A Boy's Camping Memory

So first we talked the parents and

the college kids into it, 

letting all us younger ones 

climb Cowee Bald and camp

out on the tower where the bears

and such would leave us be,

and then I talked her out of

sleeping in the one good bag

among us, saying at the corner

I'd be colder, playing on her

sympathy and maybe just the

slightest crush, though she

was slightly older, like a sister,

someone Dad (who wasn't there) 

spent too much time with, maybe,

that's what mumbles I had heard

a few times thought, at any rate.

It didn't matter then, I didn't know,

and didn't want to know, if it was

true about her or the others,

all I knew was that I wanted

to be warm, and she agreed but

couldn't sleep for shivering and

sometime just before the sun

came up above the trees she

whispered could she squeeze inside

the bag beside me, scaring me

to death. Surprisingly, the thought

was pleasing, too, for just a second

till I realized the other guys would tease me

without mercy as all guys of certain ages do.

I said that I was getting up,

that she could have the sleeping bag

in all its glory for herself, a little edgier

than planned to hide the fear and

even more, the part I'd liked.

She didn't look that disappointed

as she snuggled in, but then again,

she'd been awake and cold for hours. 

She may have been.

I never thought to ask.

(c)Ellen Gillette, 2015

Swings Wait

A writers' group I enjoy from time to time
posted this photograph as the prompt for
our next gathering. There will be
paragraphs and poems. This is mine.

Ships aren’t made for the harbor,

nor are dolls made for the shelf.

Books must be opened to be

useful, cherished, or adored.

And swings must wait for children 

to come running, climb on, 

pumping legs and squealing

with delight until the ground

is but a distant memory,

blue skies overhead.

The harbor’s safety can be comforting,

especially in a storm, but there is little 

sadder than a dusty doll, reminder 

of another time,

when it might brighten 

someone’s life again.

The pages of our lives will one day

turn, get past the prickly parts, and

find the happy ending from our dreams.

And like the swings, we wait in silence

and in stillness, ready to unleash the

perfect and potential energy we’ve let 

build up beneath a blue and cloudless sky.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Little Things

It's the little things, they say, that
build relationships, the thoughtfulness
communicated endless ways from
day to day that says, This person,
you can trust. He'll stick. She'll stay.
The love will grow.

But what of little things quite
opposite? Relentless, minor,
irritating evidence of selfishness
that stains the atmosphere and
leaves a bitter taste, a whiff of
milk gone sour. Do they not tell us
something, too, but what?

Little things become such big
things over time. Enough of those
we love will overcome the things we don't;
the edges of our being can relax
the way of rumpled sheets when smoothed
by grateful hands each morning.

But it doesn't always
happen quite like that.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Silent Heart

It wasn't planned, but this afternoon, I
found myself singing along with my mother
at the piano, a room of her friends joining
in on oldies. This song was just one of them.

I want to write the words
that tell the world what's down
there deep, but deep-down words
cannot be coaxed before their time.
I can read them, but in whispers
never loudly, a breath beyond just
mouthing, pantomime, like shadow
play upon the wall at night.
They're not quite ready to come out
and see the light of day. Until they are,
a hundred poets lend their talent
to interpret, lyricists, the music on the radio.
How do they know what's down
there deep, how do the words
of love songs written long ago
give golden voice to fiery longings of
a silent heart that hasn't learned to speak?



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Desert Women

We women get a sense of who we are
and how we look and what affect we have on men
by what we see there on the faces,
in the eyes of those we love the most
and sometimes what we see convinces us
that we are beautiful and molten sex
and freckled marble columns full of fire
and sometimes what we see is like a sudden
gasp of wintry air that hurts the lungs and
down deep inside our bellies and
we promise that we'll never feel that way again,
we love ourselves too much, we'll hide out in
the desert till we hear the adoration once again.

Hosanna in the highest. Blest is she who comes.

Sometimes the wait is brief.
Sometimes it never ends,
but always, it is better than a glimpse,
the faintest glimpse,
of disappointment.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Shake Them Up

Destiny Souza, age 15, got into a guy's car
outside a water park in Stuart, FL with her
friend Kiera Medina, also 15. They
were prostituted and given drugs
for a week; Medina was
run over and is in the hospital.
Destiny has now run away
from a holding facility,
having expressed to her mother
that she wished it had been her
who was run over. Pray for her.

I'd like to shake them,
slap them,
send them to their rooms
without their suppers

or their phones.

Shave their hair off
like they did to women
who collaborated with
the enemy in France, and
buy their clothes
for several years
from Goodwill,
yard sales,
thrift stores, better yet,
they have to make them
for themselves.

The cost for looking.
Heartache, worry,
mothers' eyes that cut this way
and that until the Bad Guy's
caught, he might be out there,
might be looking for another
victim.

He blew a kiss,
they got into the car,
he didn't make them.
What he made them do
the next day and the next,
that's punishment and more,
and I am sorry, anguished
at their suffering

a little bitter too.

I wanted them to be
a cautionary tale.
Don't wander off!
More safety, see, in numbers,
just be Good and Sweet
and always look both ways
before you cross.

But they weren't good
and they weren't sweet
and though they bit off
more than they could chew
and though, as children, couldn't
fully realize the consequence
of such stupidity, I think of
mothers weeping in the night
in fear of what was going on,
and now they weep because

they want to blame it all on him,
and Can't
Quite
Do it
and if
he is not the only one to blame
then maybe they are guilty too.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

No Birkenstocks

I want to write for them
my name on their slick pages
every one delicious with words
photographs in black and white
because that's just how they roll
but I don't have an MFA
or spend my summers at retreats
no pet whose name would make
my little bio oh so quaint and clever
I don't live in a loft in Mass or
in Manhattan with my partner
(better yet a farm)
don't own a pair of Birkenstocks
and so my chances may be slim



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015