silent and indifferent

Slowly, she walks by my side under a tar-black sky, her blond paws darkening with dew. It’s the biggest patch of universe I can view around these parts, skirted with white pines, maples and oaks all of a similar height. As I look up into the center of the sprinkling of stars, a swath of clouds is disguised as the Milky Way. Near the northwest horizon I spot the Big Dipper, and above me is Cassiopeia, but I cannot find Orion, and I am at first vexed, then disheartened. For years now, in my fantasy, I've imagined Orion as Calvin's guard, rising over our house on clear winter nights, though I know there’s no such thing as a divine protector. I know because all I have to do is read the news about weary immigrants risking their lives on perilous journeys to escape murder, war and genocide, or see the countess homeless folks shuddering alone in the cold, or hear about the innocents riddled with bullets in churches and theaters, cafes and other public spaces in the name of hate or some so-called supreme race, false ideology or distorted god. I know because today I am reminded of the Sandy Hook elementary school first graders gunned down by a disturbed young man who was once a child himself. I know because of the millions of abused, exploited, interned, starving, neglected, diseased, disabled, chronically ill children in this world—even children like Calvin who are racked with seizures, some so severely that they don’t survive. Still, there are those who salt others' wounds swearing it’s all part of God's design.

In the center of this vast grassy stadium, a ring of trees looking on, I can see our breaths as mist begins to hug the earth in pockets at the field's rim. I want to venture to its center where by day the college athletes lope in ways Calvin will never do, out away from the glare of spotlights and the hum of engines. But harsh light grazes me no matter how far I go. From beyond the field's edges I can hear the traffic drone, but then I hear the night train whistling its orchestra of perfectly arranged notes, and I think how artful the conductor must be, how he or she finesses the whistle into a crescendo like I’ve never heard before, and I am grateful for so many things: for my husband, for my son, for my place in this spinning blue world.

Still, I want the sky to be blacker, the stars brighter and more evident. Looking up to see the mass of them knowing, though not fully grasping, their infiniteness, I feel insignificant, and I think about other beings on other planets doing the same, as if looking through a window or perhaps into a mirror. Then I consider those who believe life exists only on Earth, and I muse over such conceit.

Then, as I stand scratching Nellie’s head, I wonder if on those billions of other planets little innocent beings are suffering, ill, abandoned, slaughtered, and I loathe the thought because it’s clear to me that the universe, though long ago set in sublime motion, remains silent and indifferent to our pleas. The only elixir is to think of each star as one of those little children, to think of the shining moon as their vessel of love pouring over us as if to say, please, end your hateful ways.

originally published 12.14.15

photo by http://favim.com

changes

It couldn't have been clearer to me that Calvin would have a seizure by this morning. In his own way, he tells me. I just have to watch and listen. Yesterday, he showed nearly all of the usual, and some not-as-usual, harbingers: bloody nose, whininess, major finger snapping and other repetitive behaviors, pacing, warm hands, uber-rashy butt, agitation, restlessness, intensity, detachment.

At five a.m. it came. Perhaps the extra doses of concentrated THCA cannabis oil just past midnight and at three o'clock impeded its arrival. As I spooned with him after the seizure, I felt how calm his body was, noting the absence of what I call aftershocks—shivering and shudders which often occur in the wake of grand mal seizures. I had no doubt THCA had something to do with his serenity.

Mostly awake since three and therefore exhausted, I still had a hard time relaxing my mind. Lying there, again I considered the world. I feel it going through its own convulsions, having more than its share of anger, hatred and greed, its racists, abusers, tyrants and liars bent on destroying humanity at nearly any cost, lusting for power through intrigue, attempting to avoid capture. What drives these men to such extremes, these gun-toting terrorists, abusers, trolls and bots, these conspiracy theorists, these despots and deceitful oligarchs? Meanwhile, in my arms lies one of the purest souls on earth, a boy who inspires love and compassion, requires my mindfulness and who, though he tries my patience at times, makes me want to live simply and be a better person every day.

Yesterday, when reading about the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school students traveling to the Florida state capital to express their desire for the legislature to pass stricter gun control laws, I thought about Calvin. I imagined him being crammed into a closet with twenty others his age, little room to breathe, waiting silently for ninety minutes until the shooter fled the scene. I imagined Calvin—if he were a typical kid—fearing for his life, texting us, being riddled with bullets or sobbing when finally set free. I imagine him, later, boarding a bus with his classmates to march on state capitals and Washington DC demanding changes to gun policy. He'd be that kid. He'd change the world. No doubt he has, in his own way, inspired such things in others and in me.

A former teacher—one who has never met Calvin nor could comprehend the depth of his disability, who had no children of his own much less a non-verbal, incontinent, uncoordinated, delayed, epileptic one—once asked me why I named my blog Calvin's Story, or rather, why I didn't write more often from my son's perspective since it bears his name. I recall being slightly irked and thinking, perhaps even saying to him, that Calvin informs my world, and since he lacks the ability to speak, I must lend my voice to tell his story—which, because we are so inextricably linked, is ours—the one he might have told if he had been born normal. In short, I have to dream. I revisit that question from time to time, checking in with myself to ensure I am doing justice to Calvin's unusual and complicated childhood experience, exploring notions of my own with regard to him hoping I can extract some meaning from it—which is not to say I am searching for answers as to why he was born so afflicted. (Shit just happens, with no inherent reason, no purpose. Prayers prove useless, the absence of God in schools a lame excuse for mass shootings; pedophile priests still lurk in churches.)

This morning, I considered our children's truths and stories as told by themselves and their parents when I heard a former GOP congressman expressing doubt that the teenagers organizing a nationwide rally against guns—thinking the students incapable because of their youth—are doing so of their own volition. Instead, he suggested that they are mere pawns of leftist organizations. Clearly the response was from someone too detached to understand young, informed, impassioned minds, or too partisan, ignorant or cowardly to think, appear or admit otherwise. His lame statement led me to recall the David Bowie lyric I read yesterday from his song Changes:

And these children that you spit on, as they try to change their worlds, are immune to your consultations, they're quite aware of what they're going through.

I went on to ponder the right-wing conspiracy theorists who've shamefully suggested that the Florida school shooting, along with the Sandy Hook massacre, was a government ruse and that the students are actors. I wonder what in the hell these losers, jerks and trolls want to do to the virtuousness of the world. I can only hope, and work, to squash them all and liberate the truth, and soon.

And so, as my son spasms, so does the world. But there are elixirs. There is cannabis to fight seizures, there are fathers to soothe and mothers to spoon, there are parents and educators teaching their kids honesty and virtue even in—and perhaps owing to—the absence of god in schools, because it is very simply the right thing to do. There is love to conquer hate, knowledge to erase ignorance, truth and fact to crush lies and rumors, compassion to smash fearmongers, misers and fools, virtue to rule over vice, and the voices, bodies and ballots of youth to enlighten, change and lead us, to liberate and save a convulsing world.

twenty-six: remembering sandy hook

Stepping
into a seaside childhood morning
—only colder—
Wind whipping,
Moist and grey and brisk,
Rudy by my side.

Muddy
gravel underfoot,
Bits of sandy ice. A soggy cigarette butt.
The chapel bell begins to ring.
I stop to listen,
and count.

Twenty-six.
My head hangs low
and sorry,
Straining to hear each faint toll
amid the hiss of traffic
rushing by.

The fields,
A semi-frozen marshland.
My ribs lace up,
Wind whisks away each breath,
I begin to sob into shallow
glass puddles.

A sudden squall
evokes a school of hushing voices.
The tops of watchful trees
Standing tall and firm,
yet swaying
Nonetheless.

Silent forest.
Distant barking dogs.
A murder of crows looks on.
Thwap, thwap, these rubber boots against
Bare calves
Sting.

The skies
are silver, lead and low.
Shivering limbs set free cool droplets
like tears upon my face,
One for each child lost we must remember.
 Twenty-six.

In loving memory of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims. 

photo by Michael Kolster

silent and indifferent

Slowly, she walks by my side under a tar-black sky, her blond paws darkening with dew. It’s the biggest patch of universe I can view around these parts, skirted with white pines, maples and oaks all of a similar height. As I look up into the center of the sprinkling of stars, a swath of clouds is disguised as the Milky Way. Near the northwest horizon I spot the Big Dipper, and above me is Cassiopeia, but I cannot find Orion, and I am at first vexed, then disheartened. For years now, in my fantasy, I've imagined Orion as Calvin's guard, rising over our house on clear winter nights, though I know there’s no such thing as a divine protector. I know because all I have to do is read the news about weary immigrants risking their lives on perilous journeys to escape murder, war and genocide, or the countess homeless folks shuddering alone in the cold, or the innocents riddled with bullets in churches and theaters, cafes and other public spaces in the name of hate or some so-called supreme race, false ideology or distorted God. I know because today I am reminded of the Sandy Hook elementary school first graders gunned down by a disturbed young man who was once a child himself. I know because of the millions of abused, exploited, interned, starving, neglected, diseased, disabled, chronically ill children in this world—even children like Calvin who are racked with seizures, some so severely that they don’t survive. Still, there are those who salt others' wounds swearing it’s all part of God's design.

In the center of this vast grassy stadium, a ring of trees looking on, I can see our breaths as mist begins to hug the earth in pockets at the field's rim. I want to venture to its center where by day the college athletes lope in ways Calvin will never do, out away from the glare of spotlights and the hum of engines. But the harsh light grazes me no matter how far I go. From beyond the field's edges I can hear the traffic drone, but then I catch the night train whistling its orchestra of perfectly arranged notes, and I think how artful the conductor must be, how he or she finesses the whistle into a crescendo like I’ve never heard before, and I am grateful for so many things: for my husband, for my son, for my place in this spinning blue world.

Still, I want the sky to be blacker, the stars brighter and more evident. Looking up to see the mass of them, knowing, though not fully grasping, their infiniteness, I feel insignificant, and I think about other beings on other planets doing the same, as if looking through a window or perhaps into a mirror. Then I consider those who believe life exists only on Earth, and I muse over such conceit.

Then, as I stand scratching Nellie’s head, I wonder if on those billions of other planets little innocent beings are suffering, ill, abandoned, killed, and I loathe the thought because it’s clear to me that the universe, though long ago set in sublime motion, remains silent and indifferent to our pleas. The only elixir is to think of each star as one of those little children, to think of the shining moon as their vessel of love pouring over us as if to say, please, end your hateful ways.

photo by http://favim.com

bang bang

Growing up we had guns. I remember the time my brother Scott got shot in the thigh with a BB while he, some friends and my brother Matt were goofing around with an airgun. The BB embedded itself in his skin and likely stung like hell.

When my dad took us camping, sometimes, in an open field, we’d practice shooting cans and bottles set on top of a log or hanging upside down on sticks. He kept a pistol in a felt-lined box on the top shelf of his closet. At least once, he showed me how to load the clip full of bullets into the butt of the gun, how to cock it, sending the bullet into the chamber, and how to release the clip for safe storage. It’s weight surprised me and, as if it were made of solid gold, it strained my skinny wrist if I held it outstretched in one hand.

One weekend when I was fourteen, not long after some jerk had exposed himself to me at the top of our street, my parents went out of town for a night, perhaps to bring one of my siblings off to college, though I don’t rightly recall. I asked my friend Wendy to stay over and, because I felt somehow safer sleeping in my parents bed, Wendy slept in the bottom bunk in the room across the hall.

Around midnight the phone rang. In a daze, I answered and heard a man panting on the other end. Immediately, I hung up thinking it was just a prank. I was about to doze off when the phone rang again. This time, my mind began racing, thinking he was looking at my address there in his phone book, knew where I lived and might come to get me. The hair at the back of my neck pricked with heat and sweat. Without a second thought, I reached up into my dad’s closet and grabbed the felt-lined box, fished out the gun, loaded it and kept it in my grasp. After a long time, the phone stopped ringing, and I laid awake in the dark as long as I could, waiting and afraid.

So many Americans believe the myth that we are safer if we own a gun. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The presence of a gun makes it five times more likely domestic violence will result in murder. And if guns are loaded and kept nearby for self defense, children find them and shoot their parents, their siblings, their friends, themselves. Guns discharge accidentally in stores, parking lots and homes, and kill or maim innocent folks. Guns kept close at hand are easily triggered by an impulsive finger when their owners—or their owners' relatives—are provoked, angry, afraid or suicidal.

Some argue that it is our inalienable right to own a gun when perhaps it should be thought of more as a privilege, one in which we must earn the right, like driving a car; they're simply too dangerous. The second amendment, after all—believe it or not—was crafted to suppress southern states’ slave revolts, not to allow unfettered access to assault rifles and automatic Glocks.

The modern obsession with guns in this so-called great nation of ours is nothing short of sick, particularly when, due to mass shootings, suicides, homicides and accidental deaths, someone dies from a bullet every sixteen minutes. Guns have been fetishized to such an extent that men—and perhaps a handful of women—strap them on like some phallic accessory and swagger around in public as if to say, “I'm potent!” Makes me wonder.

When I discuss reasonable gun control measures with others, I often hear the defense that law-abiding citizens should have the right to own a gun. And while I think most of us should consider getting rid of our guns (I like the idea of a government buy-back program—melt 'em all down!) I don’t necessarily disagree. The problem is that most gun-toting citizens are law abiding ... until they aren’t. Think of the guy who shoots his girlfriend during a domestic dispute, or the curmudgeon who fires at a car full of kids because they are playing their music too loud, or the barroom brawl that goes south and ends with a bullet in someones head, or the man who mistakenly shoots his son thinking he is an intruder. Besides, things like universal background checks, thirty-day waiting periods and the implementation of a terrorist no-gun list, do not deny most of us the right to own a gun if we want. But the NRA and its lobbyists, with their fearmongering tactics and stranglehold on politicians from both parties, though mostly republican, have many Americans scared shitless and believing in debunked myths.

Presidential candidate Ben Carson said after the mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, “I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away.” I imagine if that body belonged to his wife or child, he’d relent. Other politicians have responded only by encouraging prayer. And while prayer is fine and restorative and good, if there is a God, it doesn't appear as if She's listening; we've had at least one mass murder every day in this country and 33,000 people have died from gunshots in a year.

You might ask, why am I writing about this on this blog? I write because I don't want Calvin or my husband, or any other person for that matter, to be another sad statistic.

Nothing happened that night when I was fourteen, but I shudder to think what I might have done if my friend Wendy had startled me by entering the dark room. Might I have shot her thinking she was the creep who had been breathing into the phone? I can never know. Odds are, though, in some town, perhaps today, things like this are bound to occur as long as we remain idle and silent, watching the clock tick until the next sorry incident involving a gun.

Holly Ballard Martz
bang bang (I cannot second your amendment)
cast wax, encaustic, mixed media

not one more

Too often, I imagine what might happen if my son Calvin suddenly died. What would I do, how would I feel, how might I survive the grief? Because of his epilepsy, his mortality rate is three times that of the rest of us, and if it weren’t for constant, hands-on supervision, his risk for accidental death would be twenty-four times greater. So when I heard the news of another mass shooting, this one in Santa Barbara, where a jilted young man killed six students before killing himself, and when I watched one victim’s parent grieve publicly, I thought of Calvin's mortality again and my body shivered with chills.

Richard Martinez, the father of an only child, twenty-year-old victim Christopher Michaels-Martinez, spoke to the media demanding immediate action from Congress and President Obama to curb gun violence by passing stricter gun-control laws. He spoke briefly and passionately, blaming “craven” politicians and the National Rifle Association for lax policy that he and others believe contributes to countless tragedies such as Columbine, Virginia Tech and the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacres.

Martinez has started a campaign urging people to send electronic postcards to Congress with the message of, Not one more firearm death. I sent mine immediately, and shortly thereafter I read a Facebook exchange that began with a reaction to a posting of a New Yorker story titled Christopher Michael-Martinez’s Father Gets It Right. One man had this to say about the bereaved father:

"That was guy was a straight up actor ... Come on this is all propaganda. What a freaking joke."

This ignorant, insensitive comment about the father’s anguish being an act, being propaganda, being a joke, sickened me. It brought to mind all of the parents of the twenty Sandy Hook Elementary School first-graders who were murdered in a spray of bullets from a semi-automatic gun with multiple large-capacity ammunition clips. Some of the children killed had their hands and faces blown off, others were riddled with as many as eleven bullets. Then, I thought of my dear friend Heather’s Goddaughter, nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, who was shot to death the day of Gabrielle Giffords' constituent gathering in Arizona a few years ago. I thought about the father of three former swimmers of mine who shot himself at home one night. I thought about the countless women killed in domestic disputes by guns they’d bought for their own safety, about the hundreds of children who've found a relative’s or a neighbor’s gun and accidentally killed their sibling or a friend. And I thought of all the innocent men, women and children shot by angry, bigoted, trigger-happy men who falsely claim self defense or stand-your-ground. Would these victims' loved ones be opposed to stricter gun-control measures?

The Facebooker went on to say that it was “weird” for the grieving father to attack the NRA, going on to say that, “It’s funny how Obama fights so hard to take away our right to protect ourselves ... kinda like Nazi Germany ... he wants everyone to lose their right to have a gun.”

It pained me to read the offensive comment, comparing a common sense desire for reasonable gun-control legislation intended to save innocent lives to the systematic torture and extermination of six million people, mostly Jews. The comparison is repugnant and distorted, hurtful to the families who lost loved ones and relatives during the Holocaust and who are haunted by it to this day.

Anyone who thinks that Obama wants everyone to lose their right to own a gun is deluded. It's wise to apply stricter background checks and limits on particular types of guns and magazines while increasing other safety measures to buying, selling and owning guns. A buy-back program like the one Australia conducted could get hundreds of thousands of guns off of the streets and out of homes, thereby significantly reducing mass killings, homicides, suicides and accidental deaths. And, no, asking if we should outlaw knives is not a good comparison to gun-control. Show me a knife that is made expressly for killing people that can be aimed into a crowd from a fair distance murdering scores of people within seconds. And, yes, we should consider other methods for curbing gun violence such as improving access to mental health services and by identifying and treating those who might be a threat to society.

What is fact and not purely conjecture is that the NRA pours millions of dollars into the campaigns—perhaps even the pockets—of politicians. They lead the gun lobby with their vested interest in relaxing gun-control policy so that more people can purchase firearms thereby stoking gun industry fortunes. When it comes to certain trades, politicians and oligarchs, it's all about greed for money and power, which is why the NRA's solution to any massacre is to suggest that more—rather than fewer—people should own guns. I'm sure that if it were up to the NRA, they'd support any child old enough to walk owning a gun, just like the cigarette companies that are addicted to marketing carcinogens to children. Money, money, money, money. Makes me want to puke.

The NRA has become adept at fear mongering, convincing some Americans that owning guns will make them safer, while just down the street some toddler is playing with a loaded pistol and some father is putting a gun in his mouth and some mother is being blasted by a spurned boyfriend and some innocent stranger knocking on the door asking for help is shot square in the face because of trumped-up fear.

Today, Christina Taylor Green would be about twelve years old, just two years older than Calvin. Had she survived the mass shooting in Tucson I bet she'd be pressing for stricter gun control now. That's just the kind of girl she was ... smart, unafraid and interested in the welfare of others, not in getting richer, not in getting elected, not in propaganda and not in being a "straight up actor." And when the Sandy Hook massacre took place, my son Calvin was the same age as the children who suffered and died. If he knew of that tragedy, and if he were capable, I'd bet he'd be sending his postcard to Congress too, urging them to grow a spine and to tell the NRA to go to Hell along with their money grubbing, shady motives and twisted theories, telling them to do what is right in an effort to ensure that there is not one more of us lost to guns.

photo Associated Press

the moon and the twinkling stars

From last December:

In bed alone last night I hugged my knees to my chest in an effort to keep warm. I gazed sideways out the western window at a web of black branches and a scant mist suspending the moon, which appeared as a stemless goblet half full of shining silver. I thought about the twenty Newtown, Connecticut first-graders and it occurred to me that the moon might be holding all of their brightness for the rest of us to see.

I’m having a hard time not thinking about those children, but perhaps I shouldn’t be trying to avert my thoughts, shouldn’t attempt to move on so quickly, or forget. As I sat in the doctor’s office eyeing glossy magazines with names like, Parenting, Family and People, I thought of them again. I picked one up and thumbed through its pages, which were plastered with images of happy families, proud parents with their beautiful kids reading, snuggling, smiling. I usually avoid looking at these kinds of periodicals since they underscore so many things I am already painfully aware that I am missing out on, being the mother of a severely disabled child. I wonder how the Newtown parents might react when they see this kind of stuff or watch television with its stacked nanoseconds of happy, healthy, glowing, well adjusted, perfectly complexioned children saturating the airwaves. It must burn, stab, strangle, eviscerate—perhaps even kill.

Their days must be long, if that word can even come close to describing the protracted misery of a minute’s passing in the absence of one so innocent and adored. My own days drag on caring for a child who we feed, bathe, hug, kiss, keep warm and dry and safe, though little more. It’s monotony at times, and yet completely incomparable to the plodding torment of these parents and families who’ve been robbed blind of their most prized possession.

But then my mind wanders back to the moon, that brilliant cup reflecting the suns rays so brightly that, even half-full, it illuminates all that would be black in its absence. I think of those children who are gone from this world but not from this universe, and I see them too as tiny points of light, a twinkling star in the sky reserved for each one of them, and for us to delight in, rely on and wish.

http://www.trekworld.com/2012/11/23/mount-baker-moon-and-northern-lights/

friday faves - twenty six

Stepping
into a seaside childhood morning
—only colder—
Wind whipping,
Moist and grey and brisk,
Rudy by my side.

Muddy
gravel underfoot,
Bits of sandy ice, a soggy cigarette butt.
The chapel bell begins to ring,
I stop to listen,
and count.

Twenty-six.
My head hangs low
and sorry,
Straining to hear each faint toll
amid the hiss of traffic
rushing by.

The fields,
A semi-frozen marshland.
My ribs lace up,
Wind whisks away each breath,
I begin to sob into shallow
glass puddles.

A sudden squall
evokes a school of hushing voices.
The tops of watchful trees
Standing tall and firm,
yet swaying
Nonetheless.

Silent forest,
distant barking dogs,
A murder of crows looks on.
Thwap, thwap, these rubber boots against
Bare calves
Sting.

The skies
are silver, lead and low.
Shivering limbs set free cool droplets
like tears upon my face,
One for each child lost we must remember.
 Twenty-six.

In loving memory of the Sandy Hook Elementary School victims.

photo by Michael Kolster

ridiculously lucky

The house was packed with music fans, mostly bespectacled, white-haired and balding, though plenty of younger folk, a few students and one or two restless babies. They wore felted wool coats, silk scarves, silver and gold and gemstones, fashion denim, flannel shirts, cordovan shoes and sleek waterproof jackets with reflector tape and velcro. They’d come from cozy restaurants or from home where wine and beer might've been served alongside plates of warm food and glasses of cold, clean water. Perhaps they’d had dessert, perhaps not, but there had likely been a choice. No doubt, many had smart phones in their palms, watches on their wrists and money in their wallets.

A few arrived in leather scented cars with seat warmers to take the evening’s damp chill out of close fitting slacks or lycra leggings. Others walked through the mist under dripping pines and maples just beginning to bud. They were warm and dry, their bellies full, and ready to devour some extraordinary live jazz in a clean, comfortable, climate-controlled college theater. I happened to be one of them and, seated next to me, Michael was another.

The music, a quartet of piano, upright bass, drums and banjo, moved me both literally and figuratively. I cannot do it justice with words but to say that I lost myself, even if just for a moment.

Once home and in bed, I rested my weary head in a perfect spoon of down pillows, pulled the comforter up around my shoulders and closed my eyes. I fell asleep with the sweet sound of music still humming in my head only to be woken minutes later by a semi-conscious boy banging his head against the padded safety panel of his bed. Muttering a string of grumpy obscenities I scooted into the next room, unhitched the netted canopy, laid Calvin back down and covered him so that he could get back to sleep.

My wretched complaints followed me back to bed where I half hoped Michael was awake to hear them and half hoped he wasn’t. I stewed and steamed for a bit, then looked out into the night and thought about Ronan’s mothers sleeping under a New Mexico sky without her little boy because he died a few months back. I thought of the murdered Sandy Hook children whose parents and siblings were awake with insomnia or asleep in their Connecticut homes, the empty beds of those lost in the next room. I thought of the hundreds of garment workers crushed in the Bangladeshi building collapse and the difficult lives they’d lived up until then. I thought of the tented cities of Haiti, the Syrian crisis, the masses of people living in war, depression, squalor, oppression, fear, anxiety, threat, burden, loneliness, uncertainty. I thought of those living lives with no money, no food, no heat, no shelter, no water, no healthcare, no job, no freedom, no safety, no opportunity, no future.

Then I thought about how ridiculously lucky I am—we are—and that even though I have a disabled child with medically refractory epilepsy, I have nothing really to complain about in the scheme of things. And then my anger and frustration dissolved like water droplets into the lattice of pines standing stark black against what appeared to be a non-threatening, shimmering white sky.

boston down and back

Up at five-thirty. Seven o'clock departure. No shower. Not enough coffee. Packed everything but the kitchen sink. Snowy banks and pines. Staring out the window thinking of Sandy Hook kids, of ridiculous, dangerous, stupid guns, of Noah Pozner's precious, little hand and jaw shot off. What if it was my boy? Second amendment, my foot. The world could be a better place without those guns. We are the lucky ones.

Traffic. Potholes. Boston. One neurologist's lovely face. One dietitian's lovely face. Hugs. More hugs. One bonk on the head. Tears. Body Mass Index 13.9 = Fourth percentile. Skinny, skinny boy. Effing drugs. One flawless blood draw. Painful nonetheless. Goodbyes. More traffic. Potato chips and apples. Yogurt and PBJ. Sunshine. Forty degrees and balmy. Snacks. Sick boy. Nap with eyes half-mast. Photos. Love. Will slightly reduce one of three drugs. Then wait and see. Two-thirty return. Glad to be home. Exhausted. But I have my boy.

one today

By Richard Blanco, inaugural poet

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—bricks or milk, 
teeming over highways alongside us, on our way to clean tables, 
read ledgers, or save lives—to teach geometry, or ring up groceries
as my mother did for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across cafe tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always -- home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together

the blink of an eye

Our twelve-year-old chocolate lab, Rudy, is going deaf. He also doesn't see as well as he used to and it's possible he might be losing some of his mental faculties.

Yesterday, I took him out for our morning walk. It was sunny and eight degrees outside with a slight but cutting wind, the air thin and dry. I wore my long down jacket, fiber-filled pants, wool socks, fleece boots, wool hat and rabbit fur-lined gloves. I was still cold.

It wasn't surprising to be the only ones at the college athletic fields, which are covered in treacherous, half-melted, iced-over snow, and usually frequented by half a dozen or more dogs and their owners on any given morning. I kept a somewhat brisk pace, periodically glancing over my shoulder to ensure Rudy, exploring off-leash, was still in tow. Just before reaching the east end of the field I turned around to see Rudy just a couple of yards behind. Several steps further I looped around to head back. In those few seconds Rudy had vanished. I called out his name while running toward the stand of trees to the east, peering down the wooded lane between them. No Rudy. I hurdled the snow bank and frantically ran into the parking lot, searching. No Rudy. I headed into the brisk wind toward the AstroTurf field, calling, calling, calling. No Rudy. Where could he have disappeared to in such a brief moment? Finally, I spotted him a hundred yards away at the opposite end of a long stand of trees flanking the AstroTurf field. I could tell that he heard me, was looking with perked ears in every direction but mine. I held out my arms in a familiar way hoping he'd see me as well as recognize me. The dog finally honed in on my voice and began happily trotting my way, his ears flopping along as he gradually picked up the pace.

Utter relief. That's what I felt. "C'mon Rudy, lets go home," and I realized that my chin had become an ice cube, my face frozen by a wind-chill factor easily below zero. I thought about the panic parents must feel when they lose their children in a shopping mall or airport. And then I thought about the parents of the Sandy Hook Elementary students, the terror and dread they must have felt on that godforsaken day.

Be thankful for what you've got, I thought to myself, realizing that, in the blink of an eye, it can all disappear into thin air.

photo by Michael Kolster

twenty-six

Stepping
into a seaside childhood morning
—only colder—
Wind whipping,
Moist and grey and brisk,
Rudy by my side.

Muddy
gravel underfoot,
Bits of sandy ice, a soggy cigarette butt.
The chapel bell begins to ring,
I stop to listen,
and count.

Twenty-six.
My head hangs low
and sorry,
Straining to hear each faint toll
amid the hiss of traffic
rushing by.

The fields,
A semi-frozen marshland.
My ribs lace up,
Wind whisks away each breath,
I begin to sob into shallow
glass puddles.

A sudden squall
evokes a school of hushing voices.
The tops of watchful trees
Standing tall and firm,
yet swaying
Nonetheless.

Silent forest,
distant barking dogs,
A murder of crows looks on.
Thwap, thwap, these rubber boots against
Bare calves
Sting.

The skies
are silver, lead and low.
Shivering limbs set free cool droplets
like tears upon my face,
One for each child lost we must remember.
 Twenty-six.

photo by Michael Kolster

the moon and the twinkling stars

In bed alone last night I hugged my knees to my chest in an effort to keep warm. I gazed sideways out the western window at a web of black branches and a scant mist suspending the moon, which appeared as a stemless goblet half full of shining silver. I thought about the twenty Newtown, Connecticut first-graders and it occurred to me that the moon might be holding all of their brightness for the rest of us to see.

I’m having a hard time not thinking about those children, but perhaps I shouldn’t be trying to avert my thoughts, shouldn’t attempt to move on so quickly, or forget. As I sat in the doctor’s office eyeing glossy magazines with names like, Parenting, Family and People, I thought of them again. I picked one up and thumbed through its pages, which were plastered with images of happy families, proud parents with their beautiful kids reading, snuggling, smiling. I usually avoid looking at these kinds of periodicals since they underscore so many things I am already painfully aware that I am missing out on, being the mother of a severely disabled child. I wonder how the Newtown parents might react when they see this kind of stuff or watch television with its stacked nanoseconds of happy, healthy, glowing, well adjusted, perfectly complexioned children saturating the airwaves. It must burn, stab, strangle, eviscerate—perhaps even kill.

Their days must be long, if that word can even come close to describing the protracted misery of a minute’s passing in the absence of one so innocent and adored. My own days drag on caring for a child who we feed, bathe, hug, kiss, keep warm and dry and safe, though little more. It’s monotony at times, and yet completely incomparable to the plodding torment of these parents and families who’ve been robbed blind of their most prized possession.

But then my mind wanders back to the moon, that brilliant cup reflecting the suns rays so brightly that, even half full, it illuminates all that would be black in its absence. I think of those children who are gone from this world but not from this universe, and I see them too as tiny points of light, a twinkling star in the sky reserved for each one of them, and for us to delight in, rely on and wish.

http://www.trekworld.com/2012/11/23/mount-baker-moon-and-northern-lights/

on bruises and black ink

Between the hours of 6:00 and 8:00 a.m. he pulled my hair, pushed off of my throat with the heel of his hand—his upper body weight behind it—and bit my ear. None of this Calvin does with malicious intent, it’s just the way he rolls. He’ll chomp on pretty much anything if it is in front of his mouth, and I’m waiting for the day when he starts to bite himself. I’ve heard stories of neurologically compromised children who engage in self-abuse; they punch themselves in the chest or the head, bite and scratch their arms, nick their corneas, but for us—for now—the only casualties appear to be Calvin’s caregivers.

In the therapist’s chair I lamented my bumps and bruises—both to my body and to my psyche—but my thoughts kept returning to the children of Sandy Hook. We talked about the twenty joyous little lives that had been snuffed out by scores of searing bullets. I hope it had happened quickly enough so that none of them had to suffer or witness their friends’ suffering, but in my mind I couldn’t see how. In a selfish stream of consciousness I spoke of my own joy and how little of it raising Calvin brings me, of how the scales of pleasure and hardship—worry, frustration, anger—are weighted like a stone compared to a feather. I told her, though, that joy isn’t the only redeeming quality in raising Calvin, but that having him has opened up realms to me that I might otherwise never have experienced—my writing, first and foremost. “I’ve always loved words,” I told her, remembering that my favorite book as a child was a thesaurus. I went on to consider that perhaps, in the past, I didn’t think that I had anything important to say with them. So I had stuck with what I was good at, the visual arts, my drawing, photography, designing and quilting, which I loved but that had never fed my soul.

In speaking with my therapist I discovered that my writing is much more than simply cathartic. “I think I help people,” I told her. I went on to describe what a beautiful art form writing is to me, how in my mind it’s another sort of visual expression. “I think of it like sculpting,” I said, and went on to explain that I build a framework, like an architect, then edit and shape the work, carving into it, adding on bits then smoothing them as a sculptor might with clay. As I fashion the piece I paint it with descriptive images, which perhaps transport the reader into my space, my head. I hope one day my writing will take the form of a book with delicately fibrous pages, jet black ink and a hard cover.

After a day of errands and walking Rudy the Dog, seeing my therapist and, most of all, writing, I am recharged, at least enough to endure an evening of possible frustration, hair pulling, shrieking and biting, but no doubt a smattering of smiles, joyous hugs and self-discovery along the way.

wild geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

—Mary Oliver

photo by Michael Kolster

fear, dread and loathing

My son’s epilepsy has changed me, made me worrisome and fearful. In many ways it has shrunken me like a wool sweater in boiling water, shriveled my nerves into a tangled, crumpled mass of fibers. I sense that fear and dread in my posture, feel my shoulders cinch up around my neck as if I were pressing into a gale force wind. I feel my nerves bunch and knot around my bones. There’s a constant low drone in my head, my blood, like the nearly imperceptible but real buzz of a solitary bulb glaring in its socket.

I don’t remember being afraid much as a child, only at night on lonely walks down our unlit gravel lane headed home from Monica’s house. Fear quickened my steps and, as adrenaline fed fear, I’d launch into a full-out sprint round the bend in my driveway as if demons were swiping at my heels.

But I wasn’t afraid of scary movies, Hell or the end of the world. I wasn't afraid to sing solo in front of the entire school, wasn’t afraid to talk to strangers, go to the dentist, catch snakes and frogs, break up with boys, jump off of cliffs, swim past the breakers, sneak out of the house, drive ninety miles an hour, admit fault, endure pain, drop out of college, cold call, tell the truth, ask for help, backpack alone, explore foreign countries, converse with people whose language I didn’t speak, talk to the homeless, reveal my weaknesses, trust strangers, challenge authority, quit jobs, face adversity, eat food I didn't recognize, go to parties alone, move to new places or make new friends. I wasn’t afraid of any of it.

But epilepsy scares me. I’m in constant dread of my son’s next loathsome seizure, looking over my shoulder as if half expecting a lurking thug to whack me over the head. I jump at loud noises, cringe at Calvin’s odd behavior, flounder in angst and thrash in the obscure waters of antiepileptic drugs and their side effects that render my son a zombie-lunatic much of the time.

Because of epilepsy I never truly relax, and the fear, dread and loathing has, in some ways, become etched into my being, perhaps changed me forever. Though regrettable, I imagine this kind of fear and dread to be no less than a thousand-fold for the parents and families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School victims. And so I make my best effort to put things into perspective and to understand that my former state of total calm is little to have given up, at least for now; I still have my child and my child still has me, and for that I am eternally grateful, even if it's sometimes scary.

photo by Michael Kolster

unfathomable

I sat down for coffee and tried to feed my son while reading the news ... the miserable, dreaded news. After breakfast we put Calvin into his bed, raised its safety panel and secured the netted canopy so Michael and I could take our showers. In the bathroom we turned up the baby monitor so we could hear him as we soaked our tired selves under hot water.

When Michael finished up he went to check on Calvin. Over the monitor I heard his happy greeting to our boy who, I assume, was kneeling in bed, his head pushing up into the netting. “Heeeeeeyyyyy, Kid!” Michael exclaimed in his usual playful way, “why don’t you lay down and take your finger out of your eye?” I imagined my little goofball poking his eye in its corner as he often does when he gets tired or when the antiepileptic drugs cause him headaches, visual disturbances or both. “Where’s your football?” Michael asked him, then likely fished out Calvin’s orange plastic toy from somewhere under the covers. All the while, as I expanded and unwound under steaming liquid, I heard the happy rise and fall of Calvin’s coos, giggles and excited hyperventilation.

I hung my head and regarded my veiny feet, my toes, and the rivulets running between them; imaged the water as blood. As I listened to Calvin play, my thoughts and smile turned south, drifting to the parents and families of the children who’d been so senselessly gunned down—at point blank range—by a troubled young man in Friday’s Newton, Connecticut massacre. With all the shit we have to deal with, I thought—Calvin’s seizures, the drugs, the sleepless nights, his painfully protracted progression—it’s nothing compared to the vortex of grief these families must be facing. These families are living a brutal silence, void of the buoyant patter of feet scampering around the kitchen, void of the cheerful din of forks poking through stacks of steaming pancakes, void of the sweet small voices emerging from excited little beings. These parents’ eyes will no longer feast on yawning imps rubbing sleepy eyes, their hands will never again tussle small heads, they’ll never feel the sublime weight of tired bodies in their arms, never feel smooth, warm bellies, kiss supple cheeks, pat the pajama’d bottoms of their innocents.

I say no piercing arrow, no knife, no stone thrown hard and fast could have caused such bloodshed—only guns. No weapon could have so easily inflicted such nonsensical pain and suffering on a child, a parent, a school, a community, a world—only guns—guns that shoot rapid-fire and rip through a crowd in minutes leaving no time to breathe and ask why?

The dreaded news was smothering, punched the breath right out of my lungs like a bullet to the chest. I want to take away their pain. I want to take away those minutes, that grief, that news. I want to take away those guns ... those miserable, wretched, needless, dreaded guns that—unfathomable to me—certain, perhaps impotent, individuals insist on making available to feel as though they are somehow free.

Flowers and stuffed animals of a makeshift memorial for school shooting victims encircle the flagpole at the town center Saturday in Newtown, Conn. Most of the shooting victims were very young. (Associated Press)

wanderer's nightsong

Over all the peaks it is peaceful,

in all the treetops you feel

hardly a breath of wind;

the little birds are silent in the forest ...

only wait—soon you will rest as well.

Schubert, Wanderer's Nightsong, (text by Goethe)

English translation by Emily Ezust

photo by Michael Kolster