An Arrangement Of Years

 

When

—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, 

Sacramento, CA

MAMA’S LITTLE CAR

Her left arm was always more tanned
than the other from resting it
on the window edge as she drove.

I would get carsick from watching
the scenery too close. Don’t look
at scenery so close, she’d say.

As long as she had her little car,
we had the freedom to come and go,
come and go, come and go.

And back and forth we’d go : between
rainy Washington… Oregon…
and sunny California.

My California arm, she’d laugh,
with her left arm out the window—
fast wind tangling her hair.  She’d sing.

I’d fall asleep in the back seat—
listening to the car engine—
feeling the rhythm of the road.

The car would break down somewhere
but she’d always manage to get it
started—or find someone who could.  

                   ~~~  

Later—from her wheelchair—she’d laugh
and sigh : you know what I miss most . . .?
It was driving my little car . . .

 

 

 

The Parlor Music

 

 

MAKING THE WINE SING

if you want the wine to sing
you must fill the glass

if you want the glass to ring
you must give it wine

if you want the eyes
of the child

to shine
you must have him watch

while you teach the glass
and the wine

and the finger on the rim
how to circle thin and

sing-g . . . ing-g-g . . .
ing-g-g-g . . . ing-g-g-g-g

                      
(prev. pub. in WINE SONG—A Festival of Poetry and Prose, 1990)

 

 

 

An Era

 

 

IN MOTHER’S COUNTRY

taking my own picture
in window-reflections
standing behind my camera

in transparent fantasy
a mockery of substance
posed

now in flowers
now in lamps
now in a turning of curious faces

I am held
in the time of this
in her country

where she has returned
and I have come
to be with her

my fame is held
in moments where I
paused for brief souvenirs of myself

marveling at my album of selves
each one with the same serious look
what do I seek

an arrangement of years
allows me
to remember each small finding :

Yes, this one . . .
this one is me . . .
another self-portrait.
    
                             
(prev. pub. in Poets’ Guild, 1996)

 

 

 

The Mantel Keepsakes

 

MY MOTHERS

my mothers prey in the shadows
which is the dream

of which remembrance?
I cannot love them both

my mirror has two sides
one empty

one mother hides there
waiting for me to enter

the glass holds
no deception

my real mother
holds her steady look

one mother pulls me
through the glass

I do not know
which one . . .

 

 

 

His Old Spittoon

 

RUMMY

My mother is a real woman in a real world. She is beautiful. Her name is Annie. She has auburn hair. Her eyes are browner than mine. She likes shredded wheat for breakfast and tomato-beer just after. She cheats at rummy. Tommy cheats, too, and they laugh together about how they cheat at such an easy game as rummy.

They go to the store in a taxi and take a taxi home. They lock their door. They talk down the intercom when somebody rings their bell, saying, Who is it? Who is it? until they know.

They share one ashtray that they empty often, the old blue deck of cards stacked loosely between them on the table where they sit across from each other most of the time. What they talk about I do not know, but they are always talking—or she is—and he is always saying how she is always talking.

Enclosed in a world small enough for the two of them, they have each other, and this they love. They sleep safely together in one bed. When he wakes up and coughs—and coughs—she goes on sleeping. 

 

 

 

Oh Canada

 

 

MOTHER, IN THIS LETTER

I tell you all the news I would not tell you 

yesterday. It’s warm for March. I’ve taken on too 

many things to do. My housework suffers. I barely cook a meal. Have put on weight. Don’t care. Or if I do, put it aside for later. You know me and my good intentions.

You have become my angel. Did you know that, Mother?

Why do I call you Mother now? I always called you
Mama—even when old. But formally I address you
in this letter from the years we’ve been apart. The
years that blur together with no need for counting, only that I make them sadly plural.

Today I stared out of a moody window and thought of you. And more and more I smile at you in my mirror—hold the look a long while and say, “Hello, Mama”.

It all goes where it goes—time and its slow followers. You went. I stayed. But you are here—isn’t that funny? It makes me think of God or something like that—a chance religion that I might inherit from your irritating optimism. How I used to argue that with you. Your foolish hope and what you bet on it. And you were right. It’s better to hope and believe in what we want and need.

Oh, Mother, Mama, how my love for you has grown. I treasure it as something good in me. You loved me well. It made me have a lightness that despair can never quite bring down. (No suicides for us, eh? No fatal flinging-off-the-edge of life, which gets so awful sometimes.)

Mama, Mother, how goes it with you now? You grew so small and tough. And so resigned. And even then you ruled. I fussed, and then obeyed. Each time I came to you in Canada I came as daughter, not my other self, and allowed you every little thrust and parry that I knew so well; I climbed the same old angry wall you always made me climb.

Oh, Mother—what a sad cliché. Such a little thing to fret about. Then or ever. You made me good. I never doubted your fierce protective love for me that I so frequently abused…my immaturity…my selfishness. And just before you died—your last admonishment : “Now I don’t want you grieving over me . . .”

“Yes, Mama. I won’t. And I do.” With all my love, your loving daughter.

 

 

 

I Always Called You Mama

 

MOTHER’S EDGE

I take the edge along with me
wherever I go . . .
 
Like a ruler—
like a lifeline in a world made of snow.

I take it for caution and what I almost know
of boundary.

I take it to remind me of where I left off
and where I began.

I take it as something not to step over,
or off of.  

I need this edge to prevent me from the fall
that flaunts its vertigo.

I know my dimension,
Mother named it so—

She said, “Take this edge through life
as a peripheral.”

She took it from her tiny balcony of warning
and stood there—edgeless—waving.

And I still have it with me  :
Mother’s edge—still holding, guarding.

 

 

 

Heirloom

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

MY MOTHER WITH HENNAED HAIR
—Joyce Odam

My
mother
with hennaed hair—
her brown eyes shining
because she was young and flirty—
                                   and
                                   how
                            I
                   became
          her
when staring into her eyes
in her young photograph and I
wanted henna in my hair too . . .

____________________

Mother’s Day is never over for Joyce Odam, who cherishes these memories and has written to us about them today. Still holding Mother’s edge, she is. Thank you for these poems and photos, Joyce!

Our new Seed of the Week is “Fool’s Errand”. Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from. And see every Form Fiddlers’ Friday for poetry form challenges, including those of the Ekphrastic type.

I am SO embarrassed: our new SnaskePal on Sunday was not Notcha Fox but NOLCHA, and she was not from Buffalo, NY, but Buffalo, WY! I am SO sorry for, not one, but two, errors—her name and her city! Fortunately she has forgiven me, and has sent another submission for the new future. Watch for it!

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Not Until You Kiss Me Goodbye
—Photo by Joyce Odam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 








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