Phenomenom

 

I missed the Star of Bethlehem tonight.

Too late, I saw the clock and checked online

and went outside but ... nothing.

First quarter moon (the only time a quarter

is a half) winked brightly in derision,

aware my sky was blocked by

houses and by trees. The boys came out

to catch a glimpse. I felt a bit to blame

that they, as well, had failed to see the

Great Conjunction, two gods who bowed

together on their orbits, the same who lead

two thousand years ago and more

the way (some scholars say) for the camel-riding

caravan that hoped to find a king.

I missed it not because I lacked the knowledge,

nor because, more pious still, I spent too long

in prayer. I was not lost within the pages

of a weighty book or speaking words of wisdom

to a friend in need. I wasn't making love,

or making dinner or a gift, any one of which

would be a just excuse when speaking of

a grand event so missed, this spectacle that

never, in my lifetime, will appear again.

(I suppose it's possible I'll live another sixty

years, but that's unlikely even though I

never smoked.) Inside the house, the dishes

needed to be put away. The counters cleaned.

While history was made above the roof,

I swept the floor and mopped and went

inside my room to check my phone to see

if I had missed a text. And only then, I realized.

How often has it happened, some great

opportunity nearby I missed, two planets

lining up one solitary time while I drew

breath, but I was in the kitchen

when I should have been beneath the sky,

my arms outstretched, one word disturbing

neighbors as I yelled it: Yes.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2020

Time Change

 When the time changed he had trouble keeping up.

The oven might be wrong.

His cell phone's rarely used so not much help.

"What time is it?" he asks her as he interrupts her work.

"You have a watch," she says, a bit annoyed. "I gave it to you, so..."

"It doesn't work," he says.

And there it is.

The silent implication that the problem is with her

and not the watch at all. Her gift has stopped.

Her patience and her love, her willingness to free this moment

now, this broken watch of wanting anything from life.

The cue is obvious. He waits for her to offer, get the battery it needs,

a simple act of service that she's done before.

Today she just feels done. The deeper issue's not the watch

or expectations but the wish that all the things around her

in a current state of disrepair (no pun intended)

could so easily be put to rights.

A battery for that one's motivation.

And another that can fix such grave mistakes.

The nation's ills, injustice. She can't just run down to the store

and pick up something that will put these back on track.

Instead she could just run. An hour later she is back, the battery in hand.

So much of life she cannot fix,

but now at least he'll know what time it was

when she decided that she'd leave and not return.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2020

Note: Never read things into someone's poetry. It's poetry. A random observation, an overheard remark, a third-hand anecdote. Anything's fair game when it comes to poetry, especially when there's a writing group coming up and homework needs to be done.

The Gift

 

The gift was sitting on the shelf for many years.

He'd dust it off from time to time, felt better

when it sat there in plain view. It didn't need unwrapping,

thought the man, because the shape and color of the box

was quite enough. Delightful just the way it was. He couldn't bear

to tear the wrapping and enjoyed the mystery inherent to the

gift that he received but never opened.

The person who had given it, of course, was not amused.

He felt the man had taken it for granted, been ungrateful.

All the thought and cost invested, just to sit there? No.

One day he took it back and gave it to another, and the first man

didn't even notice. Surely this man, this second man, the giver 

thought,would open it and cherish it for all its worth.

The second man did open it, did sigh and shake his head

with gratitude, amazement at his...luck? his blessing, what?

He didn't know the ins and out or whats or whys and did not

feel the need to, but he loved the gift so much that he would take it

from its box and hold it up to let it catch the light, throw

prisms, rainbows on the humdrum walls of his existence, then

replace it in its box. It would look so lovely on his desk,

he thought, or on the chest of drawers within his room but

he was paralyzed with fear, lest someone see it, take it,

smash it out of anger towards him.

The giver of the gift was still unsatisfied, but gave him space

and time until he realized the value of the gift, the way it would

enhance his life once placed there in the open, once he celebrated

all it meant, once he threw away its box.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2020

pity

pity the woman who has a maid
and is never satisfied by
tucking hospital corners on the
clean sheets she just brought in
off the clothesline where
the sun and wind kissed the cotton
leaving mother nature's scent

pity the man who never learned
to cook or make a mess
following a recipe that will
impress his date before they turn on
music and stand together side by side,
bumping hips as they wash the plates
and plan to do it again next week

pity the children who never played
outside, who think that if it doesn't
have a screen it can't be relevant or fun
or cool, who opens up their brains like jars of
jelly as they're spoonfed sex and violence
and when they're old enough will know
so little of the truth of either one

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2020

Mattress

A marriage doesn’t end in court but on a mattress,

side edges hugged in opposition to avoid a touch.

A divorce decree is merely an announcement,

public testimony that two people who were once in love,

were melded into one heart, mind and body lost their bearings, drifted so apart that they can’t find the other

even in the darkness of a room they always shared.

The gossips want to know who cheated and the judges

beat the brave one down with wisdom based on nothing

more than their own situations, their own dreams, their

standards of what has to, has to, be. They cannot know

and will not see that one person can’t create an Us

without another who is just as focused on the wonder of it all,

each moving closer and pursuing or it comes undone,

unraveled, leaving space between them that solidifies,

becomes a barrier, a wall of hurt and accusation,

indifference, neglect. At first it may be breachable,

the other reachable across the coolness of the sheets,

but if it’s not, it’s not, and there is nothing

to be done but grit your teeth and hold on tightly to that edge

...or leave.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2020

A Hint of Pink

Six weeks into the quarantine of 2020, 

something changed.

A shift of sorts, a breeze of fresh air 
in the gloom that smelled a little bit like hope. 

There were reasons to ignore it

but instead I took a long deep breath 

and let it seep into my pores.

I put polish on my fingernails and on my toenails too. A little thing, a sign of hope, rebelliousness perhaps. It just felt right to spruce the old girl up a bit although no one would notice except me. Some make-up 
and a spritz of that perfume that was a gift,

so costly I would never buy it for myself.

No one else would smell it, no one else could tell

beneath my mask that I had made the effort, put on lipstick even,

but it dawned on me that I’m the one I do it all for anyway.

Traffic on the highway seemed to fall in step with this new sense

as if the whole town called a meeting and the vote was “we are done”

with dreary thoughts about the summer even though

the pundits and the politicians and the stats and graphs still drone

all through the day and night. I didn’t mean to start this riot

of rebellion, people crowding beaches and demanding that

they get their hair done. All I thought I’d do was paint my nails.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2020

Easter 1976

Of all the Easters I have lived,

there is but one unique. One weekend

out of all the rest when I was free of

family and obligation, free to wander

as I pleased. I drove from Carolina up to

West Virginia in my little Bug, across the

turnpike bridge, on to the Bryan’s house

where I could celebrate, relax, forget

about my college classes and relationships.

Most memorably, it was the first time

I experienced the luxury, the sprawl,

of being in a double bed all by myself.

I stretched my arms and legs and felt

like royalty with so much room. Now,

decades after, other Easter memories

inhabit one big pleasant room within my mind,

with cheerful thoughts of brand new dresses,

dyeing eggs and hiding them for little

pieces of myself around the yard, the smells

and sounds of corporate family dinners

that we could not duplicate this year.

I would never trade those memories away

but I am grateful for the slender queen

with long brown hair that sits there in a corner 
at the back, remembering and smiling 

as she stretches once again.

(c) 2019 Ellen Gillette

Safer at Home

No one needs my help or time or conversation, so
I fall upon the bed, a scarf that's carelessly thrown
down and stays in place. I close my eyes and listen.
Two clocks are by the bed, both out of reach because
I only use my phone alarm to wake me up, and never
now. One clock sits silent on the desk, intimidated by
the wall clock overhead that loudly ticks the time.
The kitchen hums as dishes wash themselves,
Bradbury-esque. Two rooms away some people talk
on television. A brush is dropped. It's hot enough that
suddenly a blast of cool conditioned air blows
loudly, not quite reaching to the bed. The clang of something
in a drawer. The television stops. The front door opens, shuts.
I focus on my breath and stretch. I wonder if my ankle
bones would crack if forced to turn my foot in circles (yes).
A little sound is new inside my nose as sinuses unseen redecorate
their little rooms. Perhaps that's next. I've cleaned
out closets, pantries, written, drawn. I've talked to friends
too far away. I've cooked more awesome meals within
the week than in the last few months, watched more TV
and washed my hands and exercised. My stomach
gurgles, asking for a snack (denied, this time). Outside,
a saw is whining and I try to match the tone without success.
The front door, followed by the television. I plan to beat
the COVID beat, survive -- I'm not as sure about that clock.
How many do we need in one room anyway? My phone
announces that I've got a message. Almost everything I hear
depends on power, on a cellphone tower, nothing much organic.
Birds were singing in the morning when the windows were still open
to the coolness. I'd like to fly away myself, social distance from the sky
where I could only hear the wind, earth's breath upon
my face as she waves her mighty arms and balances all life below.


(C) 2019, Ellen Gillette

Freedom

The pavement's been resurfaced
and repaired so many times without
a clue that deep below it are the roots
of something anyone would think
quite insignificant, of no real consequence
until it pushes up again, through sand
and gravel and the tar until it finds the
tiniest of openings and fiercely tackles
it until the window of fresh opportunity
becomes a crack, the crack becomes a door
back to the sky beneath a sun the little
plant -- though withered, covered up and
starved of rainfall -- knew that it would
find once more. So patiently it deals
with challenge and adjustments, knowing
there will never be a world in which its
perseverance fails, that there will never
be a world without the sun.

(c) 2020 Ellen Gillette

The Bends

I've got the bends.

Deep in the ocean of your presence
I had all the oxygen I needed in
just the way I wanted, all the warmth
and life and strength. The call back
to the surface came too soon.
I rose too quickly,
spanning time and pressures,
leaving you for what? And why?
Awareness of the answers
didn't hold me back or slow
me down, ascending to the surface
where the sun shone much too brightly.
Too much nitrogen inside my veins and vessels,
too much me still holding on
in bubbles of despair and separation.
I should have left more slowly --
kinder, gentler rise back to the harsh reality,
the waves and foam that are my life
without you. Dizzy thoughts, my joints complaining,
feverish attempt to tough it out.

I need a decompression chamber for my heart.

Or better yet, one day pull me back, back,
down to the depth of calm where irritating sounds
are swallowed by the vastness of the sea and we
can drift unfettered, singular, at peace so long
that gills will form upon my throat and I will be
a creature of the land no more. A foolish dream,
one fueled by the fever of the bends, no doubt.
A few more hours or a day and I'll adjust.
I'll find the oxygen I need the best I can
but yearning still for water.
And for you.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2020