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And Words Are All I Have
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A friend inscribed the perfect words for me on this piece of driftwood
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she found, pictured above... I treasure it.
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Word Smitten, The Remarkable Rabbit, Easter Mornings,
Advice for Wives.
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When I take the chilly tools
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from the shed's darkness, I come
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The snake basks and dozes
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for raking too close to its hole.
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the involute rhubarb leaf
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A new dress, even if it had been my sister’s.
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Helmet-like perms, and all of us
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in soft white cotton gloves, with vertical ridges stitched in
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above each knuckle, so they stood up,
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like Mickey Mouse’s on Saturday morning.
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The matching hats were courtesy of Jackson’s Department Store’s bargain bin,
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Fill a basket, five bucks out the door,
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their out-sized pink and blue plastic daisies haphazardly attached,
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head wear designed for the deranged.
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Our conspiratorial looks as we were herded together
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for the obligatory snapshot, sentries,
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on the stone steps after Mass,
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the sunlight harsh on a still-frigid April morning,
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our flimsy dresses of Swiss dot, stiff crinolines
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Embarrassed by my sturdy white knee socks,
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I yearned for the silk stockings
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worn by my older sisters, who flanked me.
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Stationed solemnly in front
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happy to form his own line,
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quietly proud of his clip on bow-tie and tartan vest
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and perfectly pressed little wool trousers.
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Chins up! Stand straight! came the reprimands,
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but not one of us listened.
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At least one child would turn her head away that day
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just as the shutter clicked.
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Another would squint unbecomingly against the glare.
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And the third, the face of the third girl
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would show to the camera a look of such sadness
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as is unimaginable in one so young.
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Now among one of dozens of photos piled haphazardly
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in this battered shoebox,
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the sorting job no one ever took on,
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these celluloid witnesses to our lives.
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The edges scalloped like icing on a cake,
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bearing hairline cracks, some of our heads and limbs
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The truest chronicle of those years,
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bringing with it the simple message
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that each of us might have done better
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On a decidedly lighter note comes this rhyming Easter verse
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I wrote for two young friends...
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The Remarkable and Largely Unheralded Rabbit
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Bunnies are more than just creatures
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who do very little and sit very still.
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They are such clever, complex animals:
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Consider this, if you will.
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For starters, you can’t sneak up on a rabbit.
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(Sorry, Stuart and Grace.)
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A bunny’s vision covers nearly 360 degrees.
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Westies have no chance in the chase.
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Oh and I bet you didn’t know -
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they don’t even like carrots very much.
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They prefer weeds and grasses and plants
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Bunnies have the cutest quirk.
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When they’re happy they hop and do a full twist in mid-air.
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try it yourself if you dare.
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Rabbits dig amazing homes called warrens.
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As deep as ten feet down, these forts.
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Multiple entrances offer easy escape,
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some as large as tennis courts!
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A rabbit's ears are elaborate things too.
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So they can hear threats from two miles away,
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even the slightest breeze.
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And their oversized ears do more,
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cooling them down on a hot day.
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Under the heading Advice for Wives
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circa 1890, in a Minnesota Church bulletin.
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The indiscriminate reading of novels is one of the most injurious habits to which
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a married woman can be subject. Besides the false views of human nature it will impart, it will produce a feigned indifference to her performance of domestic duties, and contempt for ordinary realities.
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The roofs are shining from the rain.
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The sparrows twitter as they fly,
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And with a windy April grace
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Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
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With only one unchanging tree--
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I could not be so sure of Spring
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Save that it sings in me.
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The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.
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Recent Post
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For all of the girls and the women who trusted too much... those found and never found, the lost ones, the lonely ones, whose stories go untold, their heartache entombed alongside them. Last Text from Gabby Petito No service here, but at least I’m free from the cage bars of my body; remember what I’d blogged in observation of …
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Michael O'Donnell didn't return home from the Vietnam War, but his poetry did. Alum Daniel Weiss was so taken by O'Donnell's work that he spent the last decade-plus learning about its author.
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This is from an essay by Bret McCabe, himself a vet, published Spring of 2020.
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Helicopter pilot Michael O'Donnell could hover near the ground for only a short time before returning to the sky. On the afternoon of March 24, 1970, O'Donnell had guided his Huey below the dense foliage of Cambodia's mountainous northeast region to retrieve an eight-man reconnaissance patrol that had been inserted to gain information on the size and movements of enemy forces but encountered gunfire early on. Three days into a planned five-day patrol, they needed to be evacuated.
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O'Donnell, a 24-year-old from suburban Milwaukee, was part of the helicopter rescue mission involving two unarmed transports and four gunships that were dispatched from an airbase in Vietnam's central highlands. After lingering at 1,500 feet, waiting for the recon team to reach the extraction point, one transport had to return to base to refuel. The transport was on its way back when the recon team radioed that it couldn't hold out much longer. O'Donnell dropped his helicopter into a windy canyon and through a small opening in the canopy, lowered his craft to just above the ground. The recon patrol emerged from the jungle with enemy fire trailing after them. It took about four agonizingly long minutes for all eight men to board, a little longer than the average pop song.
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After ascending about 200 feet, O'Donnell radioed to air command, "I've got all eight, I'm coming out," right before his helicopter burst into flames, likely struck by a ground-based rocket. The pilot, his three-man crew, and the recon patrol were officially declared missing in action in 1970. O'Donnell wouldn't be declared dead until February 7, 1978. His remains were discovered in 1995 but not officially identified until February 15, 2001. And on August 16, 2001, he was interred at Arlington National Cemetery, which was created as a final resting place for soldiers on land seized from a plantation owner after the Civil War. O'Donnell left behind his wife, his parents, a sister, his best friend and music partner, and a collection of 19 poems, some of which he included in his letters to friends, discovered in his footlocker after his death.
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One of those 19 retrieved pieces, printed below, O'Donnell had mailed to his friend Marcus Sullivan in 1970. Sullivan served as a combat engineer in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968, and they wrote each other throughout their training and tours. O'Donnell's daily missions transporting the dead and wounded back from the front lines were taking their toll.
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If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
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Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own. And in that time
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when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes
you left behind.
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Book Sales
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The Music of Leaving, my collection of poetry, is available to order.
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Order directly online — for both Canada and U.S. orders — from Amazon, Brunswick and Demeter.
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