Keep Calm and Carry a Calming Angel by Zoe Doyle

 Remember when you used to listen to the obnoxious noise of the dial-up modem for over 10 minutes before you could open your “aol” account to browse the world-wide-web? I do. I’ll admit I’m getting older and less patient. Nowadays, if my browser takes two seconds to load, I’m clicking that mouse like a crazy-person. I’m not sure if it’s an East Coast thing but everything seems to be so fast-paced these days. From rushing our children to activities, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way home from work, knowing we have a hundred things to do once we get there to “seriously, that bill is due again?”; we never seem to be able to slow down and we’re always feeling the pressure. It’s no wonder companies make millions of dollars selling us products claiming to relieve our stress. In Kenya they do things differently.

When Leah Mitula came to show me the latest creations from Kenya she opened a small bag containing a miniature, soapstone carved angel and I was immediately intrigued. It was smooth, felt almost powdery and fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. “Soapstone is said to have a calming effect. In Kenya we believe that touching soapstone is therapeutic so holding these angels can calm you down when you are nervous,” Leah explained.

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Calming Angels were born out of necessity. Leah, a native Kenyan and a marine biologist based in Belgium found that the women of her village would always ask her for money when she returned home. Wanting to do more than offer a few bucks to a few women, Leah decided to harness the talent in these struggling local mothers and create a platform for them to sell their beautiful products. Leah would then market them during her world travels. These artisans not only carve soapstone angels but

create beautiful handmade jewelry. When they finish a batch, they take their pieces to headquarters and receive payment on the spot. Calming Angels is a fair-trade company which allows moms in Kenya to stay home with their children while earning a living wage. When you buy a soapstone angel you are not only giving yourself a charm, known to keep anxiety at bay but you are also helping sustain a business that allows women to support their families.

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What is soapstone?, you ask Geology.com describes it as, “a metamorphic rock that is composed primarily of talc, with varying amounts of chlorite, micas, amphiboles, carbonates and other minerals. Soapstone is typically gray, bluish, green or brown in color and often variegated. Its name is derived from its “soapy” feel and softness.” After touching nearly 500 calming angels as I put the recent shipment away, I noticed that my hands felt soft and almost powdery. So, where’s the magic? How does it work? Just as rosaries are used to help individuals focus in prayer and mala beads are often touched during meditation, calming angels allow us to take a moment to engage our senses and focus on something tangible 

during times of stress. Angels are known to comfort us during times of grief or suffering so it makes sense that this icon was used by our artisans.

We introduced “calming angels” in June of 2015 and since then they have been “flying” off the shelves. We innately knew that this product was something special. It’s not just a keepsake or a token, it’s a meaningful object that can be given as a gift to someone grieving the loss of a loved one, a person who is about to undergo surgery, or someone going away to college. Not to repeat the theme-song from “Friends” but “When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month or even your year…” you could probably use a calming angel. When you’re nervous about an upcoming deadline at work or you are about to meet that hopefully-also-cute-in-real-life guy from Tinder, you can hold your calming angel, take a deep breath and relax. Each calming angel comes with a story-card and is encased in a velveteen pouch, perfect for gifting.

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Overlyemotional

Overlyemotionalmelodramatic

Take the train

fly off the handle

I don’t care how you do it

Just get here

Now

Everything is so important

I’m telling you to fucking do it

Now

because the years make gaps

In my teeth

Spaces

Indelible

Marked with poison ivy

I have random heart palpitations

I’m not sure if any of this is fair

Pains in your chest

Go see a doctor

Life is too fragile

Seventeen

If I could do it over

I wouldn’t

It was perfect then

But now is a has-been

Have I ever tried to be less temperamental?

Have I ever rode the back

of a white horse

down to the court house

Perhaps in dreams I said, “Let them eat cake”

A real B-movie version of Marie Antoinette

But mostly I cried

Because every bump in the road

Was the apocalypse

Every chip in my nail

Was a chip in my shoulder

Every highway sign gave me

A panic attack which could later

Be traced to my time-of-death

I’m sure no coroner would even bother…

In the living room—

Yellow light shines

On cigarette stained walls

You click click click

With your thumb…

Joystick your way to

Beating a level

As I thumb my way to your heart

Click keys with the precision

Of a typist at an ad agency

But what I write is even

Less important

Days slide into each other

Gloomy or grey

At times I have contemplated

The inevitability of everything

The scenes I can unfold

Like origami and remember

Just how to fold it the same way

All over again

The scenes we play out

The roles I have memorized

And the lines like Hersey wrappers

Like gum wrappers with some girl’s

Name and phone number written on

Them in loopy cursive

We unfold and re-fold again

Three-fold is the rule

I’m not sure the religion

I have folded many holy things

On days other than Sundays

I am also very superstitious

But basically just a snot-nosed kid

Who gets overemotionalmelodramatic

When things don’t go my way.

I took a class on grammar and punctuation.

It reminded me about important issues

Such as the proper use of a semi-colon

And a dependant clause.

I still don’t know how to punctuate us

I’m not sure if it should be a comma

Or a conjunction…and….

Or maybe just an ellipses

You …

I wish sometimes that you were ugly

So I could make less shallow decisions

Your eyes paralyze me

You are my wet dream from when I was sixteen

And my regression at 25

And now I’m just trying to get tough:

Leather jacket, red nailpolish, drive-fast,

All night, smoker’s voice and the body of a

Stick-figure

But who was that girl in the graveyard

With the blue balloon

And is her voice fading to a

Hussshhhh

Whisper

When you were inside me

I was thinking about a center

Opening up

Not all the fake façade shit we

Pretend is important

No one cares if you owned 12 pairs

Of Nikes when you are dead.

I know my voice, a chalking hallow

Of a steel drum,

The perfect needle scratch against

Parchment

The thread that follows the needle

The blood which precedes

I need more than this language to get through to you

I need more than syllables and

question marks and

subjects and

predicates

I need more than Freudian memories

And fatalistic delusions

I need more than fear to light a match under me

A certain roar from the tongue of God

I need to drive far without remembering where I am going

Without the sense to turn-back around.

Unafraid

I don’t believe in 25

The magic happens at 16 and possibly 17

a quick flash from a  disposable camera and then it’s over

left-over Chinese food and spilt milk

this is what I will leave you with

when I leave your house

the crumbs on your fire-escape

a trail to nowhere in particular

 

If someone had warned me that I would wake up

And suddenly feel old before my time

In a car in the middle of the highway

Bumps and clanks me around

And I am so far from the womb I came from

So far from the shrill cries of teenage angst

And whatever it is you people do nowadays

 

Once I wondered if I’d grow up to be a brighter bulb

And platinum bombshell queen of the underground

I grew up scared

Instead

I was a tiny scratch on your record

A whisper in the trees

A voice so hoarse and soft

Only your flesh knows the words

Your mouth cannot fathom

 

I told her that she’d begin to grow up

Just like me

If she made all the right mistakes

The ones with boys in cars

And the ones where she picks up the wrong thing

Smokes something

Anything

I knew there’d come a time

Where she’d wake up with a buzz

In her ears

Electricity

It would  seem

But the flicker is gone

And the static remains

Adjusting the bunny-ears on an old television

Nothing makes sense

Everything would fall like white snow

On a black screen

One day she’d wake up—thirty

With bills to pay and an unclean kitchen

One day she’d learn to pray

Hard and fast

Wake up in a pant—

“God grant me the serenity…”

One day she’d wake up in a haze of

Soup cans and one word answers

But nothing can be explained

Or solved or fathomed with one word

 

I was always my mother’s daughter

Her skin- alabaster white

I’d always aim to please

Bend and twist to suit her needs

I’d lay flat on the floor if she needed to walk over me

 

Once I wrote the melodies

You play on repeat in your heart

An over-used music box that knows the song

Slightly off key and a little bit delayed

My mother is magic and too big to fit inside a poem

Or a hallmark card

She is black boots and eyeliner

She is brash and spectacular

She knows all the answers

And she is nothing like me

Scared and shy, pretending to be

Unafraid.

This poem is by a fellow writer from 3AM magazine. Her name is Gabby Gabby and I really relate to her poems. I guess it's selfish to say but we all seem to like writers who write the same sort of stuff on the same topics we tend to: Check her out at: http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/three-poems-18/

How to live
On the edge of my bathtub I watch a girl
lick cum off of her face and smile.
I can cry while watching porn when it reminds me of sex
with someone that I loved who now loves somewhere else.
When the girl in the video kind of does something
that she thinks is sexy but the guy laughs instead of thinking it’s sexy.
When the sex is slow and it takes some time
to figure out how to change positions without pulling out.
My heart pushes up this heart stuff. I can feel it
when strangers that look like us are fucking.
We exist in there.
This poem isn’t going to teach you anything.
Look to porn to teach you about good living.

Dear Life

A psychic told me she’d read my palm On my lunch break
But I didn’t have time to know the future
I need it spelled out on my skin as I sleep
I need a lot of pain to know I am in trouble
A heart murmur and a bruise on the inside of my wrist I need you to reach for me and grip me tighter Maybe I need a bit of a dig Of your nail into my neck
A bright red bruise I need you to tattoo my name to the inside of your lip
So I can sit somewhere between your tongue and cheek
Or a little bit closer I need you for once to do what you say you’ll do
So you won’t be so god damn predictable
I can’t take your word on anything
All the phone calls that are intrinsic
All the nods that seem homage
To me but perhaps there was someone else there
That I didn’t know about Someone whose hair shines plasticine Perfect
Whose skin is pinched red and whose eyes gleam
Like candy cane Christmas Someone who sighs when you Touch her
Someone whose hormones don’t Control her life Someone who falls easy in to bed
Whose head rolls back when you fuck her In the mouth
Or in a stairwell Someone who doesn’t fall in love
But makes musical sighs Sounding somewhat like Beethoven
And a little bit indie rock maudlin. Maybe I am just holding onto you for dear life

Robin Hood

Give me one more day Sweet songs that sit at the back of my throat And refuse to budge Secrets that swim through the shell of me The highway which stretches all the way through this country Snakes through the dustbowl into this shithole town Drops you off and loses the keys Invites you for drinks and lovemaking Then slams the door on you when you are halfway in I don’t speak your language anymore Sometimes sign language can help But only in more benign situations You were sitting at my front porch waiting In the still frame of my daydream life You were moving to the subterranean crescendo Of deep blue longing Your hair was the deepest blue black And you got all my jokes Even the ones I never said If The highway is for gamblers the skyline is for everyone I breathe the dark soot of my cigarette Right down to its filter And you don’t care if I reek of smoke and lair du tempts the sun bleached stench of one who knows everything and nothing at the same time cover me be my backbone steady me against the imminent stretch of plate tectonics be my Robin Hood steal from the rich and give it to me

All the Things I feel for you

Ralph’s Market At Midnight In Van Nuys, California

My God, I love Iris Berry. She says what I'm thinking and man, can this woman write. In support of a poet after my heart I am posting one of my favorite by Ms. Berry herself which is relevant during this time of year. If you haven't read her work...give yourself an early holiday present and go here.

The lights are cruel
at the Ralphs Market
In Van Nuys
on Burbank
and Van Nuys Boulevard
at midnight
on the 1st of December.

It’s the last month of the year
and apparently it’s Christmas
according to the aisle’s
at Ralphs market.
But if I had to guess by the customers
I’d say it was Halloween.
It’s desperate here at Ralphs
In Van Nuys at midnight
and the lights don’t help any.
Florescent lights are never good for the complexion.
There’s a young, homeless couple
walking the aisles,
buying food
and looking happy
at least they’re in a relationship
is what I say.
Freshly home from a trip
To “The Big Apple,”
I went with my boyfriend
and came home single.
We had to go 3,000 miles to do that?
It happened in bed
in the dark
in a dingy Times Square hotel room
It was epic
and when that plane landed
20 hours later..
on California soul
I clicked my heels together
and quietly chanted
there’s no place like home
and now
here I am
at home
in my neighborhood Ralphs market
feeling like an alien.

The thing about sunny California
is the only way to tell the seasons
is by what’s selling on the shelves
of the market.
I have a thing for the market
somehow it’s a form of meditation for me
nothing in there
reminds me of my life…
I can do this…
I’m a spiritual giant
In the frozen food section
I’m Gandhi
In the greeting card section
and I’m Mother Teresa in the check-out line
forgiving all the tabloid sinners
and connecting with something
greater than all of this.
Credit or debit?
Paper or plastic?
Peace… please?
I’d like to give it a chance
after all
it is the Holidays.

Oh please make me ok

I was born on a full moon like half the babies in America Came out, no swam out like a wet fish coughed onto rough sands You see the stars were aligned, you see I always believed this made me magic but magic breaks…like a rope around the neck of bad intentions I was wishing for a magic prince to save me As soon as I learned the equation of skin on skin Of razors that cut out the bad parts and leave a glistening dull feeling The sound of someone sighing in the distance A coarse whispered hallelujah Half of life is commercials Suggesting a better toothpaste to make my teeth shine A proposal for a better deodorant or face cream Something I could buy to bring you closer Suck in my stomach and walk the tightrope to your heart Let’s say I called and told you that I needed you more than Let’s say I told you that I wanted to stay wrapped in your heavy arms like a missile Body bright and ready Let’s say you’re never ready The skin starts to sag, to soften the way fruit will tend to At the bottom of the refrigerator I want nothing but the best for you But selfishly I believe I am the only one who could Give this to you A shaky hand under your neck That whispers a quiet goodbye

I didn't know what to do

Quiet Goodbye

I was born on a full moon like half the babies in America Came out, no swam out like a wet fish coughed onto rough sands You see the stars were aligned, you see I always believed this made me magic but magic breaks…like a rope around the neck of bad intentions I was wishing for a magic prince to save me As soon as I learned the equation of skin on skin Of razors that cut out the bad parts and leave a glistening dull feeling The sound of someone sighing in the distance A coarse whispered hallelujah Half of life is commercials Suggesting a better toothpaste to make my teeth shine A proposal for a better deodorant or face cream Something I could buy to bring you closer Suck in my stomach and walk the tightrope to your heart Let’s say I called and told you that I needed you more than Let’s say I told you that I wanted to stay wrapped in your heavy arms like a missile Body bright and ready Let’s say you’re never ready The skin starts to sag, to soften the way fruit will tend to At the bottom of the refrigerator I want nothing but the best for you But selfishly I believe I am the only one who could Give this to you A shaky hand under your neck That whispers a quiet goodbye

My first Ghazal

Indelible Scent

We wait for the magic to happen
But it does not belong to either of us

In your car I felt a tiny spark
Penciling marks on the states I was mapping

You were wise not to kiss me at first
My body was still on fire

In your bed I am free
To let you see all of me

On my way to work the next day
I spell your name on my skin

We were so wise yesterday
Today you must push in the pin

In the bath tub I scour my skin
To remove your indelibile scent

Oh Tears

Oh, I’ve lived in the trash too long
Even in dreams it creeps up in my veins
Now let me tell you that I’m ready
Ready for anything but this
My skin scrawls with bugs
My heart is a shattered mess
I will let you clean it up if you decline to inquire
About the reason for this fire
My friends have left this hovel
Onto better things
While I dwell in the wreckage of the past
While I swing and shake in the breeze
A single tree limb supports my whole body
Threatening to break
The real hovel is in your heart
It grows dark as your lungs
It crumples me like newspaper
In your thick calloused hands
It tells everyone I came from the trash
It tells everyone to shine a great big spotlight on me
Outside of the garbage
The world is still
And I spin on my axis like a planet
Without gravity
Go ahead, tell everyone where I came from
I’ll tell them where you hid
In the folds of my flesh
Behind the roundness of my breasts
Behind the chlorinated swimming pool of my eyes
Burrowed for years
Pushing them out of my eyes
One by one
Sparkling tears
You refused to clean up

hair

My mother digs her fingers through my scalp
On the wooden porch my father built
With charred fingers and a sunburnt face
Pieces of my hair fall onto the wood grain
I run my hands through my new short hair
And hate it
I will wear this same hair cut for the next ten years
Maybe eleven
You never liked a woman with short hair
Severe was the word you had chosen
You liked your women care-free and limber
Bodies bending to suit your needs
To catch your heavy head before it hit the cement
We were teenagers too long
We were lost on a dirt road but not discontent
You breathed into my exposed neck
You pulled me into your clandestine embrace
Near a horse farm somewhere off the beaten path
I was telling you a story about the way I had sliced my finger
While slicing roast beef, a strange situation for a vegetarian
I was clever in your company
Blushed and batted my eyelashes
As you talked incessantly
I thought it was because you were nervous
But I would learn years later when we lived in a wooden apartment
Together with many books and musical instruments
That the only time when you were really paying attention
When I could look into the full moon of your face
Was when you were talking about yourself
What sort of love is this
That you have given me:
A lonely love that fails to light the electric stove
That cries with the tea kettle
That apologizes to no one

Like all Delicate things should be loved

If I could get back to you
I would
But fear traps me between its glistening teeth
I was brave before I became aware of any real danger
Didn’t know that cars crumble into scrapnel
That fires melt skin into bubbling liquid
That lightening strikes the ground like a knife from heaven
You know If I could I would find a way to push back that
Thin skin and brave the plane and the train and the ride to
The station make love to you like a bullet meets the flesh
Trapped inside your skin the way all beautiful things tend to
Burn a little at first
Anything worth it’s weight in dirt stings a little at first
I felt your stare like shadows feel the night air
I felt your lips, chapped and red against my cheek
Like records scratch the songs I love onto repeat
I knew your name better than my own once I know
I did love you the way all delicate things should be loved
Covered in rags and kept in the basement
Like babies need a strong hand
I did, cradle your soft skull
I did fear I would drop you
And I did get a lump in my throat
At the sound of your voice
Croak my name
Just once or twice is enough
I love you
If that’s okay
If not, throw it away
Really I just need some kind of confirmation
A simple affidavit
I just need your signature on the dotted line
Autograph your name on my spine
I know the way that feelings lie
The way that lovers lie
The way that all things beautiful eventually die.

Vampire in Queens

Hell is your house
Over-looking the Queens bridge
There is nothing to talk about
The refrigerator is empty except for a can of Sapporo
That some girl bought three years ago
That you left in there
Sentimental somehow
I don’t know
Haven’t had a real name
Or my own bed in five years
And I know the city is crawling with happy-endings
And none of them are mine
Even in the biblical sense
Once I did some African Dancing
With your Asian friend named, “Small Fry”
Who was petite and liked to kick up her feet
Danced like they were on fire
I couldn’t quite keep up
Took the 7—long ride back home to hell
On a non-stop train
I’m just saying that I danced hard
I gave it my all
But I never could shrug you off like the bad dream you are
I’ve got a nervous streak
Which you like
Because you think it means I am sensitive
But really I am peeling like onion skin
You called me baby, you called me honey baby
You called me “thin skin”
I need a sunset and a head full of regret
Just enough to light a fire under me
Like “Small Fry” I could fly off the handle
We were so old yesterday
But I woke up today crying like a newborn
Getting older never got any easier
Some of us want to grow up to have families
And mortgages
I just want to grow up to be a little less afraid
Of the simplest things
Paper-cuts and the little hang-nails
That bleed as I walk real slow down Delancy
Think about tea and nightingales
Think about things I imagine would make me happy
As if I could acquire this feeling through retail therapy
Hell is Queens
Hell is your New York City
Pretending to sleep so you can fuck me without having to look me in the eyes
You calling me fat on the 6 train
Sometimes we were preppy and young with hands and mouths which kiss fervently
And no real fear and you calling all the shots makes you feel less scared and slightly happy
If you can even call it that
I have a rock in the pit of my stomach
And it feels heavy when I walk
You said you knew I was bright
And so I was
bright enough to leave
The borough which sucks my blood
and makes love to me only when no one is watching.

On the "minx"-on the true-love--Fanny Brawne

During my reading of Keats, I came across the love letters between him and his belovced, Fanny Brawne. Keats died in Italy, after attempting to recover from tuberculosis which proved to be terminal. After witnessing the death of his brother from the same malady, he eventually suffered a similiar fate after a bleeding lung led to his untimely demise. We all seem to be struck by the untimely deaths of those whose art fascinates us. By age 24, Keats had written all the poems he'd ever write but fame in any magnitude arose only post-humerously. Whatcaught my attention was the clandestine relationship between Fanny and John (their engagement remained a secret because John who gave up a career in medicine to persue his full-time advocation of writing) could not support Fanny in a proper fashion. The two maintained a passionate correspondence. "At eighteen, Fanny Brawne “was small, her eyes were blue and often enhanced by blue ribbons in her brown hair; her mouth expressed determination and a sense of humour and her smile was disarming. She was not conventionally beautiful: her nose was a little too aquiline, her face too pale and thin (some called it sallow). But she knew the value of elegance; velvet hats and muslin bonnets, crêpe hats with argus feathers, straw hats embellished with grapes and tartan ribbons: Fanny noticed them all as they came from Paris. She could answer, at a moment’s notice, any question on historical costume. ... Fanny enjoyed music. ... She was an eager politician, fiery in discussion; she was a voluminous reader. ... Indeed, books were her favourite topic of conversation”.[8]"

In a letter to his brother, Keats describes the Fanny he'd soon become enamored with:

"Mrs. Brawn who took Brown's house for the summer still resides in Hampstead. She is a very nice woman and her daughter senior is I think beautiful, elegant, graceful, silly, fashionable and strange. We have a little tiff now and then—and she behaves a little better, or I must have sheered off" ; the second: "—Shall I give you Miss Brawn[e]? She is about my height—with a fine style of countenance of the lengthen'd sort—she wants sentiment in every feature—she manages to make her hair look well—her nostrills are fine—though a little painful—he[r] mouth is bad and good—he[r] Profil is better than her full-face which indeed is not full [b]ut pale and thin without showing any bone—Her shape is very graceful and so are her movements—her Arms are good her hands badish—her feet tolerable—she is not seventeen—but she is ignorant—monstrous in her behaviour flying out in all directions, calling people such names—that I was forced lately to make use of the term Minx—this is I think no[t] from any innate vice but from a penchant she has for acting stylishly. I am however tired of such style and shall decline any more of it" [13]

I decided to post a moving letter from a dying Keats, living in KItaly to his secret fiancee'. I don't know of any current pop songs that demonstrate this level of passion and devotion:


My dearest Girl,

This moment I have set myself to copy some verses out fair. I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my Mind for ever so short a time. Upon my Soul I can think of nothing else - The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you again[s]t the unpromising morning of my Life - My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again - my Life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving - I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. I should be afraid to separate myself far from you. My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change? My love, will it? I have no limit now to my love - You note came in just here - I cannot be happier away from you - 'T is richer than an Argosy of Pearles. Do not threat me even in jest. I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be martyr'd for my Religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet - You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist: and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often "to reason against the reasons of my Love." I can do that no more - the pain would be too great - My Love is selfish - I cannot breathe without you.

Yours for ever
John Keats

Abraham

In sepia he sits beside her
Fixed eyes set on me as she sits in her floral dress
Daydreaming about a dinner, cold on the stove,
a depression era mortgage and two kids who rip holes
in the upholstery, just kids who didn’t know any better
and he stares straight ahead
Bela Lugosi eyes that cut into the twenty-first century
into new millenniums, that scream through golden parchment, burnt at the edges
That say, listen kid, I knew the depression would come again in your time
That remind me to stuff wads of cash into my mattress, not to trust banks
and bureaucracies, that tell me to drive slowly
All these things I have done mean nothing
When I know that you walked door to door selling vacuums to support your hungry family
On weekends you carried a sinking violin case to practice with the
New York Philharmonic orchestra until at 31 you could no longer hear the music
That once on an empty street you closed the car door on your son’s hand as he writhed in pain
And you walked away until a man in a gabardine suit tapped your shoulder, let you know what you’d done
The pain of the language you could no longer comprehend
The crossword puzzles that kept you company in the silence of decades
Your wife’s back pressed up against the wallpaper in a New York kitchen
Because she wasn’t obedient
a bloody lip and the silent screams you wished you could hear
to know you were still alive
You were stuck in the quiet silence for years before the big white took you
Under it’s thick embrace
And I loved you despite the rage
I can understand it now
That fear lights a fire under us whether we like it or not
I was not your baby girl for long enough
And you were scared that I’d turn out
Too Jewish in the nose
Perhaps worse yet, the shiksa I’ve become
Your eyes still stare back at me,
Your wife’s hands wrinkled by time, mind
Has forgotten most of what’s she’s ever known
But she remembers you on a beach in far rockaway
She remembers the dark eyes that held her in a Nat King Cole
Nature boy embrace---
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved
In return
And you stare back at me
Not blankly but knowingly
My grandfather twelve years dead
Seeing me more clearly
Than I have ever seen myself
My grandfather twelve years dead
You live on in my Russian roulette stare
In the quiet prayer I whisper
through the dashboard of my car.

Resolution and Independence by William Wordsworth

This poem shows us the healing and transformative characteristics of nature that help man overcome his obstacles. this power can be harnassed by anyone who appreciates nature regardless of class. Wordsworth is an important poet of the Romantic Era who suffered the loss of many of his children as wella s his mother at an early age and found solace in nature which he discusses in his poem, "Tintern Abbey" as well as this one:
I

THERE was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

II

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;
The grass is bright with rain-drops;--on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

III

I was a Traveller then upon the moor,
I saw the hare that raced about with joy;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar;
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy:
The pleasant season did my heart employ:
My old remembrances went from me wholly;
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

IV

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low;
To me that morning did it happen so;
And fears and fancies thick upon me came;
Dim sadness--and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.

V

I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky;
And I bethought me of the playful hare:
Even such a happy Child of earth am I;
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;
Far from the world I walk, and from all care;
But there may come another day to me--
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

VI

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
But how can He expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

VII

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;
Of Him who walked in glory and in joy
Following his plough, along the mountain-side:
By our own spirits are we deified:
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

VIII

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,
A leading from above, a something given,
Yet it befell, that, in this lonely place,
When I with these untoward thoughts had striven,
Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven
I saw a Man before me unawares:
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.

IX

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couched on the bald top of an eminence;
Wonder to all who do the same espy,
By what means it could thither come, and whence;
So that it seems a thing endued with sense:
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

X

Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead,
Nor all asleep--in his extreme old age:
His body was bent double, feet and head
Coming together in life's pilgrimage;
As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage
Of sickness felt by him in times long past,
A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.

XI

Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face,
Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood:
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,
Upon the margin of that moorish flood
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,
That heareth not the loud winds when they call
And moveth all together, if it move at all.

XII

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look
Upon the muddy water, which he conned,
As if he had been reading in a book:
And now a stranger's privilege I took;
And, drawing to his side, to him did say,
"This morning gives us promise of a glorious day."

XIII

A gentle answer did the old Man make,
In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew:
And him with further words I thus bespake,
"What occupation do you there pursue?
This is a lonesome place for one like you."
Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise
Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes,

XIV

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest,
But each in solemn order followed each,
With something of a lofty utterance drest--
Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach
Of ordinary men; a stately speech;
Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use,
Religious men, who give to God and man their dues.

XV

He told, that to these waters he had come
To gather leeches, being old and poor:
Employment hazardous and wearisome!
And he had many hardships to endure:
From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor;
Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance,
And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.

XVI

The old Man still stood talking by my side;
But now his voice to me was like a stream
Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide;
And the whole body of the Man did seem
Like one whom I had met with in a dream;
Or like a man from some far region sent,
To give me human strength, by apt admonishment.

XVII

My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills;
And hope that is unwilling to be fed;
Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills;
And mighty Poets in their misery dead.
--Perplexed, and longing to be comforted,
My question eagerly did I renew,
"How is it that you live, and what is it you do?"

XVIII

He with a smile did then his words repeat;
And said, that, gathering leeches, far and wide
He travelled; stirring thus about his feet
The waters of the pools where they abide.
"Once I could meet with them on every side;
But they have dwindled long by slow decay;
Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."

XIX

While he was talking thus, the lonely place,
The old Man's shape, and speech--all troubled me:
In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace
About the weary moors continually,
Wandering about alone and silently.
While I these thoughts within myself pursued,
He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed.

XX

And soon with this he other matter blended,
Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind,
But stately in the main; and when he ended,
I could have laughed myself to scorn to find
In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.
"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure;
I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!"
1807.

Baby Took Me Down

Left one foot hangin’ mid-air
I was once adventurous
But baby took me down
A peg or two
Daylight breaks and I’m starting to look like you
The way all the old couples do
in sepia tone photographs
Baby took me down to see his body in the light
Hair and fissures
Whatever it is that I take in my mouth
Like a foreign language
A foreign object
Did you grow to feel something bitter for me, darling?
Did you grow like all men do to find comfort in my arms
But fear in your heart…a death rattle that begins with just a simple tap of the foot
You wanted to be anywhere but here with me
If the house was folding in…I didn’t know it
But you said you couldn’t breathe
And baby I’m scared too
The way it feels so good sometimes
So you sit waiting with a lump in your throat
For the other shoe to drop
I am dressed up in knee-high boots and I have a voice
That tears the hair off your neck
I am testing the boundaries of your heart
If I must be a recluse
Keep me in the home of your heart
I thought I heard you crying
But it was me
The child that lives in my chest
That sulks and beats its fists against my ribcage
And sometimes I feel it too, baby
When you take me down.