Should I hate you, Father’s other lover?
You were young,
Eyes ablaze with passions
That once fueled the love he held for her
Decrying society’s limitations
You pitied prisoners bound by race and poverty
Yet fiercely held another woman’s husband
Could you not see your own cage?
Hers?
My parents pledged to change the world
She changed diapers, stopped writing
Afraid to compete with her man
Held him through his children
Her role defined by an engagement ring
Presented in a double boiler
But you, you were his comrade in arms
Fiercely independent, fearless fighter
Poverty, civil rights, freedom
Adrenalin fueled fucking,
You, too, surrendered
Mistress for his prestige
Two women loved a man
Loved him for his vision
Of justice and empowerment
Except for them
Two women taught me well
Taught me to break chains of subjugation
Taught me to build my own
They were younger, for the most part
Except for the icons and mentors, of course
Full of life, blood, sophistication
Words and bodies juicy as pomegranates
I was older, wiser, envious
As their wicked words poured freely,
Words that glue my own mouth
Like the cheese I nibbled nervously
Young bodies and language
Lubricated with wine
Their poems as full of life
As mine were full of death
Kalani is an old dog
Her muzzle’s turned to gray
Her master was my young son
Grown and gone away
Our house in now an older house
(My hubby died last year)
She clicks and hobbles cross the floor
Her eyes no longer clear
Kalani is a gentle dog
She lies beside my bed
It takes a little longer now
To raise her aging head
Though I am gray and she is gray
Our lives continue on
Who’ll be my companion
When old Kalani’s gone?
© Barbara Huntington
June 6. 2011
(Kalani died on December 19, 2011)
Steve Kowit—1938-2015
Today in meditation my monkey mind stuck to Steve Kowit, poet, mentor/teacher, and friend. Steve unbottled the poet in me. That me scribbled inconsistently since childhood on scraps of paper, notebooks, and computer 8” floppy disks that will never be found. I took at least two classes from him. In the first one, perhaps at San Diego Writer’s Ink (?), he delivered the prompt: “I don’t remember you.” I scribbled my doggerel and he laughed and asked me if he could post it in his on-line Serving House Journal. What an honor for an old lady, baby poet! Heady with this honor, I shared with everyone I knew as I must now do for you.
Here is the link to the Journal and the poem: http://www.servinghousejournal.com/
And You Were Just Some Guy
by Barbara Weeks Huntington
No, I don’t remember you
We were way too high
I was just a college kid
You were just some guy
Pressed together in the sand
No future and no past
Just the ocean kissing land
No need to make it last
I don’t wonder where you are today
And I won’t even try
The thrill was just my age, the times
And you were just some guy.
Steve was creative and compassionate. Since his death, many others have posted his poems and I have found some new favorites.
I attended another of Steve’s classes at the Mingei International Museum. The museum was celebrating the color blue and we wrote poems surrounded by water and sky, turquoise and sapphires. Steve encouraged me to enter a poem in a contest sponsored by the Mingei. I had written that poem driving home from my first night in a another class (The Hugh C. Hyde Living Writers Series at San Diego State University). My first time taking a university course in anything related to English since my youth (I was a science major), was also the night of the blue moon. A handout I picked up on my way out the door referred to “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” and as I floated to the parking lot, I realized the words described my current state. I drove home on the Interstate 8, giddy and in awe of the full moon above the hills ahead of me, grateful for the gift of being returned to the world of words and literature. My elation reminded me of another time when the 50’s 60’s band my late hubby and I formed in the 80’s scored a coup to play at the Blue Moon Saloon. The synchronicity of Blue Moons and euphoria converged in the poem I later read at the Mingei. Though my voice shook, my mentor, Steve, cheered me on.
Although it is posted elsewhere on my blog, for the sake of my homage to Steve, (and my lack of knowledge of how to link within the blog), I will post it again here:
Once in a Blue Moon
by Barbara Huntington
Once in the Blue Moon Saloon
I felt that unbearable lightness of being
Exactly that
The heaviness of years of just living
Lifted
Our arrogant lead guitarist
wanted to know what I was on
I was on the moment, the music
Lifted
Once, long ago, in the Blue Moon Saloon
Tonight, driving home, another blue moon
I feel that unbearable lightness of being
Exactly that
The heaviness of years of science
Lifts
I know what I am on:
Words! Language! Poetry!
Tasting the wine I want more and more
I claim my genetic birthright
The music of words
Might happen once in a blue moon
But there will always be
Another blue moon
I know what I am doing
Not not doing
Grabbing cottony hunks of electrons
Stuffing them in my ears, my eyes
Mom is dying
I was going to meditate
But I didn’t
I was going to do yoga
But I didn’t
I turned on the computer
Holding the mouse, my hand aches
Mom is dying
The opiate of FaceBook
Doesn’t really erase the pain
Maybe hides it for a moment
Substitutes one pain for another
Rattles words in my head
Doesn’t rattle loud enough
To hide my thoughts
Mom is dying
Pretty clouds, cartoons
Rants about healthcare
The planet, selfishness
A TED talk
Black Friday specials
One more “like”
Mom is dying
The computer
Draws energy
Through my fingers
From my back, my heart
My gut, my brain
Mom is dying
Not gardening
Not cleaning
Not aware of time
Too aware of time
Mom is dying
(c) Barbara Huntington
Last March first it was raining in San Diego. I know because that was the day I adopted Tashi. (See my blog, The Puppy). March first has again gushed in and we are celebrating our first year together, stuck in the house, listening to the much-needed rain on the skylight. We have survived backyard mushrooms and dead gophers, attack dogs at the local dog park, a trip across country to Wichita and back, and outings to San Diego’s Fiesta Island. I now have a tee shirt that asks, “Are you smarter than a Border Collie?” The answer is no.
We do share a common trait, stubbornness about following orders, but she has me beat in persistence. Her trainer ‘s dog is currently winning a gazillion awards in obedience. Lyric reads her owner’s mind and obeys. Tashi reads my mind, too, but she decides when she wants to obey. Every other dog I know jumps up and down with excitement when their owner brings out a leash. Tashi evaluates. I can see her thinking, “Am I going to get stuck in the car while she runs into the post office? She has one of those envelopes with her.” “Does she really think walking around Home Depot counts as a walk?” “ Is it worth that long ride to go to the beach?” What if she takes me to that crummy dog park with those nasty attack shepherds?”
Tashi usually likes big dogs. At Fiesta Island, she picks out the biggest, scariest pit bulls and Rottweilers to play with. But ever since I asked the guy in the white truck if it was ok if we joined them in the Mt. Miguel dog park and his attack dogs jumped her, German Shepherds have not been her favorites. That guy isn’t my favorite, either. His game is “going to the rescue.” It was only after he waved us through the gate and into the fenced area that he mentioned his dogs didn’t like puppies.
Putting on Tashi’s walking harness and leash has become a keep-away game that SHE enjoys. I have learned to close the doggy door before grabbing her paraphernalia or even mentioning a walk, so I have a fighting chance of reaching her before she bounds out into the back yard.
Tashi’s trainers (actually the people trying to train me to train her) continue to emphasize the importance of going potty on demand. (For her, not me. My eagerness for pit stops is legendary). I understand the value of minimizing the time for a pit stop during a long road trip, especially if I forget and decide to let her go first, but this training endeavor requires leashing her up in the morning, walking downstairs to the backyard, finding a spot and issuing the “go potty” command, regardless of the weather and my current pre-coffee state. About a month ago, standing in THE SPOT I composed a poem, which now rattles around in my head every morning. I call it,
On the Futility of Asserting Dominance in a Relationship with a Border Collie
Tashi, Tashi, Please go potty
Looks at me aloof and haughty
“Let me off this leash, I will”
Can’t let you off this leash until…
Oh look, you peed!
Well that’s a start
Did I hear
A little fart?
I took you to
Your favorite spot
You don’t need
To do a lot
Tashi, I am tired and cold
Your stubbornness is getting old
“Let me off this leash I will”
Can’t let you off this leash until…
Continued battle
Of the wits
One of us
Must call it quits
Tashi, Tashi, please go potty
Looks at me aloof and haughty
“Let me off this leash, I will”
Can’t let you off this leash until…
Obviously you can see who is winning…
Time traveled so slowly when I was young
Yet the bits and pieces only take a second to recollect
So much pain, interminable then
Where are the years when my children grew up?
A birthday party, ballet recital, old photograph
That young woman is me
And isn’t
Thirty-three years married
And nine before that
Twelve watching a body and mind
Shrivel before me
Death long before the heartbeat ceased
Now the years are counted in deaths
Two husbands, Dad, nephew, aunts, cousins, uncles
Dear friends who retired too late
Soft furred friends who stayed to help me through
My wrinkled mom danced and gardened
Then fell. Two falls,
One on the dance floor
The second, a slow decline through dementia and death
Now the days disappear without accomplishment
Grandchildren, puppies
Gardens, detritus
Grow before pen reaches paper
I stare at the keyboard in disbelief
Whose wrinkled hands are these?
(c) Barbara Huntington
Photo and poem by Barbara W. Huntington
When I was a child, the butterfly of belief
Brushed a filmy wing across my forehead
“Chase me, chase me.”
Through churchyards and headstones
I reached out and grasped soft wings against my palm
I held,
Released her
Slept
In my youth, she hid behind napalm clouds of war
Fluttered above a guitar in songs of peace and equality
Was forgotten in the headiness of first love
Lit briefly in the comfort of second
Not knowing if I really held her
Pretended her presence
For my children
In middle age, children gone to chase their own butterflies,
No infinite sky, no fluttering form, a shadowed memory
In the dark cramped rooms of death
Parents, friends, my dying love
His mind and body, gone before the breath stopped
Mocking, mutant memories
No place for butterflies
Too fearful to sleep
My hand numb with grasping what wasn’t there
I felt a tiny foot light on my forehead
“Chase me, chase me.”
Fields of possibilities mimicked a thousand butterflies
Without revealing the one who called
I envied those who knew the objects of the chase lived forever in their hands
I slept
Is she still there just beyond my cushion?
“Chase me, chase me.”
The chase is slower now
Beyond mountain, ashram, Boddhi tree
Always beyond, beyond
A soft brush, a light touch
Hovers, gentle beyond my reach
I sleep
Tashi’s tummy ache subsided but not her ability to find delightful treats in our suburban-gone-wild backyard. With no tame lawn, I pull grasses that grow faster than I can yank. With their foxtails and other sharp pointy seeds that have evolved to be carried in animal fur or catch in the ground, I worry they will invade her ears, throat or paws. However, my greatest challenge is the ubiquitous presence of the past-tense possum.
Shortly after Tashi arrived, she presented me with the skull and forward extremities of a quickly decomposing possum. Having seen live possum grins, it wasn’t hard to identify that sharp dentition, but that did not make it any easier to disengage it from Tashi’s teeth. I always forget to wear gloves in the garden and that day was no exception. Deciding it was more important to get the carcass away from Tashi, ASAP, than to hunt for gloves, I assumed the proper, “Ewwwww” stance as I carried it to the trashcan. This was followed by an unsuccessful search for the remaining remains, after I washed my hands and found the gloves.
In subsequent weeks I could count on Tashi to find a leg bone here, a sharp vertebra there. How many bones are there in a marsupial skeleton? I am beginning to think they are infinite, although her most recent recovery is a long skinny shriveled tail. Perhaps that is the end?
The Poetry and Prose of Barbara Huntington 