the taller of the two said in a carrying voice. “We got a call about a suspect being here in the station, but everything seems okay. Sorry for the scare. We know everyone has been through a lot of these past weeks and we're trying to keep you safe.”

Thank you very much, sir, but my Cameron and I will feel safe when we get to the Maritimes, away from this shocked and noisy city, and away from Matthew. He'll never show up there-- not after all I've told him about my brothers.

The bus to Maine was announced over the system a few minutes after the police left, and she quickly gathered her baby's bag and wheeled her single suitcase to the line of people waiting to get their baggage stored in the luggage compartment. Adair cooed to her baby, whose sweet brow still had a tiny wrinkle, and finally boarded. 

There were plenty of empty seats and the young mother and infant sat alone in their row. Adair waited until the weary-looking crowd settled down, then she wrapped a light shawl she carried for the purpose around them, turned off the overhead light and nursed her baby.

The Greyhound made a stop to pick up more passengers at the North End station and the seats quickly filled. The last empty seat was the one next to Adair and sleeping Cameron. No one wanted to sit next to a baby if they could avoid it. The last person to board put his heavy backpack on the rack above them, flopped down with an exhausted sigh, and immediately closed his eyes. 

Black hair, black eyes, brown skin and he looks like an Arab or something! Sweet Jesus, who have we got next to us? 

The newcomer opened his eyes and looked directly at Adair. Seeing her frightened expression, he smiled gently at her.

“Hello, Miss. My name is Anwar. Please be peaceful. I'm no one to worry about. I know I may look dangerous to you right now, but I am not dangerous, just an MIT student on my way to Portland, Maine. May I ask your name? And your lovely baby's?”

“I'm Adair Brodie and this is Cameron. It has been so horrible in Boston these last weeks and you look like…” She broke off, embarrassed. Anwar's eyes looked tired, but they were soft and held no threatening gleam.

“Please, Miss Adair. Relax. I understand. I know who I look like, but you can rest yourself about me. I only want to visit my cousins and be away from stares like the one you just gave me. Boston is not a good place for young men from Chechnya these days.”

They continued talking quietly as they traveled north. Anwar told Adair that he was a mathematician, and that his relatives had lived in various parts of New England for many years, but that he had only been in the United States for two. As they shared stories, Adair liked Anwar more with each mile. She told him about the home she was going back to where the spring lupines stretched almost to the very edge of the sea and where it was quiet; a good place to live and bring up a child.

Anwar said he was not homesick for Chechnya. He hated the struggles with Russia, the violence on both sides, and the poverty of the people. His family back home were Muslim, but they prayed for peace. Anwar loved America.

Adair fell asleep. She and Cameron slept for an hour and woke when the motion of the bus stopped in Portland. Anwar had stood and was pulling down his backpack. He had his hood pulled over his head, because rain pounded on the roof of the bus. Seeing Adair was awake, he wished her luck, shook her hand, and made his way off the bus. A few minutes later she cried out at the sound of gunfire and people shouting. Within minutes sirens blared. The driver's voice came over his speaker.

“Stay on the bus, folks. One of the passengers, the Arab kid, has been shot and they tell me he's dead.”

A New Notion about an Old Story


A dark girl, quite poor, who might have been four,
leaned on a statue of a horse and his man.
(The rider rode him in place, but as if in a race.)
Her dress needed patching, her heart needed smoothing.
She’d tried to sell matches all the cold night,
but none noted her plight ‘til up to her came
a blond boy who was lame.

"Can you sell those, you think, for some food and
warm drink?" asked the boy who was bigger, and
dressed slightly better, but dirty as well. He’d
apples to sell.

"No, not a one. I want to be done."
Tears plopped from her eyes,
left streaks on her cheeks.

"Have an apple, why don't you? I've still these two.”
The boy gave the waif his well-polished
fruit and a back-pat to boot.

"Do you two like that horse? He's my favorite of
course," said a girl, almost grown, also out on her
own. Her eye was blacked but she'd a warm coat and
hat. "I come here at night, when my Dad's fists
fight. Whiskey's his curse and he's home getting
worse." She pulled the tot to her lap with a plop,
and claimed the lad's hand. One's smile warmed
another's, till all three loved each other.

The horse, soot-streaked marble, was truly a marvel.
His coat livened to touch. His head tossed
with his snort. The rider, a soldier, stretched,
laughed, and fetched the big girl and little.
He soothed them to settle in front of his saddle.
Then he scooped up the boy
(who whooped high with joy) and put him
behind him and they all fit just fine.
The horse stamped his feet, whinnied,
and leaped as far as the stars.

By and by they arrived at the dawn of a day
in a place deep in memory, where, so happily,
they stayed on with others who’d been all
woozy from poverty, and frozen from frost.
Now gone was the hurt, hunger, and dirt,
for grown-ups who cared and children who shared.

“10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.” 

― Susan Sontag

I was trying to write a poem. Write a poem? No. That’s too lofty a description to give to what I was doing. I was scribbling, then crossing out my scribbles. Drago was sleeping in his hospital bed. We were in a familiar (to many of us) situation. A rumor of possible discharge that day circulates and so waiting ensues. Neither my brother or I are the kind of patients who require, or enjoy, the constant presence of another, however much we might like them, in our hospital room while we lie there being sick, at least if there isn’t a crisis going on with us. But since I was there, and there was a rumor, it seemed best to stay so that I could get him home. Six and a half hours later I did get him home, which was a wonderful relief, but I would have been happy to go home and come back to the hospital. Well, you know what I’m nattering about. 

At one point during the afternoon, two LPN’s were hanging out with the man in the next bed. Yes, hanging out.  Michelle, the nurse who my brother had told me was very nice and had been on the day shift with him for three days was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, and the other was in a chair. Was the guy in the bed a pal, I wondered?

Our neighbor, down in Southport? My brother’s girlfriend, well, she fed my dog antifreeze, Michelle said.

I stopped trying to write and listened.  My brother and I have a dog and three cats who share a house with us. We adore them and they adore us right back.

It took him three days to die. Good Lord it was one horrible death. He started with throwing up and acting sick, and then on the third day he had seizures. That’s when we had took him to the Vet. Our Vet told us he would of had crystals formed in his kidneys and spreading all over until he shut down. We didn’t know what was wrong or we would have had put him down sooner.

I’ve seen suicides come in here who have taken antifreeze. It’s an awful way to kill yourself, I think, Rita, the LPN in the chair, said.

Okay, now I was just taking dictation.

He was one of those tall, long-legged Pit Bulls? And we had a chain link fence and an underground shocker thing if he ever was to have got near enough to the fence. He did when we first put it in and that taught him good. Should have seen how it got to him! I laughed all day. We wanted to be careful with him because, you know, his being a Pit Bull and all and the way people are about them. But Tebow was as sweet to me and my husband as anything. Now, he did like to play “Toss the Kitty.” But they shouldn’ta have let their cat get in our yard. By the time I found out it was her who done it? She’d moved to friggin Arizona!  And so now I'll never get my hands on her. 

Rita said, I’m thinking about getting a dog. A small one. Maybe a Chihuahua.

Oh, don’t do that if you want a smart dog! They are so stupid. My own house dog is a Chihuahua and it took me two years to train it not to pee in the house! "Lord," I said to it “How many times do I have to beat you?” My son, Austin? He has a Jack Russell and that dog's e-ver-y bit as hyper as my child. I was about to give him some of my son’s ADHD medication, but I might have had run out of pills. They just try to wear each other out all day long, the two of them. But they never do settle. It don't matter what all I do to them.

My brother’s cell phone rang then and I listened to his end of the conversation. When he got off the phone he told me that the gym had gotten people to cover the yoga classes he teaches. I didn’t notice when the nurses left the room. Eventually Michelle came over to our side of the curtain with discharge papers for my brother to sign. She was pleasant, polite, and helpful, but I’d had an image of a Pit Bull playing “Toss the Kitty,” in my head for several hours and I wasn’t fooled.