How much is that child in the window?

How much is that child in the window?

The one with the sad face and long hair

Not the one on the inside looking out

The girl on the outside staring in

Why does she look so lonely?

why are her small hands so cold?

did the little kitten lose her mittens?

or perhaps they were never there?

Why is she huddling all alone?

Shouldn't there be someone to care?

She very much much too young

But no mommy or daddy is there

She must have had people to love her?

Maybe they get lost in the night?

The story alas is much sadder

They lost their own girl in plain sight

There is nothing so invisibly clear 

as the child you refuse to see

the girl outside the window

when inside is where she should be

So please, how much is the child?

I haven't a great deal of money 

but you can have all that I've got

for she's worth a fortune to me

and if there's no one to love her 

then coin doesn't matter at all 

for I have the world of love 

so please, sir, give her to me? 

Achy-Lake-y Michigan smell at the grama-grampa house

lake Michigan smell lingered

in the grama --grampa house

you could smell the beach

and the sun and sand

in their basement

and in your clothes 

when you went home

Molly could still smell it

in her beepee

her softie nighttime cuddle

so she put it in a Ziploc

to store and savor 

when she came home 

from the grama-grampa house 

till she went again

it smelled of sun-toasty sand

lake water with algae

of driftwood campfire smoke

with notes of pine and hemlock and fir

from the woodsy back dunes

it was happy but also sad

joy mixed in with sorrow 

evergreen sweet and spicy

but also salty, burny bitter

like stinging tears that hurt your eyes

Lake smell was best at bedtime 

in the room and walls and blankets

smiley-quiet, not going anywhere

like a mommy and daddy

hugging and wishing me goodnight

The lake sang me to sleep

with her purring and growling

splashing and hissing

soft yet endlessly tameless

rocking me in her perfume

the grama-grampa house was 

the only place I ever smelled

this wildy, salty, piney

sunny, dear, sad-sweet

achy-lakey Michigan scent 

now the house doesn't smell the same

because the grama and grampa are gone

and they took it with them

to their new home where I can't go

and finally the tears start to fall...

Selah

Dune days and forest moods

in high noon dune

blue jay joy

sings praise to pines

as cheery fir frogs 

creak croak their lament

at waterside, brave waves rave

across bleach white beach

as bathers on striped blankets

repose in sunny-sun sand

and gulls queue for stale snacks

at gathering dusk dune

muffled dryer lint fog fluff

creep-sneaks in 

shadowing jewel-bright surf and 

shooing off bathers and greedy gulls

turning berry blue sky

to charcoal smudged cloud

gull formations dot empty beach

as cardinal kiss calls goodnight 

and bats fly their evening maneuvers

in deep dark dune

owls shush hush hoot

on slow dancing trees

and flowers fold themselves

into twilight slumber asanas

as sharp pepper pine

scents sklish, swish wind

and the moon makes her entrance

with her usual flair

curtain calling today's wonder wander

so poet wanderer

dog ear's her notebook page

zipping hoodie against chill

wends her way homeward

Dreaming of new beach day

Misty moisty Michigan walks

 (preface another ode to my childhood Lake Michigan beach walks with grampa. I write a lot about him and grama Kinney. I miss them a lot. Side note: the word uffy in stanza 3 means softy. As in "pink uffy" Emma's blanket)

misty moisty Michigan days

are the best ones for walking

with grampa and the dogs

to the beach in the woods

sunny days are nice too

but grey rainy are even better

soft days my dad called them

its a good word

drizzly clouds make things look

fuzzy and comfy and cozy

i want to wrap up in clouds

like an uffy blanket

its quiet so you can hear

bugs and birds and rustley leaves

and furry, fluffy wind

makes sklishy waves and creaky trees

you can talk if you want 

but you don't have to

on a moisty misty walk

and probably shouldn't 

the big lake woods 

are like a church

and we don't talk in church

if grama is there anyway

on soft beach days

nothing bad exists

no school or work or mean

just happy with a little sad

but it's good blue sad

not mad red sad

sad that helps not hurts, or not too much

sad that time and people pass

grampa and grama are not here

but they're not gone

they still live in the red brick house

and we still walk the lake

in my heart. 

Big Lake lost on Sunday

Sunday was the best day to walk

to the Big Lake Michigan

with grampa and the fat poodle Pierre

and the neighbor's German shepherd Duke

that grama called a police dog

On Sunday we could not do anything

grama and grampa were Dutch reformed 

so we couldn't watch TV or cook 

I could walk with grampa in the woods

But that wasn't why I liked Sunday lake days best

I didn't like Sunday because it was boring

But I did like being at the lake which was not boring

Sunday was best because it felt like it would never end 

you could get lost in the woods forever

I told grampa I wanted to live there forever

in a little hut I'd imagined I'd make

I'd live on chewing gum wintergreen berries 

and make pancakes from acorns

Grampa said I'd soon get hungry and come home

it was nice to think of grama who never lake walked 

waiting at home with lazy dogs 

who had given up and sandwiches

But I still recall my Lake Michigan 

back dune woods mind fort

made of beach grass and driftwood

like African kids' homes shown in Childcraft

My grandson Milo felt quite the same thing

when we went Sunday walkabout at Lake Michigan

We agreed we'd like to live there for always

in the big sand dunes with tall beach grass

in a cantonment we'd make for ourselves

and sister Juno of sand-scrubbed sticks

tied together with maram 

dining on berries and nuts and such

I am very sure that my mind fort of 5

is the same one 5-year-old he sees too

If only there was the grama grampa house

with sandwiches and them waiting for us

I'm the grama now, making sandwiches

at the Omi-Opi house for after walk Sundays

I see the old treasured faces in now people loved

I meet grama and grampa in them, again

such is the circle unbroken.

Selah

(love, Omi Sachteleben)

My husband is the sexiest man alive

My husband and I met in college. I was energetically pursuing my degree and he had taken up residence in the cafeteria, energetically pursuing a world record in coffee drinking. He would speak ex cathedra from his monobloc chair on the evils of Reaganomics, British motorcycles and the poetry of Pink Floyd. He smoked like an old Dodge with bad exhaust. Dressed in his prized American made black leather jacket and smelling deliciously of Aqua Velva, this guy was mouthy, cocksure and funny as hell.

He had a lopsided smile that managed to be silly and seductive all at the same time. When he smiled at you, you felt like the prettiest girl in the world and wanted very much to have babies with him. His blue eyes shone like Lake Michigan after a storm. 

In a time when you were one or the other, Albert was both. Or neither. He's a gear head philosopher. A Catholic liberal. A progressive anachronism. His favorite books were Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Communist Manifesto, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and Animal Farm. 

He can repair anything, from our daughter's necklace to our son's Firebird. All while deconstructing the Weimar Republic. Or some obscure part of a Royal Enfield. He loves Polish food, Armenia, IPA, women of every color, stray cats and babies. He's not ashamed to cry, laugh and hug his boys. 

He goes to confession every week and really does try to swear less afterward. He's as rambunctious as a Michigan thunderstorm and his anger blows over about as quickly. He reads stories to the kids, decorates with cheesy streamers for each birthday, is ruthless at Battleship, tells every he loves them every day, is kind to everyone and has even been known to paint his little daughter's toenails. 

 37 years, six babies, including two stillborn daughters and 11 grandkids later his smile still charms and the baby blues still shine. He still has that child-like joie-de-vivre. The hair is a little more silver but he still works 12-hour nights and makes me coffee every morning. 

This man and I have been up more steep hills and down into more deep valleys than I could count or rename. I'm sure there are more. And we haven't even gotten started traveling! So the rest of the world has yet to meet us! I'm glad indeed to have such a sexy guy to go through life with. Ad Infinitum et Aeternum, lover boy.

The Little Girl at the Window

 a chubby little girl with a permanent squint that looks like a scowl

that's what I see in my kiddie pics

what was I thinking behind that funny, awkward face?

I don't remember

I don't recall a bedroom. Or bed.

What was the wallpaper like? 

I lived in so many places. 

38 before 20, if I counted them all

I can't visualize a dinner table 

except at the grama-grampa house

There are few doing-stuff together memories 

I played alone a lot 

I wandered around cities alone

at 6

I was a latchkey before it was a thing

I was sick alone

I never called any place "my" home

It was always dad's or mom's 

And later stepmom's or stepdad's 

I "lived with" them, I said

I slept on their couches

On makeshift beds with someone else's pillow

On unheated porches

in the baby's room 

toys came and went with no warning

One day they were there 

and the next, they were gone

sold, I think. I never asked. 

food was thin on the ground

vitamins for breakfast  

a power bar for lunch and salad for supper 

I have stolen food before

Chores were never in short supply

lists and lists for me to do

no one else 

just me

I've always felt outside

looking in other families' homes

my little face pressed to the window

steaming up the glass with my breath

Always seeing  but never really seen

till someone needed something 

a job done or a target

Apart but not a part

I never felt anything about it

I'm told I looked miserable

at family gatherings

I can't remember those either

I didn't know it was wrong

this nothing having but work

I know now it was.

At least, I think I do.

I still don't feel it's wrong

for me anyway

for others it would be

For my kids, hell yes

They had beds and toys 

some are still in the basement

and memories

happy and a few sad

I still cook oversized meals

even though they've flown

I treasure their drawings

and stuffed animals

I'm feeding the little girl at the window

I gave her a bed and some toys

She has a home

She can call it hers

She still frosts up the glass

when she forgets she can come in

or is afraid to

or locks herself out

She still stays small 

But she's staying longer

and smiling more

and remembering

Amen