voice

if i could sing the way i want to, i'd be a violin.

the strings pull the melody right out of
my bones. the marrow within me is a concerto, in a
minor key. as the painfully excitant chords dissipate
within the air i find i have stopped breathing.

i take in a deep gulp of air into my lungs
to hold in the music.

sometimes my soul sings so loudly i cannot sleep.

happy things

"mommy, why do you run? why don't you want to be chubby?"

"when i get big, i'm going to drive a car, and a plane, and a rocket ship, and a fire engine, and a helicopter, and a gyrocopter."
pause.
"mommy, who will design the gyrocopter? do you design gyrocopters?"

"when i get big, can i have my own logo?"

"oh, i remember. i forgot that i don't know how to get to mima's house and that's why i don't know where she is. do you know where she is? would she let me have ice cream before bedtime?"

"i want pita, and hummus, and orange juice, and ice cream, and nachos."

"where does the sun go night-night to?"

"is heaven really really really really really far away, or is it just a little far away?"

"daddy, you're not very good at using your inside voice."

"i know what that rainbow means! the mcdonald's sign looks like a rainbow, and that means mcdonald's is healthy. you were wrong, mommy. so can i have mcdonald's?"

"i'm scared of the bedroom, mommy."

"i love you very much. now can i be out of timeout?"

"when i have my own puppy, can we paint him red and name him Clifford? and can we love him lots and lots so he gets really really big?"

"when i get big, will i like coffee, and beer?"

so long ago

it was so long ago when i thought i was small and you were big. i looked at your school books in amazement that i knew someone smart enough to read another language. at least a little. you told me that you didn't feel old, that in fact you were quite sure you would never grow up. but i knew better. i knew you had conquered more of life than i would live to see, and i marveled at your insight into life.

you were 23.

long driving trips on windy roads and poaring rain as you taught me how to steer your car, affectionately known as 'the boat'. i would open my bag of peach rings and you'd chew your sour candy. sometimes i was afraid to be your friend. i was afraid that you would look over and find a small, insignificant girl who was broken and confused and in desperate need for attention and you would decide i was too much of a burden to bear. but you always laughed at me when i said such things. "i'm just a small, broken girl myself." you said. "but you know what? i don't think that matters. i've already done so many things i never thought i would do. so will you."

i thought i'd never make it when you left. but i knew you were happy following your dreams, and i couldn't begrudge you that chance. i had already learned the heady sensation that came when staring down fears and believing in change.

i'm 25. i'd count out how old you are, but i'm already older than you were then so i'd prefer not to.

when you look down at your new baby and see yourself reflected in his eyes, that is when you will feel small. in his eyes you're invincible. and i still think of you as big and grown up.

it seems like a lifetime ago, but when we each get around to answering the phone the years fade away and i'm back in the "boat". you'll never be forgotten, my friend.

you would find it funny that my son just named my alligator "jorge".

lea

i love back roads.

some of my favorite memories are of riding in the car with lea, as we traveled too fast with all the windows down, and the music too loud for our health. we smoked while inhaling the fall air.

i'd get out half a sentence that was meant to be a profound thought that got stuck between my clove and my speech impediment, and she would say, "i totally agree." or not. and if not, we'd have a rousing debate about what God might have been doing before he created the universe or why pop culture must be understood even if you're a history nerd or which is better... italian meatballs, swedish meatballs, or bbq meatballs? it wasn't a fair argument, as she had never had bbq meatballs and therefore had no idea what she was talking about.

i can't have gatorade without thinking of
christmas parties
i stopped smoking because it's boring on my own
i'm eating grape jelly while i still can
i don't miss your ketchup... but there's no
one to listen to my crazy ideas.
at least not at 3 in the morning.
i haven't been in the mood for music
and stargate isn't nearly as fun
i'm reading all of your books
we should argue about them
when you come home.

i'm running out of meaningless subject lines

there are days when i feel invincible. those days, i hold my head high and i laugh long and hard and i look everyone straight in the eye.

this is not one of those days.

time

there's a time to remember.
smelling the scents that haunt from the past
remembering the way the light hit your face
looking back to the person you were, then.

there's a time to forgive.
taking back the selfish insanity
that drove you to forget who you are.

there's a time to move on.
this time has begun, and will keep going...

light from dark
deep from shallow
truth from lies
pain and sorrow
from foolish tries
joy and truth
from letting go.

the ways of yesterday won't work anymore.

the line in the sand has been drawn, and while i will step forward
i still regret what was lost.

okay

so i think i'm temporarily out of words.

let me see.













yup. goodnight, i'm going to rest.

september 11th

1991
it's an unusual experience when a family day of remembrance
becomes a national day of memorial.
i woke up this morning and thought of you immediately
which is odd, because over the years your presence in my thoughts has
become quiet.

14 years later
i find myself only older, not much wiser
i drink my tea and stare into the unseen distance often just like you taught me
occasionally i remember our arguments on matters of taste and aesthetics. is it too late to tell you that i find i agree with you on many things? and that fact is unsettling?
i must say i still try to outdo you. i still try to outlive you, though you're quite dead.

once, you were a good man.

you loved poetry, and laughed more when it rained.

i learned more about life on long car rides to tent meetings than anyone has taught me since. i would look out the window while we passed miles and miles of grass and leaves and rocks and small towns and listen to the seamless harmonies saturating the air of our car by your favorite barbershop quartet, being recounted by your 8-track. endlessly winding and unwinding the lace of my sunday best around my finger, i would listen and often interject as you and mom would debate whether i'd be a soprano or an alto.

you taught me long division one night as we drove to Baskin Robbins, where i was still astounded they could have 31 flavors of anything. i remember thinking that i should get you to teach me algebra before you died... you were a much better teacher than my school system could afford.

the first computer i ever owned was inheirited... a texas instruments beast of a thing, with a 7 inch monochrome monitor. as my memory of you faded, i would spend hours willing my mind to recall the instructions you gave me to turn it on. i could never remember, but i got it on. my mother gave it away two years later without asking. don't worry, i did eventually forgive her.

i suppose my need for absolute fairness and my opportunistic nature are qualities you passed to me as well. i find that the harder i'm pushed down, the more fervently i bounced back.

i think you would have bounced back eventually.

my son asks me all the time where you went, and why you had to die. he doesn't understand words like "cancer", but he understands that you went far away, to a place we can't fly an airplane to, and you're not coming back. he tells me he loves me more often now. i think he's afraid i'll leave. but i told him that you had most likely convinced god to put in a golf course and an ice cream shop. i'm sure you spend quite a bit of time traveling faster than light... how many stars have you counted? i think we got up to 53 once, before i fell asleep. when you carried me in and put me to bed i remember thinking that i was lucky i had a strong father, or i would have to wake up and walk to bed myself.

words, words, words.

in the beginning, God created heaven and earth. out of nothing. and he saw that it was good,
and called it good, and so it was good.

i can still see you, in my mind. in my mind i still only come up to your waist, and i have to walk really really really fast to keep up with you, though the fact that my pace makes me slightly out of breath does not slow down my speech. 'audra, take a break from questions and just listen," you say. "you'd be surprised at how much you can learn by listening."

i am still surprised.

here's to the good times. 14 years is long enough penance to pay, in the purgatory in my mind. from here on out, you're Grandpa Almond. and you're far away, and it will be a long time before i see you. or maybe not. but i tell my son i love him as often as i can, just in case.

i've decided that i'm going to remember you from my favorite times. like watching the kite you made me, probably the most carefully engineered kite in the neighborhood, plummet gracefully to earth time and time again. we got it in the air for a good 15 seconds while you ran down the street.

carefully sculpting the nose and ears on our very first snowman, and then listening to mom gripe at us while we warmed our hands as it's much easier to sculpt a snowman without mittens.

lying in the grass for an hour, trying to ignore the ants, as you kept promising me that if we waited just a bit longer the leaf would catch fire. it did.

grilled cheese sandwiches with grape jelly, learning to read with 1 kings, watching bad sci-fi that i always claimed to hate but didn't really, because it was one thing we had in common.

caramel popcorn.

repeatedly questioning you about common sense. "it's common sense because it's common, audra. everyone knows it."

"well, i don't, so it must not be that common."

you told such horrible jokes. but your eyes crinkled when you laughed, and though i always rolled my eyes i would laugh too. and once you got sick, and stopped telling bad jokes, i learned as many as a could. you never laughed. but you would look at me and occasionally smile.

i still save you the orange popsicles. until i remember that i don't need to. but then i have a whole bunch of orange popsicles, and no one else in the house likes them, so they're all mine.

words.
i hope they mean something.

steps

stomp jump
giggle wiggle
squirm learn
find uncover
laugh shout
cry sleep
rest fall
climb leap
scrape burn
break cut
love soothe
touch run
give take
wake sleep
lose forget
sow forgive
reap deny
embrace try
long reject
comfort neglect
creep loud
soft down
up left
right dream.
fly.

the rules

"To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, to forget wrongs and remember benefits - to love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love wife and child and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful; in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of al the world, to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words, to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to recieve new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then to be resigned - this is the religion of reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and heart."

-From 19th cent. freethinker Robert Ingersoll's "On Science and Reason," in What's God Got to Do With It?



what happened to our faith that allowed science to claim credit for the above statement?

jonah

i never wanted to return to the place.
i cut myself from the branch of my tree
and planted myself in soil far from my beginnings
and cursed the seed that bore me.

i never wanted to remember
i saw no need to understand my race
and i didn't care to empathize with the people
of the place that broke my father.

i never wanted to care
i hardened my heart and never looked back
for fear the evil behind me would turn me to salt
i named the place i went to righteous, and never went home.

but i remember
i can still plainly see the look on his face when you tore
away his hope
i can still remember what i wore that day, the day he
began his dying
i remember thinking you foreign and strange
when the people i thought were my own
turned away their eyes
and covered their ears
and never spoke of us.

those people of the place
those people who said we had no home
those people who sent us away to roam
you're floating away
your bloated remains causing a stench to fill the air
and i'm still trying not to care

but still, my single branch has no roots
and i find myself, without my permission, returning there
in my minds eye i see the light that should be there
i see the hope he had for you, the place from whence he came
you said i wouldn't remember
that i was so young, and i'd forget
but i can trace the outlines of your face
even now
and i'm still filled with regret for what you gave away.

i am jonah, and i was born in ninevah
i am of the place.
we left all that was known to find us a home
and now, it's floating away.

but i remember more than the pain you caused
i remember more than your foolish words
i remember the tears he cried for you
i remember the prayers he prayed for you
i remember that you have a name
and a place
and when the waters recede
the curse is paid

people of the place
do you want to remember? or are you content to
forget the slavery that was beaten, the fears that
were overcome
the victories that were lost with selfish blood
have you sold all your children?
have you forgotten your name?
do you still carry the burdens of the place from whence
you came?

i am jonah, and i was born in ninevah
calloused and stupid and fearful am i
but he paid a lot for your hope
so i will remember. and maybe, learn to care.
i still don't want to go home
i'd rather roam.
but maybe, someday, i'll tell the stories there
and you'll remember that you were made to stand tall
and you were given a bright light.

time

"there's a time to forget
and a time to destroy
and a time to burn
and a time to weep
and a time for drunken forgetfulness
and a time for hurried callousness
and a time for unforgiveness
and a time for lost love
and a time for backstabbing and hatred
and a time for insensitive rubbish.

but there's no time for me.
why are the poor dead at your feet?
it isn't too late to remember your name
it lies at the tip of your tounge
if you close your eyes and think of me, you'll remember
and you'll never be the same
drunken ones, my lost ones, it's time."

, * ? ! .

pause, and remember.

it was like this. a man, sitting on the corner,
trying to find words to express his frustrations
but finding none adequate he was left only with
rages and he gave away his soul to have someone
listen. the torn and drenched pages that represent
his mission to make you remember the
story he tells
float away in the deluge of missplaced intentions
and disregard of the warnings given. and here
he is, homeless, and all anyone can say is he's black
and looting, and his stories are lost under presumption.

how many tales of adventure, quite true, have we lost in
our modern age?

with there be anything left - with God and myths deceased-
for the future historians to remember? our will we be passed
over as another dark age
an age of wars and foolish regrets
where none have a name?