Northeaster of 1956

Five years old, standing frozen on the prairie,
The winter of 1956, breathlessly listening.
Pure gray skies in an upside-down cup,
Completely over my little world,
Closed down tight to the flat farmed earth.
~ ~ ~
The howling came from the north; constant, disturbing.
Beyond the browned acres of last summer's wheat fields,
Where I had crawled, itching, through the gold.
Beyond the barn, beyond the chicken-house,
Crying eerily in a low, continuous moan -
A persevering, sorrowful, keening sky-sob.
~ ~ ~
Anxious, shivering, I searched the horizon for the
Wounded wailing creature it must be,
And saw nothing but the chilled heavens, with
Those white clouds solid sheeted overhead,
Pulled snugly over the sky like a winter coverlet,
Surrounding me on all sides, tucked against the ground.
~ ~ ~
On and on the moaning went, until I ran to the house,
Asking mamma what that noise was.
And she explained about northeasters.
The wind, she said, bringing a blizzard.
~ ~ ~
Drawn with inexplicable fascinated wonder,
My short blonde hair warm under a woolen hat,
I gazed northward on the prairie again, searching;
Unable to fathom how the wind could have
A voice like a lost person in the wilderness.

Feeding the Cows

Sultry summer sun coaxing sweet rotten scents
From fallen apples and pears
Strewn across the dry brown grass.
~ ~ ~
I fill my skirt with them, watching
Brown and white cows lift their big heads,
Mooing into the quiet afternoon,
Ambling down the pasture.
They know what I’m doing.
~ ~ ~
They meet me at the fence.
I raise my hand up,
Lifting one soft globe at a time
High, to meet their lowering mouths
Over the barbed wire.
~ ~ ~
Their huge soft tongues reel in the fruit
From my offering hand;
Whiskers tickling my fingers,
Ears and tails twitching flies away,
Brown eyes gazing down into my green ones.
~ ~ ~
They know me
And I know them
As they stand there, chewing, chewing, chewing

Four years old on the northern Alberta prairies
Trudging squeaking snowdrifts, squinting against the sun,
In a world gone completely white in all directions
Capped by a brilliant blue sky meeting the edges
Of the white land every way I turn.
A wondrous and magical sight -
Everything I know has disappeared,
The cabin, the outhouse, the fields.
~ ~ ~
Down a deep shoveled hole I see unexpectedly
My mother cooking in the kitchen!
How did she get underground, I wonder.
There is the woodstove,
And the high stool Miriam
Made a fountain from,
Wetting.
~ ~ ~
Cold, so cold, breath spiraling away,
I trip over a line of very short boards,
Querying silently where the fence has gone;
Why only the tips are sticking out of the snow.
~ ~ ~
At last I begin to comprehend,
As I play outside with Marigold and Miriam,
(Mark being too little, and Mira just born),
What has been happening during the dark days
Of howling wind while were trapped indoors.
More snow than I ever remember seeing
Has buried the cabin.
I am playing beside the icicled rooftops!
~ ~ ~
I see Miriam's point as she uses
The barn for an outhouse.
Still, I feel sorry for my cow friends,
(Trapped there in the barn -
Their windows darkened by snow
Packed solidly against the glass);
Now that their hay is dirty!
~ ~ ~
And later, shivering hard by the crackling wood stove,
Our feet in a tub of warm water,
And unheard-of treat! A whole sweet orange
Smelling like summertime
And a tin cup of hot chocolate clasped in blue hands.

“Azmatic bronk-eye-tis”

Standing on a chair in the ice-cold kitchen
I lean over the wood stove, trying to breathe the
steam beginning to rise from a pan of boiling water.
I must not touch the stove, or I will burn myself,
and I am so tired I can barely stand up
as mamma stuffs more wood in the hole, and
clangs the heavy lid back on with the long metal tool.
~ ~ ~
I hear this sound every morning of my life, but
It is the middle of the night now, and my breaths catch
in my throat, and my chest is on fire as I cough and gag.
Mamma says the steam will help me breathe.
I gasp and gasp, while tears run down my face,
and mamma holds me so I won’t fall off the chair.
~ ~ ~
I know I have the “azmatic bronk-eye-tis” again,
like so many times before. It is very scary
not to be able to breathe, and it hurts to cough so hard.
~ ~ ~
Always strange to be up in the middle of the night,
with mamma starting the fire, and making the water boil;
and always comforting to have her caring for me so tenderly.
~ ~ ~
These nights are very, very long.

I Was a Galley-Slave (!)

I was a poor ragged, cold
kidnapped orphaned galley-slave
locked in the bowels of the dark old creaking ship;
in those innocent years of eight and nine, when imagination
carried me on wings of fire beyond all boredom;
before my world splintered to shrapnel
cast into the wind.
~ ~ ~
I stood, tar-paper beneath my feet
with bits of ancient linoleum still showing here
and there, the single light bulb above and behind me
which left me perpetually working in my own shadow, making
it hard to see, with my eyes which needed glasses after
the measles, but no one knew yet.
~ ~ ~
The porthole above the sink so high
that even an adult could only see clouds moving past
made it easy for me to feel the ocean rocking gently beneath me
as I washed dishes, in mock-terror of being beaten
by the ship’s captain if I failed to wash
each item precisely correctly.
~ ~ ~
Running out the back door
when I was finished, down the board I had
placed over the back steps before I began, with dry
mouth, heart beating fast in my nearly believed terror, down
the board I had placed over the back steps before I began, I knew
the thrill of escaping again and again every day, over that
gangplank out to hide amidst the rustling
giant maples - to climb and write,
freed forever!
~ ~ ~
(Innocence is a wondrous gift.)


* * *

Hanging Clothes

This morning
unexpectedly, memory
transported me back forty years
out the kitchen screen door to the big yard
where you stood alone, your faded apron tied in the back,
your brown hair curling, tendrils damp round your face in the sun,
your mouth full of wooden clothespins, patiently bending to pick clean wet
clothes from the wicker basket in the hot grass. I reached into the
hanging clothespin bag, pulling out a few to fill my own
mouth with, reaching up high to help; shaking a
towel hard, and securing it to the line.
We did not speak, how could we,
but working side by side
in the summer sun
we fastened
ourselves
together
forever

Canadian Winters

*
*
I still
search in dreams,
for those
nights when the far north
wind came growling
its low threat around the windows, shaking
the house, and sending slivers of
chill through the air. A child enraptured, I would pull
the scratchy woolen patchwork quilts over my
head, and curl chattering in a flannel night-gowned ball, shivering up some
*
heat. With galloping heart, I savored the darkness, superbly alert to the impending
*
thrill of snow. For hours on those nights, as endless, impatient
time whistled through my mind, only a
single rapturous vision danced. The anticipation of the
following day held me fast, when
the damp drab gray winter world would have
been transformed into a
dazzling kingdom of diamonds
and white fire
with icicles glittering
in the
sun
*
*

The Eleventh Year

She
protected her
terror with her back turned;
afraid to touch it - the smoldering beast
that kept her captive; and lined it with books, binding
it together like her own birthed creation, under her covers.
~ ~ ~
Piling them beside her bed, she stacked them in bookcases
from floor to ceiling like guards within the heavy,
penetrating silence that spawned greedily
between her bedroom and the rest
of the world. Books, her only
comfort; were ships that
swept her out to a sea
of peace, from a
life she could
not bear.
~ ~ ~
I the
irrepressible,
sensitive daughter,
probably too needy; perpetually
caught between tears and laughter, searching
for the elusive sliver-fine entrance to her mind; to be able
to slip through a magic keyhole to a land where she knew I was there
- where she would look up and see my face.
~ ~ ~
I stood
in her doorway
silent, motionless, petrified to
break the spell that kept her alive; watching
her hypnotize her horrifying depression with those whispering
pages; wishing I could find within my hundreds of wonderful books, two
smooth covers between which would lie a secret that would free mefrom needing
her.
~ ~ ~
Peeking
in to check before going
to meet the school bus, to see if
she was still breathing - if only one sleeping
pill held her there in bed - to see if I still had a mother;
that year's living was ever laced with dread,
quilted in sadness, edged in guilt,
and stitched together
with wires of
fear.

I still can see her lithe form
Eleven years old, brown hair blowing
Brown eyes warm in the Oregon sun
Skipping over the boulders like a
Mountain goat, crossing the waterfall
At Scotts Mills when we were girls
~ ~ ~
Best friends, she and I filled the summer
With memories of laughter and confidences
She lived with her grandma; I lived with my aunt
We were tree climbers and runners
Country girls with simple desires
Playing under the clear country sky that
Shone childhood’s fleeting peace on us warm
As the summer sun while we caught grasshoppers
Unaware that we were living out
The last of our innocence.
~ ~ ~
We were boisterously happy playing in the fields;
Sure-footed and confident on the familiar waterfall
That would devour her when her foot slipped,
Before the first frost
~ ~ ~
Child lost.

The Whole Winter's Food

He stepped peacefully out of the forest
Huge, raising majestic antlers
Nose testing the frosty air
“Oh, Alfred, get the gun! There’s
Our whole winter’s food!”
~ ~ ~
A king, the moose knew
He was the king.
Still standing near the cabin,
Breath steaming through
Minus forty degree air;
Distant white Alaskan mountains
Raising proud behind him;
Unafraid, yet wary.
My urgent, helpless, silent plea
For him to run
Unheard.
~ ~ ~
Coming from the dark corner,
My cousin stepped quietly to the door.
My empty stomach growling,
I hid under the table covering my ears,
And trembling
With rage.

Chestnut Autumn

I was twelve years old, and he fourteen, when he sat
Behind me on the girls' side of the class,
Ignoring the boys' taunting.
Fine blonde hair framing those blue eyes
(So deep you could swim in them),
And played with my long hair hanging,
Also blonde, over the back of the chair.
Braving the teacher's glare when I turned at his tug
As he removed one single hair from my head,
And saw that wide, bright smile
That sweet, teasing smile
That lovely, warm smile
That has melted my heart now for thirty-six years.
~ ~ ~
We walked home from school together every day,
Kicking the fall leaves, scuffing through the grass,
Talking endlessly of life, and soon, of love.
Comprehending in innocent amazement that life now held
A new joy; a tender caring such as neither of us had known.
We picked up chestnuts, shining their smooth
Auburn sides against our coats.
Our breath making little clouds in the chill air
While he held his arm around me,
That long, tender arm around me,
That gentle, loving arm around me
That has warmed my soul now for thirty-six years.

© 1997 - 2004 Rosemary J. Gwaltney All rights reserved.