Unfinished Business

In response to my Sister's recent post on her blog about survival in the face of loss, this is a poem I wrote while trying to come to grips with Mama's death and her reaction to my father's death 6 years before. After Daddy died, as Kelly said, her mantra became her wish to only live long enough to see Kelly grow up. The power of negative thinking? Perhaps. I just know that, before all was said and done, I had a lot of anger to deal with in my grieving process after Mama died. How sad that Mama had begun to enjoy life again when she found out she had Cancer.....





Unfinished Business
(For my mother)


I don’t think you realized
the force of your words,
the power of negative thinking
that carried you through
until fate granted your wish.

The day the call came
saying you’d slipped away
I’d been watching sparrows
dive into the reflected world
of my windows,
stunned by the force of reality.
After Daddy died
you curled up inside him,
left us, except for your youngest,
her graduation your expiration date.

What of my son, first grandchild,
the one you clutched as your own,
who crept under the wing you spread?
He curled up in silence
when I told him you were gone.

What of the grandchildren who will know you
by photos and secondhand memories?
Three months ago I stood in for you,
held your youngest’s first child
through her first night at home,
the warmth of new life against my cheek.
Feeling the tiny wings of her heartbeat
I thought of the sparrows
on the day of your death.

When the phone rang
I knew you were gone,
my sister’s graduation
only days in the past.
How many times had your wish sliced our hearts?
The Cancer that severed Daddy
so suddenly from our lives
chewed up your body,
organ by organ,
spit you out of our world
right on schedule.

In that moment before flight
did you turn to confront the love
that couldn’t hold you here?
When you severed the ties,
slipped out of your pain,
did you briefly pass through ours?


~ Pam Patterson

Too Close to the Bones of Your Death

A special friend has been on my mind lately. He died of Cancer a few years ago. As I flipped the TV channels earlier today I glimpsed a golfer at the Masters. It reminded me how much he loved the game. In honor of my friend's memory I thought I'd share, again, a poem I wrote after learning of his death.

Too close to the bones of your death,
I think, to excavate the burial site.
How does one objectively pick apart
memories while dusting off raw emotions?

They say the cancerous beast fed quickly,
sucked dry any marrow of respite. Reality, it seems,
pulled the plug on a negotiable checkout time.
You, who ate life like candy, would not waste away
on a sugar-free half-life of hope.

I see you spinning in a kaleidoscope of moments,
captured grains at the bottom of an hourglass.
The dust will settle, in time, I know.
A slow-motion slide show is best viewed
when the bones are catalogued and safely under glass.

© 2003 Pam Patterson

Hope Anita Smith

I have discovered a wonderful new poet! Well, new to me, anyway. Hope Anita Smith. The book of poetry I just bought (sent a copy to my sister) is called MOTHER POEMS. I thought I'd share one that spoke to me. It's amazing!

Duped

Everybody talks about
Death.
The thief who takes away people you love.
Kidnaps them.
Grabs them from their beds as they sleep.

Sometimes he waves wildly,
yells a big hello.
As if you know he’s coming.
As if you sent him an invitation.

And sometimes he seems to
hurl himself through space and
(like Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz)
lands with a thud on some
unsuspecting someone.
And then they are gone.

But occasionally,
he sneaks up on you,
taps you on your right shoulder,
and when you turn to look,
he reaches over your left
and takes your mother.

It was the oldest trick in the book.
I can’t believe I fell for it.

Passages

This is in response to my sister's wonderful post about our parents, siblings and extended family. This is the title poem of the poetry chapbook (by the same name) I had published a few years ago. As we get older, the family connections get more precious and more fragile. At some point, many of the more endearing are but tendrils of memory.

As we lose the pieces of our past,
Person by person,
As we cut the cords,
One by one,
Of our invulnerability,
We are left to wobble
Uncertainly
In the vast realization of our own mortality.

In Honor of National Poetry Month

A poem by one of my favorite poets, Sharon Olds:

The Talk

In the sunless wooden room at noon
the mother had a talk with her daughter.
The rudeness could not go on, the meanness
to her little brother, her selfishness.
The eight-year-old sat on the bed
in the corner of the room, her irises distilled as
the last drops of something, her firm
face melting, reddening,
silver flashes in her eyes like distant
bodies of water glimpsed through woods.
She took it and took it and broke, crying out
I hate being a person! diving
into the mother
as if
into
a deep pond--and she cannot swim,
the child cannot swim.

~~Sharon Olds (from Strike Sparks)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And, one of my own in the same vein.....


Stale words
in stagnant pools
sink into a lifeless sea of drivel.

I’ve said it all before.
You turn a deaf, defiant ear;

Ruffled feathers
beat me back--
a safe distance.

You dance around
the sting of my words.

You’ve yet to really hear.

~Pam Patterson

Behind His Eyes

One of my own, one of my favorites in honor of National Poetry Month.

(For Connor)

Behind his eyes,
blue as the sky on a summer day
turmoil churns like
a wall cloud before the
tornado drops.
To decipher the emotional landscape
is to probe the depths of uncharted territory.

I’m no cartographer.

I tread gently, blindly.
I fumble as I try to read the Braille of his psyche;
but, I can’t see past the shadows.
His highs and lows rise and dip
like an unstable weather pattern
where sunshine belies the coming storm.
A bright smile and clear eyes can spin off
into ominous gales.

I reach for the shards of light. Perhaps
a clue, perhaps…

Too quickly the shadows appear, again.
Just when I think I can forecast the triggers,
pinpoint the offending cloud, the light shifts
and I’m caught blinking helplessly in the clarity
of my ignorance.

~~~ Pam Patterson © 2006

A "Wii" Bit of Family Fun!

I'll be 65 in a couple of weeks. Even got my official Medicare card in the mail yesterday. I decided to treat myself on this momentous birthday with a Wii Fit . The boys got a Wii for Christmas, and it's a fun deal. I had no idea how MUCH fun until Tuesday evening!

The Wii Fit arrived and I set it up just to explore and see what it was all about before dinner. Seems the first thing required was to have each Mii (just what it sounds like..a mini-me avatar. That's us in the photo!) we had created go through a body test that stores info like our BMI (body mass index), weight, COB (center of balance), strength, etc. and let us know what our "fitness age" is as we begin with our training.

Well, after each of us did said requirements we had lots of laughs at the fact that we were ALL 50-something in fitness age. Fossil that I am, I had the best fitness age based on my stats. NOT that it was saying that much! My fitness age is "55".

After all the info is stored and we're lectured we get to pick a trainer (male or female) and begin training. The training categories are strength, balance, aerobics, and Yoga. And so we began.....

NOT as easy as it looks, folks!! Fun, but work , and just not as simple as I expected!

We had a blast! For a couple of hours we did things like run, walk a tightrope, hula hoop, snow ski and jump. We did step dancing. We unlocked new moves and new games! I can't remember the last time we had this much fun as a family. We laughed, bragged, moaned and groaned as well as heard the occasional cries of "NOT fair!" or "he's being mean to me!" or, even, "He called me a loser!" Man, oh man, the competitive nature bubbles up, big time!

People, this is the fun way to exercise as well as share some family fun! With interests as diverse as the crew around here, Wii Fit is a real rally-round togetherness activity.

And...

It's also fun when you're home alone.

I had the house to myself today and I ended up spending nearly two hours doing Wii Fit. Hey, I burned calories and unlocked a number of new exercise games! Even unlocked a boxing game that's a blast!! And, to top it off, my body test before logging off the game showed I'd lost a pound since Tues!!

Wii Fit rocks!