Writing about my past

     Writing about my past and my childhood, I’ve been thinking about my parents quite a bit lately. There are certain truths that come to light upon examination. My father had achieved almost mythical status by having a larger than life personality and dying young. He was my first hero and, at times, my best friend. In retrospect, I should have idolized my mother instead. It was her courage, love and determination that kept us going. She could have just as easily tumbled into that shaker of martinis and never returned.

     Of course, my mother and I didn’t always get along. There is something that happens when a girl comes of age and her mother realizes that she is getting older, and perhaps not as desirable or sexy as she once was--like a passing of the ovaries. I remember being uncomfortable in my skin as a developing woman. Breasts swelling, hips widening, wet underwear. There were times, under my mother’s glare, when I wished I could unzip my skin and give it to her. I don’t have daughters, just sons. So I can only imagine how she might have felt watching her daughter blossom into a voluptuous young lady. It must have been hard for her.

     There are some events in my past that I cannot bring myself to write about. I’m not totally innocent either, but in the past these conflicts and digressions shall remain. Even though drinking was always involved, I think that’s too easy an excuse. Suffice to say, I’m not proud of all my past behavior. I still feel ashamed and remorseful.  

     I started a creative non-fiction piece entitled “My Mother’s Eyes.” Hopefully, I begin to honor her in a small but significant way. I shall try to preserve her in a kind, loving light. I hope she likes it.

Murmurs of the Lake

The screen door slaps against the yellow pine frame and soft footsteps echo through the cabin when my father makes coffee and packs the boat for fishing--red plaid coffee thermos, tackle box, a box of unfrosted brown sugar cinnamon PopTarts. His shadow casts across me as he gently touches my shoulder.

Time to get up, he says, the fish aren’t going to wait all day, you know. I grumble a little, but rise. Stars prick the skin of night as we settle into the blue wooden rowboat. Small ripples lick the sides of the boat. The weathered oars clunk into the aluminum locks.  I sit in the front, rubbing the sleep from my ten-year-old eyes as we cross tiny Round Lake near Brighton, Michigan. The oars creak and softly splash, splitting the quiet.  I lift the heavy coffee can anchor over the side of the boat and it splashes and sinks. Dad hands me a bamboo pole and the container of night crawlers. I take a night crawler, split it in half with my thumbnail and bait my hook. A breeze rises off the lake while a light grey creeps across the eastern sky. Wispy pink clouds stretch their backs across the sky.  After catching a few bluegill, sunfish, and lake perch, the sun winks up and we return to the cabin.

In an old cast iron skillet, thick slices of bacon sizzle. My father’s shoes squeak across the warped linoleum floor as he hums “Anchors Aweigh.” Bedsprings complain beneath my younger brothers huddled under blue and white striped bedspread. As I sit cross-legged on the dock, my mother shuffles across the linoleum and I think I hear Mom and Dad kissing, her warm, sleep-rumpled body pressed against his back. The refrigerator hinge creaks while a kingfisher ratchets over the wrinkled lake. Waves lap at the dock as morning mist rises outside the little yellow pine cabin at Round Lake. My brothers, still in cotton pajamas, and I come to the table for breakfast. We scrape the tall wooden chairs over the worn pine floor, settling into the tan wicker seats.

            In the evening, crickets chirp and small insects splatter into the screen. The radio crackles while my two young brothers chase fireflies across the grass. Willie Horton is the batter, Ernie Harwell says, he’s 0 for 3 tonight, with two strikeouts, a pop out to second base and an intentional walk. Horton’s been struggling lately, Ray Lane comments. Harwell says there’s another full house tonight at Tiger Stadium and the fans sure would like to have a win tonight after losing three in a row to the Yankees. I hold a deep breath, cross my fingers, squeezing my green eyes shut. Harwell says it’s a long fly ball to deep center field, that…ball…is…outta here. The crowd crescendos. Lane says, he was due. You can’t just throw one over the plate and expect Horton to lay off--he got all of that one.

Dad whoops from the next room. I smile, pulling the white chenille bedspread up over my legs. Listening to Harwell and Lane, at the cabin by the lake that summer, I go to sleep with the Detroit Tigers in a tie for first place.

Updated blog

Hello out there blog readers,
It's time to update the format and content of my blog. I finished college over a year ago and I am presently working on my first novel--literary--about life in a small fictitious Nebraska town. In the meantime, I thought I'd better try and put some coin in the accounts, thus branching out into writing restaurant reviews and the like. I'll keep you posted. You can also read my poetry every month in Your Country Neighbor. 
I've also been writing, learning how to cook delicious meals, and enjoying the fall weather (and the Detroit Tigers winning their Division!) with my guy and our three cats.
This morning, I saw a Canada goose herding pelicans at the lake--hence the photo. Now I wait for cool breezes.

Rainbows

I know all too well
it’s only the spectrum
of visible light
refracted, reflected,
angled and speeding
through the drops
of liquid cool,
flickering mists with
prisms of color,
ROY G BIV and
all that I learned
back in kindergarten.

Yet, when I stop for a moment
at the edge of a storm,
to gaze at
sun kissed sky
painted with rainbows,
I have to believe
that the world
is filled
with magic.

Fall

Fall
Originally uploaded by Carol J Carpenter.

Glory pauses briefly
poised on the pinnacle
of hot and cold
Breathless
Fleeting

Mornings rings crisp
like a fresh Jonathan apple
Wood smoke spirals
from hibernating chimneys

The sun hitchhikes south
and I sit in the kitchen
drinking tea
stitching poems
about roses and house wrens
wishing for the right jar
to capture
one last gulp
of October.

Winter day

Winter day
Originally uploaded by Carol J Carpenter.

Pearl icing drizzle
perched at the edge
dangling over nothing
air scoured with snow
buffing sharp edges
of sunlight
into grey
angora
sweaters

12/07/05

Grab the Wind

Grab the wind
Originally uploaded by Carol J Carpenter.

Cotton sheets snap
fountain grass bristles
mist drifts softly down
cloud feathers swirl
across the sky
only for a moment
to grab the wind

October

Maple leaves
Originally uploaded by Carol J Carpenter.

Golden moondrops skitter
over dark rippled river
silver frost shimmers
quiet pumpkins wait
near trees decked out
in colors of fire
yellow, orange, crimson
migrating flocks
point the way south
wind shifts cold
twisting red cedars
back north
the tired earth
stripped of crops
lets out
one last sigh
before winter’s
grey and
desperate
slumber

The Emma Lazarus poem "The New Colossus" was written for the Statue of Liberty, engraved on a bronze plaque in 1903. The plaque is located on a wall of the museum in the base of the Statue. (It has never been engraved on the monument itself). In its famous culminating lines, Liberty says
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"


Shame on US
What have we done
to our poor, tired huddled masses
trapped like rats
and neglected as rubbish,
refuse washed up from
someone else’s teeming shore
when a bayou, delta, and
a tempest soaked city
became homeless, hopeless?

How could sit on our hands
and watched the disabled
children and elderly
those who depend on the
kindness of strangers suffocating
as they struggle to breathe free?

In New York’s harbor
a grand lady shines
her bright torch
a beacon of freedom
she hold the key
to the golden door
which welcomes us all.

Today Lady Liberty hangs
her head in shame.
She never dreamed
we would turn our backs
on each other.

09/04/05

misty web
Originally uploaded by Carol J Carpenter.

Misty Vision

Surround us with fog
an enveloping grey cocoon
blurring the razored rainbow
with velvety silver dew

Tenderly shear our glistening wool
Thick, billowy, and warm
skein together a soft
cloak of distant, aching hearts
Quietly whisper in misty clouds
echoes of gracious antiquity
laughter of children
erase our divide
to the touch
of one open hand.

Hedge Apples

Hedge Apples

Hedge Apples from an osage orange tree
Originally uploaded by Carol J Carpenter.

In my backyard rests
a pyramid of hedge apples,
pitched from an osage orange,
strewn like Bacci balls
across the brown grass.

The chartreuse pyramid rises,
a Mayan temple for ants,
the reverent cathedral of
a fretfully bored husband
or dreadfully organized squirrels.

Hay Bales Haiku

hay bales 2
Originally uploaded by Carol J Carpenter.

Grandma's wooden spools
tumble across the shag green
carpet on the hill

Sunflower sunset near Salem, NE

Sunflower

I am a sunflower
my tough stalk firm
and hearts of green
a laughing face forever
romping with the sun
across September’s golden sky.

Great Blue Heron

Cast serenity over me
Regal hunter of the lake, grant me
if you please, an audience in your court where
I arrive, as always, foolishly unprepared. No gifts
I bring of frog or fish. Your
amber eye invades, calming me.
On stilted legs, you perch and preen.
Teach me if you will,
the value of remaining still.