I have a new grand boy

I have a new baby grand

not piano, a little boy man

born as the church was about

to start the O antiphon. 

He brings the blessings to 13

an embarrassment of riches for me

a luckier Omi on big blue marble

there never, ever, never could be

It's hard or maybe impossible

to express the joy you are to me

for a kid who existed on sufferance

to be grandmother to so many 

I wish I had known way back when

when I seemed to bring no one joy

that the day would dawn and

I'd be given this shiny bright boy  

a foretelling of his star plus

12 bright lights with him

a prophecy of my own constellation 

would have lit those days so grim

days of winter with no Christmas

So little summer sun back when

Even Lake Michigan refused me

Nothing much to celebrate then

I had such big ideas, Cassius

the world was my oyster you see

I was smart and gung ho

but there was so much denied to me

horizons artificially narrowed 

my firmament shrink wrapped

it's hard to reach potential 

when your resources are tapped

Despite a major recession

I did push my boat out to sea

In the crappiest car on the planet

I made it to Grand Valley

I'd have liked to go further

but too few supportive family 

yet grandad said with pride that I

was the first to make university

I wish I could tell more about 

great Omis and Opis of your'n 

but I know so very little not

even know where they were born

Think of that, my baby

Omi never asked our Omi

it would have been so easy to

inquire about her nativity

Can you see, being closer 

to the womb than me 

why did I take for granted

they'd live eternally?

It's a sad mistake to think

that they'll all always stay 

They'll always be here for us

and never ever go away

I wish that was true, Cassius

If wishes were horses we'd ride

I'd ride with you forever 

If from passing time I could hide

So  ask your questions now

before I must fly away

I wish I'd asked my Omi 

She said I'd regret it some day

My boy, this is going to

a long away far ago time

and farther away than that

And you can't visit what was only ever mine. 

And as Kahlil says I can only

visit where you'll inhabit in dreams

you live in the place of tomorrow

and I sadly can't go there it seems

If this hurts anyone let it

be me and never you, I hope           

you're a fine strong man if ever

you read these words that I wrote

Love, to my future man from back then Omi

Buckle up, bumpy Woodstock Road ahead

 Less poetry in this one, more stream of subconscious...

Figured out of late that the best poetry riffing

comes when on the distaff side o' the grape

So here goes and buckle up ya'll, it's a 

Land Rover Series I ride over rough terrain. 

Been thinking a lot about Joni Mitchell

going back to the garden, Woodstock yanno

Our mother goddess has it that we need to

get back to roots, back to Woodstock and  so

Woodstock, just sayin, wasn't a garden, tho

I like that organic reference. It was  a

farm, Yazoos's (Yasgur's) Farm to be exact

But that is still not what Joni's sayin

Get back to where you once belonged 

Of  the Beatles. I'm not the fangirl 

 Fab Four , Penny Lane, Strawbry Fields

Hey Jude Paul, maybe I'd give a whirl

But Woodstock, the American watershed

by such odd words it's defined 

iconic, definitive whatever they mean

commercial words for a Madison Ave mind

And so I listened to Joni's song

of  exhortation, telling us we got go

get back to the garden, yeah, her, guitar 

Just what she is preaching, I know

I preach too going back to big lake named 

Michigan, pine dunes, great lake memories

yeah, I know what I'm calling, get back

to where we all came from (and belonged)

I saw with blinding whiter shade of pale

What she meant by getting back and of 

returning to beginnings to basics,

the wild nature flower child mantra

then I think as I do, when I'm drunk

and rarely sober (Carrickfergus)

I just want to go back to Woodstock

when everything's meant to be broken

I just want to know who I am. 

(Goo Goo Dolls)

Sunday Shabbat going back to the lake

Sunday shabbat dreams

reminisces happy and sad

some cocoa bittersweet 

others just bitter and bad

a walk with my grampa 

by the hazel-eyed lake

gestalt completeness 

so much good I ache

grama didn't cook and 

that was fine with me

sardine toast by the fire

was haute gastronomy 

Sunday with mom could

be very hit or miss

alone, sad and afraid 

or Dunkin donut bliss

dad sundays were hard

with scary angry blaming

never a day of rest from 

all his relentless shaming 

his wife's winter winds 

storms raged fit to burst 

Its wrath trained on me 

the Lord's day was the worst

they took all, left nothing 

but pain in their wake 

To find my Zen meant 

going back to the lake 

Michigan is healing 

for all the hurt I hold 

in her weathered waves 

my grief and hurt enfold  

Pieces of peace she makes

once again new and whole 

a balm for broken self

salve for a tattered soul 

And that brings us to the

glad days of endless sun

summer winds with me dance

we got blues on the run

in jolly boyfriend time

picnics and raspberry wine

at beloved grampa beach

glowing warm, fair and fine

with the wee ones we go 

back to the lake to play 

swims and dune adventures

a quintessentially perfect day

Now I sit on gray Sunday

penning verses in the rain

come fill my parting glass

sing lovely blue-day refrain

An other-world wanderer's lament

Am I the weirdo here?

I reminisce of things I never knew

is that experience common 

or something only I do? 

If I'm the oddball how is it 

I can so stark-sharply recall 

times I never lived in and

places I've never been at all? 

to storied lands I traveled

through the ancient mariners' door

on meandering slow train to

unknown known days of yore

my vehicle being dreams 

mysterious yet not mystery

it's then I see most clearly 

olden era and locality

but what I view bright shiny

what's shown in eye of  night

becomes confusedly shrouded

in dawn's early morning light 

as wave on sand recedes my

waking ken slowly ebbs away 

like fog my clarity fades to

tattered fragments of grey 

why unfamiliar days and ways

and foreign geography  

seem so familiar I know not

am I a freak or visionary?

curious and curiouser are they

nightmare, shade or prophecy?

something or nothing at all

perhaps fathoms deep memory?

I don't know by I doubt my

dreams have happened in history

collective conscience recalling 

or some omen or augury? 

It's also not been revealed

if for better or for worse 

I'm just night tripper or on

my funeral carriage hearse?

there are less pleasant ways to die

it's not worst way to go

a hobo on Dreamland's Railroad

swinging chariota sweet and low

one thing I know for sure

as I ride the midnight train

That to those far-off shores 

I'll return and return again

Thanks for reading. With love from the weirdo world wanderer

 

My country tis of Michigan

June juniper jewels glow

Wind plays on hemlock lyre

Spice spruces bow down before

evergreen queen's final pyre 

Her driftwood fir campfire

Lights up a summer night

Pull your lawn chair near and 

Commune with lady firelight 

Winter wood light is chill

As Frost rime winks at me 

First snow garlands twinkle 

On wild grown Christmas tree

I'm lakeland limber lost 

In my own memories

Was lost and found again

in dear old back dune trees

summer sun bleached beach sand

stark sparkles in moisty mist

silica quartz bits chum 

with specks of mica schist 

I spoke of Sunday in

the grama-grampa time

I endured boring church

to wander in woods mine

to kneel in lakeside pew

by the Gitche gummee

on our rain drenched bench

just my granddad and me

My mighty Michigan 

I worship at your shrine

in dear little hut with gramp

carved out of jack pine

how I love lake goddess

My heart home tis of thee

And I will sing forever

of thy divine
majesty

Bog berry memories in an ambrosia state of mind

Smell recollection runs deep

goes right down to my core

muscle memory scents frame

my backstory timeline lore

Some I recall by name

others by their fragrance alone

shrouded but diamanté clear 

as if embedded in my bone 

a few boisterously noisy

stay robust to the root

like the used car salesman 

in a loud checkered suit

other scent reminisces

hide in subconscious hem

Try as I might to reach

I always just miss them

Been haunted since 5 by

a primordial memory cologne

smelt in Alaskan swamp where

a moose and me played alone

I see burnt tree cremains

in my young eye of mind

from ancient forest fires

their skeletons left behind

we are told that from

purgative fire, ash and rain

come new plants and creatures 

old growth swamps live again

What I smelled in play

such magnificent perfume 

I have vague recollections of

bear and baby whale plume? 

(but how could whales be in swamps. They couldn't BUT I did see them in the bay and I WAS ONLY five, so reminisce-ories get jumbled..)

It was a berry I guess 

whose scent told me deities

on Olympus dined quite well 

upon scrumptious orbs like these

Never smelt such heaven 

since then until this day

my bog bear, moose, whale 

and Alaska went away 

But once, I think I caught

whiff of my beloved scent

oh frabjuous day to nose 

food of angels, heaven sent

Where did I smell it and

from whence did I get traces 

of my vermillion goddess globes

at Ikea of all places! 

Alas there's no mystery to 

my tantalizing fruit so lush

In Sweden as in Alaska 

grows the lingonberry bush

I will say it loses a lot in 

Ikea's cardboard carton of juice 

as opposed to ripe'ning in swamp

all wild, unboxed and loose 

And I prefer mystery to 

some prosaic marketing ploy

Forget Ikea's Swedish-ish shtick

I'll go back to me old bog with joy!

Here's a short tale of the

girl who sniffed out a berry 

the nosy parker and swamp

live only in my faded memory

Maybe I got it wrong 

it wasn't even a lingon

but it's my story and to

that party line I'm clingin'  (don't judge! you try finding a rhyme for lingon!)

What I know for sure is

to that bog again I'd go

in a heartbeat just to smell

my berry of red Day-Glo

This verse began about scents

the forgotten and the known

funny how the half-recalled 

stay mine and mine alone

The teacher in me can't 

help asking you each and all

what glorious smells can 

your ownsie self recall?

Reach deep, it's so important

and I know that you will find

mythical magic reminisces in

an ambrosia state of mind

Love you all, 

Teacher Omi (who believe it or not was once five. In a bog. With a moose. This reads like Dr. Seuss. My next poem?) 

The Sucker Punch Sweet By and By

What I would write on a postcard from Lake Michigan in fall...

had a fine pine time

with the evergreen queen

and the fir campfire

prettiest ever seen

went a walkin' we

amid the spruce and loon

sung us a juniper jolly  

Michigander tune

waved to the seagulls

in squadrons on the beach

to weather out the storm

in perfect formation, each

nibbled wintergreen berries

that taste of  Clark's gum

us TV age kids don't know

the fruit came first, by gum

we went inside a teepee 

that Mr. Edlund made 

Whitey was his name 

makin wood stuff was his trade

collected flotsom bits and bobs

from God and from man

the good stuff was God's

the litter was from man 

got me a nice rock

wanted some black sand

but with rock and a feather

it wouldn't fit in my hand

he wouldn't carry it

though his pockets were deep

I don't blame him

it probably wouldn't keep

fine, inky silica

of quartz and hematite 

mining waste he said

I call it magic magnetite 

He did carry home

some driftwood we found

small for the rock shelf

the big on the ground

climbed the dune staircase

then a quick rest to take  

watched from a bench

our melted glacier lake 

more fine Whitey products

what a good soul was he

but then I recalled how

he and grampa fooled me 

Had me pee over the bench

when I had to go potty

said it was a special toilet (!)

grama said they were both dotty

(But then she stayed home and would not have wanted to use the woods "convenience" if she had come and wouldn't have known where to take me either. So I guess all's well that ends with relief. Grampa was severely chastised by me when I caught on. But in truth, I'd not have had a better idea. Ah such are memories. Dear God why do those honeyed arugula aches still glow so dull and strong? And I wouldn't write this next on a postcard. 

while benched, we wondered

about Ice Age and Indian

did they walk our same trails

these native folk back when?

talked of ships big and small

boats being favorites of mine

of frigates, canoes and Chris Craft

a Greatest of Lakes timeline

one subject led to another

as talks with your Opi should do

so much to say, so little time

I think our grandkids get this too

Who's Opi? It's gramp and Omi

is grama in Dutch (that's me!) 

we're all important branches 

on this thing called family tree! 

I call my grandparents theirs (the grands)

and list the greats so they can see

that who is who has a place 

in their own special history

I know mine would love being

known as their great Opi and Omi

when my next gen ask why

I say cuz it's YOUR family

But back to my bench (toilet)

so many moons ago

to bring then and now full circle

so that they will all know

I'm  61 now (how did that happen)

I want them to meet little me

when I was still sitting and 

(maybe omit?) peeing over my bit of tree

I want to take them all back with me

all 12 of them if just help them see

how joyous it was for us then 

God, it hurts some much to see 

(key change sexy riff)

It's an Irish thing to be lavish

and I'd give all I owned 

to be with Omi and Opi (OG)

does nothing else rhyme but stoned??

and it really doesn't matter 

cuz they'd scoff at the expense

they couldn't imagine how I'd give 

life's wages to see them past tense

He liked how we pondered

for a few footsteps in time

we were part of that great march

of mankind and maritime. 

And grama plays her part

in my longing for yore

it hurts so much that I 

can hardly bear to open that door

(Is this a retake on Carrickfergus?? Jesus, I can hear that damn Van Morrison version playing as I read this. No wonder they added the line about needing a drink!  It fits! Hallelujah I'm Irish, pass the booze. The only part I resonate with. Not really. Why did I say that? I hate that they're called Irish Car Bombs. Bobby Sands??? Pour me another. So less Irish than originally TOLD BY 23andme. But hey, never believed the stats anyway. How could a girl with one Irish granda on the distaff side be 43%, yeah, no. Unless that girl's Dutch relative somewhere...no too tired to figure that one out. Wait till you hear what 23andme says about my Andulsian and Maltese roots after amending their stats in some long headed nonsense I  don't understand. NOW I'm not 43% but only 20% Irish WITH Scots and Welsh WTactual? Well easy Eire easy go. And I like being mostly Netherlander anyway, so, where were we? Sorry... this part is serious and you should be too.)

I've only just managed to 

hush my O's during sleep 

their dear sweet voices calling 

nearly sent me over the deep

Such a lost little girl was I

so lonesome, lonely and alone

they were my world my all

theirs was the only home 

Jesus it hurts so much to recall

the sucker punch sweet by and by

I could easily drown in memory

it wouldn't be the worst way to die

But I won't because I remember

that I'm a wife, mom and Omi too

and I owe to all my loved ones 

their days in Lake Michigan blue

So let's pause to raise a glass

to the Opis and Omis gone before

thank you for the wonderful days

putting our footprints on the shore