yes.



i am sixty years older than you, think on that.



my mother’s name was madge, her mother

magdeleine, your grand grand parents.



it is said that i have learned more than you,

yet today   you come  wiser than i.



boy.

born in the artic snow
she chromed
her heart
in steel

flames could
not
touch that heart

always a half a step ahead
sure
a few stumbles
but never a fall

and moonlight is just
a heartache in disquise

till one day
leaning out a car window
a scar upon his cheek
and the luck of the draw

was the jack of hearts

and the queen of diamonds
had
never met
anyone
quite like

the jack

of hearts,

black-haired blue-eyed
her beauty inspired
stupid men
to commit foolish acts

and as he smiled
the queen of diamonds
thought she had

the jack of hearts,

blue sky shimmering
in her eyes

jack became
the brightness
of her day

and the jack of hearts
saw a flame
flickering in her eyes
that he had never seen
in any women's eyes
before ...
                
               act. 2

... a strange destiny
was unraveling
and one long poker hand
was over
and the snowflakes came
down like ashes
under the street light

and then
the jack of hearts
walked away

a pale spirit fleeing
a graveyard
into the wall of night

and the queen of diamonds
cried

the sea into sky

with eyes
like twilight
waiting

to eat away the day

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Arthur Benjamin Franklin: my Unca Artie, my favorite. A High School football star, known as Red Franklin, he was famous for his dark red hair.  He used to chuck me into deep water at Chrystal Pool to terrify me for 5 seconds, then hoist me onto his broad shoulders.I suspect I was his favorite too.  War came and he had to go.  I cried and cried on the herringbone patterned bricks at the train depot in Kelso. I have a v-mail he sent to my mom, his sister, dated 1942.  He was a belly gunner on the B-17’s that  were flying the area where Rommel was fighting.  He brought my sis and I back little leather suitcases, tooled in wonderful designs by a skilled artist somewhere in the orient. I still have it.  A treasure.

Grover Cleveland Franklin: My suave uncle, joined the Navy in WWII and became a deep sea diver. The kind that wore those heavy suits with the big glass bubble head.  He helped detect and destroy mines around battleships.  In doing that brave work he lost his hearing and came home as a lip reader for most of my childhood. I was always  a bit suspicious because he seemed to read lips so well. He even got written up in the newspaper because he could sing while putting his hands on a phonograph and feeling the vibrations of the music he couldn’t hear. We kids would always try to make loud noise behind him but he never once reacted to it.
Many years later I learned that he confessed that his hearing had gradually came back.  He was a hero nevertheless.

About their names: Both being born in North Carolina, back in the 1920’s it was common practice among the country folk to name sons after famous people.  I also have another distant relative named George Washington Franklin. I love having hillbilly DNA.

When we were leaving our place
I turned back for a moment,
I wanted to see it one last time.
The forest pulsing with dense life.

The first whisper
of Ambrorella’s blooming,
bitter fruit plucked
when we were hungry.

It was then I felt, for the last time
the false peace
of a sated animal.

I closed my eyes
and when I opened them
nothing was the same as before.

I remember,
You held my hand.
I was never just your rib,
I have always been your equal.

You didn’t resent me
for not wanting to live in illusion.
And so, our awareness began to grow.

I took the fruit
and I wasn’t the reason for our fall,
we just saw the world as it is.

I feel complete,
despite the pain that moved through my body
and still, it remains.
When all seems to die or to be born
I carry the warm living light.

I’m a barbarian in a woman’s shape.
I stomp into discourse with heavy steps.
Driven by impulse, twisting like switchbacks.

There are so many narratives...
With one hand, I hold a megaphone to my mouth.
With the other hand, from my heart, from my head,
I pull out jagged digressions and awkward arguments.

If I could weave just one logical thread
to see a common perspective,
to stop interpreting…

I would stand tall
on the pedestal of thorny incidents,
inept appointments, yet proud
that I would finally catch myself.

I know, I can only dream of
patiently knitting rushing words together.
I can’t stitch these threads into
a colored, beautiful patchwork,
that could give some warmth to the quandary,
or as a cover for chronic nostalgia.

Meanwhile,
within the conventions of social dreaming
I tilt my head from side to side
Asking myself with incredulity,
How is it possible that the voice
screaming inside me
sounds so weak and dull?

Swooping, sliding, soaring safety
When I had my wings, ribbed dragonfly sheer
Diaphanous as worldly knowledge
Veins, membranes, and spikes
Glass-smooth at eye-line
And in between all chitin clear

Comfort, cuddling, warmly wing-wrapped
When I had my wings, silk gossamer tough
Impregnable as guileless graspings
Steel, Kevlar, and gum
-- echoes at finest
No human copies quite enough

Earnest, peering through pale wing-shields
When I had my wings, light strawberry blush
Full optimist in rosy child-sight
Hope, trust, and ease
Lucent at sunrise
But sunset wipes the pearly flush

Thorny learning came at sunset
When I lost my wings, ribbed dragonfly sheer
Conspicuous in adult hindsight
Screen drawn, and lost
Sombre in umber  
World full of weeping, sweeping clear

Our organic architect leaves the stage
Her window-pane sails, in delicate rose
Better to know the world at its worth
All sad glory
In plain sorry view
Shoulders itch, remember their clothes

When I had my wings

We come into this world swaddled
in clean, soft Diapers and parental
love, and some decades later, go out
of it wearing soiled Pampers and
mostly on our own, or all alone.