lines by Andrei
— for Andrei Pashin
ingredients of the skull spill
to shapes of associative thought
while sleepless listening to rain
on a night without stars
remembering
bare toes sifting sand
dog joy on the beach
moonlight on waves
whispers, muses of night
night journey to nowhere
shadows of loss
colors slide sideways
grasping the moments
that slide into quicksand
the faces, the snarls
the laughter, the tears
the loved and the dead
I remember a once-young man
posting on Facebook his memory
of joy within war, in Vietnam, long ago.
What joy? Why happy? they asked
Just what did he say?
happy ‘cause we came into base camp for three days
and got to go to town and it had stopped raining
and we had taken hot showers
and were young and the beer was cold
and we were not dead, best as I can remember
That was my friend Andrei.
He would be maybe sixty-nine around now
except for the massive stroke that snared him
about three years ago, just like that
his wife and daughters holding on to him.
They could not pull him back.
There’s no stopping that death thing.
Duet with Doubt
We’ve been together a long time
— we know each other well.
She’s the shadow that clutches, clings.
She’s my own imp that stops me from
— making that call
— writing that letter
— starting my poem.
She whispers of the labor likely leading to failure.
Who are you, she titters, to think you can do this?
I shake myself loose — widely I circle.
I quick-step small tasks
she won’t bother to touch
— the simple call
— the short note
— the rough draft.
She scoffs, turns a sharp pirouette.
I sway in a waltz—inward I spiral.
The circles get
— smaller
— closer
— tighter.
She shudders, squeezes, springs out!
I watch as she flees, hissing sullen.
She’ll be away a while now.
I breathe in, sink into Poem.
Not Yet — *
For my daughter on her fiftieth birthday
— a look at was is & will --
She has now moved inside me.
The child to be within the child
that I am will transform me
and we will grow up together.
Through her I’ll first know
the pains of childbirth.
She will be Elena.
She’ll teach me the joy
of watching my child grow.
She’ll imagine me lost to her
when her brother appears.
She’ll teach me the pain
of crippling illness
and the strength
to live through it, and with it.
She will be Elena.
I’ll make her my friend
and before she is ready
I’ll make her my confidante.
She’ll come to resent me
for taking too much
for failing to sense her child’s hunger
the girl’s innocence she still longed for.
Our road ahead will often be rough
but I’ll wait. I’ll wait
for recovery and rediscovery
until we know each other anew
through the brush stroke
the key stroke
the camera’s eye.
Through the pain
the laughter, the play
of the singular labor of art
we’ll wind our way
to the truth of the heart.
All that is yet to be.
Today, I felt her move within me.
She is not yet, but almost . . .
_____________________________
* Title and final line inspired by Julia Alvarez’s “February,” in The Twelve Seasons of Vermont (Vermont Magazine, 2005).
— for Andrei Pashin
ingredients of the skull spill
to shapes of associative thought
while sleepless listening to rain
on a night without stars
remembering
bare toes sifting sand
dog joy on the beach
moonlight on waves
whispers, muses of night
night journey to nowhere
shadows of loss
colors slide sideways
grasping the moments
that slide into quicksand
the faces, the snarls
the laughter, the tears
the loved and the dead
I remember a once-young man
posting on Facebook his memory
of joy within war, in Vietnam, long ago.
What joy? Why happy? they asked
Just what did he say?
happy ‘cause we came into base camp for three days
and got to go to town and it had stopped raining
and we had taken hot showers
and were young and the beer was cold
and we were not dead, best as I can remember
That was my friend Andrei.
He would be maybe sixty-nine around now
except for the massive stroke that snared him
about three years ago, just like that
his wife and daughters holding on to him.
They could not pull him back.
There’s no stopping that death thing.
Duet with Doubt
We’ve been together a long time
— we know each other well.
She’s the shadow that clutches, clings.
She’s my own imp that stops me from
— making that call
— writing that letter
— starting my poem.
She whispers of the labor likely leading to failure.
Who are you, she titters, to think you can do this?
I shake myself loose — widely I circle.
I quick-step small tasks
she won’t bother to touch
— the simple call
— the short note
— the rough draft.
She scoffs, turns a sharp pirouette.
I sway in a waltz—inward I spiral.
The circles get
— smaller
— closer
— tighter.
She shudders, squeezes, springs out!
I watch as she flees, hissing sullen.
She’ll be away a while now.
I breathe in, sink into Poem.
Not Yet — *
For my daughter on her fiftieth birthday
— a look at was is & will --
She has now moved inside me.
The child to be within the child
that I am will transform me
and we will grow up together.
Through her I’ll first know
the pains of childbirth.
She will be Elena.
She’ll teach me the joy
of watching my child grow.
She’ll imagine me lost to her
when her brother appears.
She’ll teach me the pain
of crippling illness
and the strength
to live through it, and with it.
She will be Elena.
I’ll make her my friend
and before she is ready
I’ll make her my confidante.
She’ll come to resent me
for taking too much
for failing to sense her child’s hunger
the girl’s innocence she still longed for.
Our road ahead will often be rough
but I’ll wait. I’ll wait
for recovery and rediscovery
until we know each other anew
through the brush stroke
the key stroke
the camera’s eye.
Through the pain
the laughter, the play
of the singular labor of art
we’ll wind our way
to the truth of the heart.
All that is yet to be.
Today, I felt her move within me.
She is not yet, but almost . . .
_____________________________
* Title and final line inspired by Julia Alvarez’s “February,” in The Twelve Seasons of Vermont (Vermont Magazine, 2005).
Marina Romani lives and writes in Monterey, California, where she finds inspiration in solitary walks along the coast, talks with friends, memory, and dreams. Her poems have appeared in various print and on-line literary journals including Homestead Review, Porter Gulch Review, Monterey Poetry Review, CWC Literary Review, and Canada’s Poetry Pacific. Her first book, Child Interwoven (Park Place Publications, 2016), is a collection of reminiscences, in poem and prose, of her early childhood in wartime and civil-war China. A second collection is in the works.