my mother turned 75 years-old yesterday
and that’s all i know,
about her
anymore
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, two of the four barn swallow nestlings were ready to fledge, and did,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, i washed the hummingbird feeders meticulously with bottle brushes, as if they were my own once-baby-son’s bottles, and filled them with fresh, sugared well water,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, i tried to stake the seven foot,
no eight foot, tall hollyhocks, bent over by overnight wind gusts,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, Israel was committed to its holocaust of Gaza,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
and i earnestly searched reddit for military opinions about possible conscription of our young people,
both this morning — and last night
she insisted we roll the car windows down
while the a/c was cranking
and she just kept it cranking
in her mid 90s silvery Saturn sedan,
second-hand from her parents,
three little boys crammed in the back seat
a baby girl not yet in her belly,
as we drove down the Kennedy, then the Dan Ryan, heading to the Skyway
for our weekly day-trip
to the southwest Michigan coast
our cooler stuffed with tarragon chicken salad sandwiches for us, fried chicken drumsticks for them, at least two pounds of black cherries, pickles, diet cokes, limes, and capri-suns — the box of white cheddar cheez-its hardly ever made it all the way to the Warren Dunes on the ride from Chicago
for the Lake, the beach, the inlet hike to the clay pit,
the Dune climb, always hoping for some gentle, yellow-flag waves, and the long, eastern time-zone Sun’set over platinum blue water
perplexed, delighted by this novelness, by her unconvention:
a/c on our skin — and summer air blowing in our hair?
Continue reading “Becky”
a lucky reservation for one night of lodging and a late dinner — made by telephone months earlier, but just barely early enough,
choosing sweaters to wear to dinner as the June Sun
finally sets / you and i match in black cotton ramie, always and still, my favorite
hungrily watching the clock, in the Great Room, nestled in the same chair by the colossal fireplace
we’d been camping the previous night, in a thunderstorm and downpour at Bridge Bay,
where we awoke to a bison’s grunting, and their immense shadow upon our tent;
we shared our griddled french toast breakfast and percolated coffee with a couple in a VW camper, who were no doubt younger than you are today in June, 2024
with our “Wildlife of Yellowstone” booklet, we identify an osprey perched above our heads in a pine tree as we pack up our camp — a first, for each of us
mudpots, fumaroles, bison herds, bison “jams”, pelicans, waterfalls, canyons, elk, towering basalt columns, sulfur, a wild river, geysers, marmots, hot springs — and Morning Glory Pool.
so many firsts, for me and you.
your shining, smiling face[s]
around that table
by candlelight
what a gift, what a day, what a dream
to share this exquisite meal with you, two,
in such a truly wild place
is this real life?
the clink of silverware
voices and laughter centered — and from every direction,
imply, “yes”.
Continue reading “sonlight [june 2004]”
These two gorgeous, requested works by the most gorgeous and extraordinary artist and person Mz. Lajuana Lampkins of Chicago.
You might find her making her art in the late night scene of her favorite spots in the Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhoods of Chicago — or reach out to her on Instagram at Lajuana.Lampkins1 and peruse her art, her process and her community.
Lajuana Lampkins has had her art exhibited to great praise; she is a prolific and widely collected street artist; and she has edited and published a book of her late son’s essays, poetry and letters: The Collected Works of Prince Akbar AKA Jus Rhymz.
She is also a sister, aunt, friend, poet, community member and activist, writer, rapper, historian, archivist, fashionista, paralegal, social commentarian and modern philosopher — but most proudly, a mother, grandmother and great grandmother
— and to me, she epitomizes the Crone.
Muhammad Ali
Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.
Mz. Lampkins works may be exhibited again in autumn 2023 in a community art show that she is hoping to create and develop —-and she aspires to publish her next non-fiction book in the nearer future.
She is also the subject of the forthcoming documentary “My Mother is An Artist” which follows Mz. Lampkins’s journey from 2019, eight years post-release from a 30 year incarceration as a wrongfully prosecuted and convicted young woman and mother —to 2023, as a working, locally-renown and yet-still-struggling artist living in these American systems of modern oppression and exploitation.
Continue reading ““[S]he floats like a butterfly …””“Sometimes i think people laugh as hard as they’d like to cry.”
– women talking
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 