In The Round

This stage is a holy place

full of all of the colors of human existence

full of now and everynow.

It exists in the present or not at all

in every moment in history.

 

The story is entwined passionately

with love that is not love, pain that is not pain,

coincidence that overcomes every plan.

All life's grand contradictions are played out here,

fear and favor on full display before a jury of her peers.

 

It does not end happily, or ever after

but waits

                   suspended

 

Alive with possibility

that the people will return

to fill their rows, take their places

and try again to get it right.

 

8-8-2022

 

The Women

We look to the mothers of mothers

to hold the weight of the memory

that death and birth are locked together

in the merciless gears that grind out life.

 

This child not yet

is not an equation to be calculated

but the alchemy of spirit and courage,

the tenacity of life that endures all struggle.

 

This small fleshy seed must first survive

the war zone of a mother’s body,

Find nourishment in the midst of commotion.

 

The girl so suddenly named mother must survive

the assault of this stranger entering through her

seemingly from another world.

 

Until finally, recognition.

You see yourself cradled against your breast,

alive with the gift of contradiction.

 

3-1-2022

Bread Pudding

Silent house, oven on, 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

 

I would normally be baking the bread pudding with Rose. Rose is at work, their last day of work, and it is almost Christmas. It’s not near enough to the holiday to bake the gingerbread cookies yet, but near enough to want something special. Too much bread in the breadbox is reason enough to make something new, and time is running out.

 

Pandemic skills. We’ve been baking more, Rose and me. It’s a surprise pleasure to be able to cook for entertainment, a surprise to me anyway. Many cannot. Socially distanced desperation snakes its way through parking lots. A pittance of canned goods at the end, to feed a family for another week. It is a marvel to me how we have escaped that fate, at least for now.

 

Years ago, just a few years, really, I baked this bread pudding recipe for about the first time, and brought it to Mom. She thrilled to it in a way I could not have predicted. There, in her standardized assisted living apartment, I had stumbled into a tripwire of some childhood memory she had never shared with me. Likely something that didn’t seem that important at the time, but suddenly seemed fresh and precious.

 

Cutting bread is always soothing. I don’t know why. Soft bread offers no resistance to the steel blade, falls into orderly patterns on the board. Ordinary bread absurdly transformed into a dish to share.

 

It has been a while since I’ve baked alone. Rose is often the inspiration in such projects, and I am just the motor. Still, we make a good team. Carrot Cake, Date Roll, Banana Muffins, Banana Bread, Apple Crisp, Lemon Pie, Lemon Bars, Cheesecake, Flan, and cookies, a few. Often a success, always a mess, we conclude with small celebrations and a quick analysis, of what to try again, and what to do better next time. I am surprised to discover that we have both acquired some skills in this area. I am surprised, too, that we have covered some ground this way -- years of my child’s now waning childhood. And that it has made us better.

 

Mix, pour, the pan scrapes the baking rack. Timer set.

 

Rose should have been at school now. It would be nearly time for them to come home for winter break, from their third year as a university student, a junior. Pandemic intervened, I was surprised to find myself grateful that they had concocted a plan to skip school for this semester, to find a job in the meantime, to live at home, and to wait out the disease a while longer.

 

In another year, we would have been opposed to, or at least wary of an interruption to their schooling. Their first job, in a rising pandemic, with skyrocketing unemployment in every industry. We thought they would discover that it’s just not that easy. But there they went, and instead, discovered they could do it. They are proving to be resilient, this one. Their creativity runs deep, it is original and daring.  

 

Rose will arrive home today, from the final day of their well-planned plan. And so today I bake. The house smells warm with a foolish medley of such sweet things. We will be a family of three for a while longer, and we will wait out this storm. ­

 

12-16-2020

See

Times like these,

Artists’ eyes are born.

Eyes that ask

And sometimes see.

 

Eyes that live

In that ironic, uncomfortable crevice

Between joy and cynicism,

That simply say what others will not.

 

05-11-2020

The Only Fact

A death is a fact.

It is the only fact.

Many deaths is a question.

It is the only question.

 

A number is a fact.

It records. It answers.

Many numbers is a lie.

They manipulate. They distort.

 

A child is a fact

her future before her.

A child’s death

sears a hole in the future.

 

A void.

 

We are all children before the void

when tomorrow is the land of the lucky few. 

 

12-12-2020

Others

Maybe                                         too many people
have gotten the message                    too quickly
that this social                                       distancing
was supposed to be easy.                  Real change
is not easy. Saving the world              is not easy.
This is your sacrifice.                                Own it.
Do it well                            and without self-pity.
There are no others                               right now
who will do the saving                             for you.
We are all others.                            We are all us.

05-11-2020

Storm

It's that moment

when we raise eyes to each other
as if for the first time

the way you do when the storm is rising
and it is time to go, or stay, or something

the questions begin to breathe, take life
are you okay, and what do we do

you suddenly see another
and so many others
on a lonely planet spinning in space

stranger and friend strangely the same
you search each face the way you search your child's eyes
behind her expression and beyond her words for some piercing truth

caught in the tide, we have a small grasping chance
to save self and other in the same moment

and if we should survive it
to understand something new about how to become more
human.

08/21/2019

All Things Happen In Silence

All



things







happen











in


















silence.

©2019 Donna Jo Wallace
01-21-2019

The Smell of Cool

It's the smell of cool on a hot, bright day,
tangled up with dirt and rust,
fresh-mown grass.

Gravel slides softly under my feet,
I shift my weight on the tiny pebbles,
catch a few between my toes.

The little wood door under the house leads to Dad,
working in a space all his own, quiet order.

Wanna help? he says. And of course, I do.

Funny little room with no floor and few walls,
a door not much bigger than me.
Nails line every board, a tool hangs from every nail.

I hear the story again about how my big sister Sandy
Fell through that window before the cabin was even finished,
when she was still just a baby, scared everyone.

I sort some boards into piles for Dad - skinny ones, and long ones.
I hang up a couple of hammers,
and I feel important.

When I'm done I sift the cool gravel floor between my fingers,
rake the small smooth stones into patterns,
this way, and that.

I get to stay a bit longer while Dad works,
happy in the cool and quiet,
in our little hole in the ground.

©2019 Donna Jo Wallace
04-23-19

Haiku

I must hurl my noise
Insanely into the void
Myself at stake.

©2018 Donna Jo Wallace
10-17-2018

noise

i hurl my noise fearlessly into the void

so that I might know that I exist.

echo, it comes back to me

small round rock, pressed into the crease of my palm 

i relinquish it to the tide with a mighty ugh

The waves, already churning, will bring it back 

again for another palm another day

i fight gravity itself, wishing, i think, 

for my small ball to take flight just this time. 

it soars, peaks, changes direction and

plummets to the earth again, and again

as far as I travel many years many roads

still I travel home, ever more whole and real than before

until I travel out again

the lines I seek 

sure and straight 

defy me always,

disappoint.

in their place I find only

circles

endless, eternal. ever and always

a little

mysterious

©2018 Donna Jo Wallace

10-19-2018

Stumble

Today I will work awkwardly 

in entirely the wrong order.  

I will not be profound
I will not be efficient. 

I will flail, I will stumble
I will bask in uncertainty. 

Messy and distracted
Moving to moods I made up myself,

I will
against all odds
take the next step.

© 2018 Donna Jo Wallace

4-30-2018

The Lesson

Be careful what you learn from me
Because nothing I ever learned was the truth.

The only truths I ever learned were questions

And I have learned to question the people I learned from.

I am left to detect the past they hid from me

Solve the problems they could not face

To grow from this fetid soil.

I am left to name the treachery that paved my way

To see the river of blood that runs to my door,

So much blood.

If I forgive them it is not without cost.

Is there anything at all, I wonder,

That I can take from this pile of rubble

Now before me

Because knowing is bad

But forgetting is wrong.

And we must lean into the pain
To know the growth it brings.

So we, aimless wanderers, 
Are left to find a better way.

11-05-2017

© 2017 Donna Jo Wallace

Snooze Alarm

Early morning mental soup

ashen light seeps in, just barely,

muscles relax, sigh into crevices 
of my night-warmed mattress.

Elbow curls into covers just so,

feet, naked as a newborn’s have arrived 
of their own free will at this hollow between sheets,
finally warm, settled, and still.

Impervious to my husband’s snores,

my long arm emerges, squashes

the alarm clock once more,

my respite is unspoiled.

My cat arrives, perches upright on my hip,

nudges my sleepy wrist, willing it to live.

He curls around cozily, pins

my arm with the sheet.

Now, I want out.

 ©2016 Donna Jo Wallace    

The Myth

You sniff the breeze and feel the difference,

Something new is coming on.

Green was your life,

it was around you and among you.

There were rumors of other colors, out there,

but you were sure they were a myth.

But now, what is this--

brilliant red leaves are appearing

out of your once green ones.

Neighbors all around have become

orange, brown, variegated gold.

Ecstatic color is waking up, and

you discover

you never even knew what color was 
until there was change.

©2015 Donna Jo Wallace

shared with Poets United / Poetry Pantry 326

Bits and Pieces

As you age

in years and frustration,

which pieces of yourself, I wonder,

will you

add on

put on

spray on

brush on

re-color

re-shape and

apply?

Will they be equal

in weight and measure

to the pieces you

shave off

pull off

peel off

pluck out

work off and

cut off?

Will you love yourself

Live whole and forgiving

In this very skin,

The skin you were born in?

©2001 Donna Jo Wallace

Popcorn Belly

Popcorn flutters grow in my belly,

dance to the rhythm

of my breath, my blood, my movement;

you knock softly at first, waiting for an answer.

Soon, you will grow impatient

no longer satisfied with hearing shadows,

ever more insistent to see the world beyond.

You know without knowing,

the urgency of the journey

upon which you are about to embark.

I hold the breadth of my belly

as I feel you talking to me;

I dance to your tiny rhythm,

throw back my head, and laugh.

©1999 Donna Jo Wallace

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Poet's Note: Here's a little non-sequitur shared from the year that I was pregnant. I loved being pregnant. dw

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