| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
NO ICE CREAM Kathleen M. McDonald Tara A. Elliott INSOMNOLENCE Kristine Karinen
I remember the spring when I was two,
How I would roam the neighborhood with my brother
meeting other young children our age, in yards and on sidewalks,
In a time when parents believed that the world was safe.
Spring took our hands and walked with us
Pointing out new discoveries of the world,
showing us the rebirth of this earth
that Spring said it had made just for us.
And then it led us along the sidewalk
to a place where a baby bird lay, dead and broken.
Sometimes the rebirth of spring is not enough to sustain life,
Spring told us while we crouched on our heels and stared, transfixed.
Encircling this lifeless creature was a ring of preschoolers,
curious, enthralled, not knowing or understanding
the lesson Spring began to etch into our hearts.
And with hands on knees and haunches on heels we continued to stare.
Unaware of life outside that circle, we did not notice
My father drive up in the big truck from his store.
He stopped to see what could be holding the attention
of children who were usually prancing and laughing.
Innocently we pointed, waiting for his explanation
and after telling us what our childhood could understand
he took us all for a ride to get ice cream
and the lifeless bird was forgotten, then gone.
I remember the day my son died, the holocaust
of the crash reducing his size 13 feet to ashes.
No dead and broken body to circle around.
No child to lovingly stare at, transfixed with sorrow.
My father came to me with faith so strong
that he could trust in the judgment of his creator
even as he cried tears and grieved, his heart
aching as much for his daughter as for his grandson.
Innocently I waited for his explanation,
Yet nothing he said could I understand.
As he took me in his arms to soothe my sobs
I knew that there would be no ice cream.
LIGHT
for Lucille Clifton
I have finally learned
what it is to be human;
it is Icarus
hearing the voice of his father
below,
and still, he flies
into the face of the sun.
Its charisma calls to her,
she chases it up and down
dark empty streets, as it slips
and slides behind, in front of her,
getting close enough to grasp, turning,
vanishing before fluttering eyelids;
she imagines its teasing, taunting laughter
as it evades her skillfully, when
suddenly, face to face, it grabs her,
swiftly carrying her away.
Not long and they begin,
the dreams that visit
without fail, always the same,
enigmatic, bewildering, no longer
terrifying until the morning triggers
them in memory; the sun finds
few small spaces to enter now,
for so many times, upon awakening,
she has smeared these dreams
across the windows
in vain attempts to see them
in the light of day.
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