Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Reading

This is one of the poems that I intend to read tonight. It is a summary of my childhood. How could someone who has claimed to love beyond existence so easily reach out and intentionally hurt the person he/she claims to love? How do you ask for forgiveness without the tail between your legs getting in the way

The strength is found in the love itself and not in the love of self, instead in the love of each other.


EMPTY

Off the banks of time
Sit memories of broken years
Listed under emotionless scars
Unable to summon the coldness of the summer
When time stood still across empty school yards
Flower pots recall the heavy scent of broadleaf geraniums
While railroad tracks memorize my empty steps
Many nights were spent waiting for the sunrise
Surrounded by the twinkling stars of fireflies
Porch still smelled like fresh picked tomatoes
Which now sit next to the red potatoes picked the day before
Hot, South Texas Wind fed into the open windows of my grandmother’s house
The house was empty except for the furniture and the people who lived in it
Compromised promises were the steps leading into the house
A fault line scarred myself in two
A single candle bearing the open armed icon sat waiting in darkness
for my mother’s return
Church bells slept all through the night
Otherwise they would have woken the dead
A lonely traffic light yawned between flashes of color
Tired of waiting for my mother
Straight lines of the mesquite bark tread my bare feet
As I climb my way up on the backs of mothers childhood memories
As she once climbed the same tree
My neighborhood slept, except for the wailing of the legend, of the hollering woman
With colors of the sunrise perched on my shoulder I waited
Until I heard the tired rumble of the engine of my mother’s car
Like a cat I pounced into dawn
Slipped into my bed before she quieted the sputtering car
Blinded my the darkness she did not see my eyes following her presence in the room
She moved from one bed to the other
From one sister to the other followed by my brother
If she had only listened she would have clearly heard the pounding of my heart
The house was empty except for the furniture and the people who lived in it

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