Thanksgiving weekend. After a day of floating on gratitude for what I have, I’ve become immensely grateful for what I didn’t lose.
The week before Thanksgiving, the boys were all in the zone. My eldest son had a new job supervising others, and he was rising to the occasion. My middle son entered a training program; he was so proud, and leaving early every morning telling me he’s going to work. And my youngest got a glowing update from his school; so three check marks on my gratitude list.
Brisk march down the subway platform
One pulled-back panel of green tile revealing century-old rusty bits,
And one old wooden shim, woodgrain visible under underground grime
Of a sudden, in that glimpse, I’m thrown into its
Tiny beginnings,
Quiet whispers of time,
Years of baked pine-needle-and-soil smell
slowly passing like one perfect summer afternoon;
The boots
The sawmill scream
The sawdust air
The truck
The worker
The saw
The mallet
The muffled roar of time
The glance of a woman who thinks she knows where she’s going.
Kathleen was born in 1926. She was the youngest of nine, and had nine children herself. In 2016, at her 90th celebration, I captured a few quotes from those toasting her:
Granddaughter
What a ringleader and matriarch throughout the years! I’m proud to be following in your footsteps, becoming a nurse.
Son-in-law
The most welcoming of matriarchs, through good times and bad.
Niece
Across the entire Cahill clan- it’s profound, the influence you’ve had in all of our lives.
Written in the wake of US police shootings in the summer of 2016.
I just had an interesting conversation with my teenage son, saw how much of this week’s anguish and anger had seeped into his brain.
He’s angry at my generation and beyond for blowing it for so long, letting things get this bad. Fair enough.
Why
Does the eye
Seek out beyond the blue of the sky
a piddly bit of water blue?
Hey, I just saw the lake!
There’s no shortage of blue, trust me.
So why one blue and not the other?
Sky and water, mother and daughter,
use sunlight to display their bluey hues.
Sky absorbs and becomes the light.
Water reflects – it’s having none of it;
sunglasses in place
upon a stony face –
“You think you know me? You don’t know me.”
Hey, lake!
Long-necked
shadow of the pine
stretching ‘cross the frosted
stubble of the field;
elegant, tender,
as the sun burns away
last night’s
lacey
blanket.
But the pine,
lingering,
clinging to that tattered blanket,
whispers to the stubbled field
– just five
more
minutes.
Moira Dunphy May, 2016
New breath
New start
New oath
New new
December twenty-first to
June twenty-first to
December twenty-first
This is planet time
The earth is fickle
It yearns for light;
Sweet light
Burn-the-eyes-through-closed-lids light
It strains towards
Either we are creeping towards
The longest night of the year
Or crawling to the longest day
Either we gratefully succumb to more and more dark
Or we demand more and more light
Either anticipate the dark all light long
Or crave the light all dark long
Oh, impetuous we.
Moira Dunphy January 1, 2016
I quaver I haver
I stand stock still
I lie I lay
I still stock-stand
Time out
eyes closed
my mouth runs dry
dry run
dry eye
my feet meet land
There’s safety in numbness
then tick –
then click –
all it takes is a nudge
and now the safety’s off.
Exit pursued by a bear
H
ave you seen this woman?
Approach with caution
May become awkwardly jokey
Wanted for being
naive and suspicious
cynical and oblivious
May appear brighter in the rear-view mirror
Have you seen this woman?
Has been known to flee reality
Can be found attempting to make eye contact with buskers
Do not encourage her –
as it is she hum-sings the whole damn day
And she’s buy-ee-ing
a stay-yer-way
to hea-ven.
I see me
Look-look-looking
At live life-living.
Oh, aye, I eye
The pow!
The zing!
The living-life thing.
I cheer!
I burst!
They come in first.
But still I’m still
I sit I lay I lie
My one guilty pleasure
My wasted leisure.
That, and swearing like a sailor.
