Super-Sized Series

 Happy Third Birthday Storyteller 

 

 

 

In honor of Storyteller’s third birthday, March 18, 
I am publishing poems about birthdays and gifts. 
Since the storytellers come from all over the world. 
I am listing their state or country.


Birthdays by Rose Mary Boehm from Peru
 
The lift opens to the hall of the flat and what seems
hundreds of balloons hugging the cream-coloured
ceiling, their strings an instrument or curtain. A child
slides on socks along the marble floor. The one whose
birthday it is receives her parcel wrapped in pink
and silver, only another jacket from trendy ‘peek-a-boo’.
Nannies and maids busy making the hot chocolates
and triangular sandwiches, crusts cut off. Mothers
and grandmothers chat about the friend of the cousin
of the son of the ex-minister, and where to buy
those retro-design boots, inspired by John Wayne.
Cariño, te voy a llevar. I’ll take you.
Outside the chauffeurs are waiting near the SUVs.
 
As I watch and listen, I remember a small brown hand
holding a frayed rope on the other end of which
a llama trots with ill-concealed bad feelings,
brown shiny cheeks painted a blue-red
by the extreme cold on the Altiplano. Sandals
made from rubber tires, snow on the pebbled path.
The poncho gives some warmth, the multicoloured cap
knitted by Granny with love and intricate patterns
covers his ears down to his chin. He’s taking the animal
to the adobe house where his mother cooks for the tourists
who may just leave a dollar or two. I buy a couple
of earthenware bulls, small enough to fit into my rucksack
and powerful enough to protect me from evil.


Joy by Neil Creighton from Australia

At seventeen I met Joy Bevan,
her voice so soft and low,
her mind entirely beautiful.
her gentle inner glow.
At seventeen she was my guide
through the realms of gold.
With a kindly, skillful, gentle hand
she let those realms unfold.
At seventeen she showed me treasure
beyond all place and time,
deep, powerful, beautiful and sad,
a complex journey of the mind.
At seventeen she helped me love
a landscape littered with jewels,
said the journey and not its end
should be your lifelong rule.
At seventeen I gave poor thanks
for her gifts and dedication.
Now, decades later, I sing her praise
In sad, posthumous recognition.


James by Lynn White from Wales

It was still his favourite toy,
that robot with the flashing eyes,
a birthday present when he was only five.
He called it James,
he couldn’t say why.
He didn’t know a James
so he was pleased to be original.
There was a lever called a joystick
because it brought him joy
and gave him perfect control.
Back and forth, round in circles,
blinking and winking away.
He called all the shots.

Now he’s grown up,
almost nine
and James is feeling his age
(yes, of course he can feel)
so his movements are slower
and his lights less bright and sparkly.
Age has undermined his splendour,
it happens,
he knew it would.
The joystick is a bit wonky
so control is imperfect
but it doesn’t matter,
the joy is the same.
James is still James
and will be forever.

The Gift of the Crow by Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca from Canada

If the cawing of a crow does not bring a visitor
Let it at least bring the gift of a poem.

The crows have cawed for three days,
If my belief in local Indian folklore 
is fact not superstition 
the cawing of a crow should bring a visitor.
Mathematically, several crows should bring several visitors,
If three large ravens sitting on the backyard fence
Count as crows, by the same token
I should have many more visitors and poems!
I will be brave and open the door
though no doorbell rings.

The poem waits on the threshold
‘You don’t need an appointment,’ I say reassuringly
 I welcome it in French, English and Spanish 
‘Mi casa es su casa’  
 Welcome it in all the Indian languages I know
The poem should now feel at home.

I offer it the best of Indian hospitality
Ginger tea, samosas with tamarind chutney
I carry it over the threshold as for a newly-married bride
Anxious to see if it’s a love poem or about birds.

The gift of a poem would be a miracle visitor
Coming from a crow at Christmas
That would be a double miracle.

First published in ‘The Gift,’ anthology by Steve Carr

Searching for Gold by Laurie Kuntz from Florida

Bracing the wind, Laura, in a red sock hat,
reads the instruction booklet of this holiday gift,
the metal detector you’ve wanted since you were a child,
growing up in rural places, where treasures were part of the lore.
Now, on an urban beach in January,
you search and dig, sand blowing in your aging face.
You yell against the rising tide, hoping Laura can hear,
It is more the hunt than the treasure that I love,
because you can see clearly,
that the treasure is standing next to you,
reading the instruction booklet.

First appeared in One Art


The Package by Mary Ellen Talley from Washington

I tear dun paper 
from the Texas postmark package
to reveal a repurposed pearlized 
Granny Smith apple green 
plasticized trench coat 
with matching lining
and a tag on the side seam instructing,
“Wipe clean only.”

Someone wore this once. 
Does my sister think it looks like me?    
It fits. 
Darn! The tattooed redhead
who works with me 
would wear this retro outer garb
but she’s a medium. 
I know that you, my dear retired big sister,
with your shopping volunteering
at St. Vinnie’s, found this bargain 
due to persistence you inherited from our mother.
You ask directly.  Well, I say,
it’s not what I usually wear.
You say to ask my daughter.
No thanks, Mom.
You say you won’t be offended.
Take it to a consignment shop.
Yes, the coat is in prime shape.
Surely it will fit the bill for someone—
else.


The Gifts he Gives me by Sharon Waller Knutson from Arizona

Grinning he slaps me
on my behind as I stand
in line at the convenience
store. I ignore him.

In a concerned voice.
the clerk asks: “Do you
 know him?” I answer:
“He is my husband.”

In the local café, he strums
the bass guitar and sings,
Conway Twitty’s “Crazy in Love”
to me as the crowd cheers.

We two step, salsa and swing
on the Stardust dance floor 
after dining on lobster, crab
and filet mignon. I smile

as I remember sunsets on sandstone 
in Sedonia, sliding in the snow
in Flagstaff and buying turquoise
jewelry in Santa Fe with my soulmate.

We climb the Grand Canyon,
watch gun fights on the street
and dance hall girls in the saloon
and ride a camel with the grandkids.

He drives me to the hospital
after my mother’s mini stroke.
I feed his father and mother ice chips 
while he pushes their wheelchairs.

After three decades, I find him dead
after serving me egg whites
stuffed with avocado for breakfast 
and fruit salad and mayo for lunch.

Our oldest and youngest sons
jump in their trucks to take
care of their traumatized mom
making sure I am not alone over the holidays.

The oldest gives me socks
and a new mattress for Christmas.
The youngest shows up Dec. 23
with a pickup load of wood.

“Thank you for my Christmas gift,”
I say. “I am your Christmas gift,”
he says. I reply, “It’s the best
gift I could ever ask for.”

Searching for Gold by Laurie Kuntz from Florida

Bracing the wind, Laura, in a red sock hat,
reads the instruction booklet of this holiday gift,
the metal detector you’ve wanted since you were a child,
growing up in rural places, where treasures were part of the lore.
Now, on an urban beach in January,
you search and dig, sand blowing in your aging face.
You yell against the rising tide, hoping Laura can hear,
It is more the hunt than the treasure that I love,
because you can see clearly,
that the treasure is standing next to you,
reading the instruction booklet.

First appeared in One Art

First published in Gyroscope Journal

 

The Gift of a Blue Alabaster Jar by Joan Leotta from Virginia

We argued before I left for Spain. 
Lonely, some months later, 
I bought my mother 
a blue alabaster vanity jar
in my favorite store 
on Madrid’s Gran Via.
The shop girl assured me,
it would arrive on time. 
Indeed it did.
Mom called to thank me.
We spoke briefly.
However, unbeknownst to me,
when my mother 
opened the package 
she found only alabaster shards
rattling about on the bottom
of an unpadded box. 
Then, for several days,
hour after hour Mom
matched piece to piece.
to reassemble her blue jar, 
and the apology
it represented.
When I finally 
returned from Spain, 
I looked at the jar and spoke:
"I don't remember all those
extra lines in the alabaster." 
Mom recounted her repairs.
I hugged her tightly
realizing her love for me
had never wavered,
that she always believed we 
were of one piece.

Mom is gone now
but I have the vase and 
the lines that show 
her constant 
unbroken love in a time
I thought it was in ruins.


My father's Birthday by Rachael Ikins from New York

Tarnishing sky leads darkness.
White daylight fragments,
flits through naked
branches. Rotting crabapples
stuck on their stems. 

A flock, thousands
surround me, sparrows of silence, 
inadvertent video. For a second,
snow scatters.

Wind whispers two syllable
secrets. Mysteries,
camera blinks, 
back to balancing numbers
checkbook. Memory, the math.
My father, his pickup truck, 
rumpled, Saturday jacket,
stomped-off bootsong, snowmelt
doorbell.
As if I’d never seen snow before, 
tears steam the window 
brief as video. I lean.

body strains-
footsteps,
rattling tool bucket, 
hot coffee and repairs. 
Body believes, through 32 years’
tuneless, march away...
Today 
is his birthday.


On Mother’s Birthday by Tamara Madison from California

I don’t feel her 
as acutely as before;
she’s not in the air 
that I breathe, she is more

like the humus 
from which I grow
toward my own decline. 
Still I keep on thinking

I should call her
and then remember
there is no way to call her
and no one to call.