born 1900
when Austria was still a monarchy
    that did not know
    it was approaching its end

growing up as the daughter
of the mayor of a little district town
    big fish in a small pond
educated accordingly
as a ‘higher daughter’

   be a home decorator
   do needlework
   be a gourmet cook
   play the piano
   be a respectable member
       of the community and the parish

when she turned 18
after the end of world war I
the social order for which she had been prepared
simply disappeared

her father became a disillusioned monarchist
the town’s republicans elected a new mayor

she married a railway engineer
who left her after her daughter
    my mother
was born
she managed to survive world war II
as a single mother

watched her daughter
    fall in love with, at Christmas 1946,
    and marry in April 1947
a guy who had just escaped
from a Soviet POW camp
looked like a walking skeleton
       my father
AND
was the son of a communist
who  had survived  world war I
as a POW in Siberia

strange bedfellows

     they used to play cards together
     once a week
     with great gusto

     class warfare
     morphed into social entertainment

both my parents were working
grandmother  led the household
on the side did bookkeeping for local businesses
     to bring in some money
practically raised me and my brother
cared for us when we were sick
taught me to play the piano

was always afraid we would not get
enough to eat

for a while, as a little child,
I slept in the same room with her
and  learned that she had
a wondrously melodious snore
    going over an octave & some such

when, after grade school,
I had to leave at 5.45 am
to catch the train
    pulled by a sturdy steam engine
that took me to the high school  
    50km down the road
she was concerned when I
   rushing out the door
just grabbed parts of the breakfast
she had so lovingly prepared

when I left home for university
she was not happy
when I went to the USA for a whole year
she was disconsolate

she did enjoy her great-grandkids
when they visited, though

too much distance for too long
from the place of her birth
made her uncomfortable
in her later years
she needed a familiar place
that came with its familiar things
to do and know

she lived to be 87

I saw her last
after a second stroke
had mostly incapacitated her

a tiny woman
curled up
waiting to leave us
for a world that finally might heal
the pain and disappointment
she had so bravely mastered
throughout her life

The night often comes with a disguise
One at times that's hard to recognize

From the face of a hapless child
To a young man just this side of wild

Or a wife not sure where her husband is
The night though can go much deeper than this

It can also be the elderly alone
Or a lost love with no one home

The nights disguise could be a suicidal teen
Who will try to take life out by any ways or means

The night at times could use a friend
One to gently talk it off the ledge

The night also dresses as a man estranged
From a family that no longer speaks his name

Or a mother who decided that the drugs
Were far more satisfying than a family's love

If you look hard enough you're bound to find
That the night often comes with a disguise

Catapulted...
Over the moon.
Counted stars
as I hurtled through time and space.

I had tasted the sweetness.
The spellbinding grasp of weightlessness
as I crested upon the peak of my ascent.
Felt free and overwhelmed that moment
where the universe and I collided...
And birthed the second.

I only had that second.

The second that spanned an eternity.
The second filled with abundant promise.
The second that unclenched my fist,
melted my heart,
and liberated my mind.

But gravity takes control
and that second dissolves as
quickly as it came.
Reality beckons almost gentle...
Like swaying palms in the night sea breeze.
Assuring me that I'll be back in my rightful place.

In this time...
And this space...

I felt a shiver of regret as the sun burned down the stars,
In the absence of emptiness, there was nothing to claim as ours,
All I could do was shake the cinders from my weary, bleary brain,
And try to build some beauty from the ashes that remain,

I saw the world in cobwebs through the fingertips of dawn,
The only truth I know: there’s no revenge like moving on,
So I took apart my heart to help me lighten up my load,
And let the pieces point me even further down the road,

Maybe we lived like vampires, never stopping to reflect,
Tearing down the pretty castles we could no longer protect,
Your tightrope tongue painted forever in a promissory note,
As I lost hope in all the barbed wire and sand inside my throat,

Burdened with my hands of glass and eyes of tourmaline,
Broken by everything I touch, weathered by all I’ve seen,
Perhaps the sun will bring atonement, a secret I can keep,
You’ll build a better birdcage, maybe I’ll look where I leap,

For now, I’ll search for answers in the lines around my eyes,
Inhale the rotting stench of time, taste the miles and compromise,
As I walk the narrow pathway that separates lost from free,
Letting go, still I know, you’re the only road back home for me.