A flattened Cane Toad lies in the street. Its poison can kill a dog. They hunt by the garage at night under the light - run when I come out leap into the garage door with a THUD. Invasive. Poisonous. Not bright. When the temperature drops below 40 in South Florida, iguanas fall from trees like rain. “Don’t touch them” we’re told these colorful creatures are dormant. They advise us to kill them -these visitors from the Jurassic. I cannot. How could they know they’re trespassing? Purple stalks of Lupine carpet Iceland their color pops against green moss. Their beauty out-competes local flowers - poses for photo ops with tourists picnicking by “Keep Off” signs, blankets old lava flows and glacial melts. Visitors stride from ships and planes to seek this island’s treasures - yet urge it to trade silkies for Sea World. Loosestrife blooms each August at riverside in my old town. The mill wheel turns. Art hangs in the stone museum. People come for the small shops and fine buildings but stay for quiet streets overcast by ancient trees. The area booms when the Interstate is finished - corporate folks out-compete farmers. Agway loses to Walmart. Commuters careen past hay wagons on country roads.
Author: Cynthia M. Sheward
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INVASIVES
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GRANDMOTHER
It must have been a high-end sanitarium. The plates she painted there were Limoges. I thought for years she was an artist. I did wonder why we had those, when all Dad’s banker father left him was a gold dollar. The rest went to the second wife. My family said I didn’t look like anyone. They said Grandmother was in and out of institutions before dying young. They would have mentioned TB. But my eyes gaze back at me from her 1910 portrait. Why did no one mention this resemblance? Did they fear insanity was catching like flu? It must have been a high-end sanitarium where she painted all I knew of her perfect roses, lilacs, forget-me-nots.
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THE PIANO
The piano would not fit through the door of the shingled house with the western view. The black and ivory keys I caressed each day could not bend through breezeway & kitchen to wait until my hands grew large enough for lessons. Only my father’s accordion entered this house to gather dust in its black case in the cellar. Standing on the back seat of our grey Buick I’d play the front seat like a keyboard and belt out “Singing in the rain. I’m singing in the rain.” Walking home from Washington School, I’d dance in musicals of my own making. Sometimes in summer Dad would get out his accordion to play “Bonaparte’s Retreat” and “The Beer Barrel Polka”. Something happened in junior high. The whole family became cacti. The music stopped. I was grounded more than I roamed free. I went to the Brooklyn Fox but said I was going bowling. We were the only white kids in a black audience swaying to Sam the Sham, The Four Tops, The Shirelles. The joint was jumping and I’d go again tomorrow. But the concert went on and on and I missed my curfew. It was the only time my father ever hit me - a face slap for lying. But damn that music was great.
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ARTISTS
we’re not artists in all places, times. no one’s whole life rhymes. at moments we may draw, write, pray. at others, watch, love, raise children, join the fray of being. let’s love ourselves await the time when Spirit calls then pick up pen or violin and begin.
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WILD HORSES
Las Vegas. How glorious!
It’s a hot diggity dog free-for-all.
No planning, no zoning –
dump it all out there
on dry-as-a-bone high desert,
a pawnshop, carwash
heaven.
Million dollar-gated communities rest flush against junked car yards with razor wire fences,
graffitied underpasses and washed out
arroyos with undocumented poverty up the
wazoo.
In the middle of which someone has dropped
a statue of liberty, a sphinx and a pyramid
stitched together by a roller coaster -
“Oh, say can you see!"
People flock here to drop millions.
“They’ve shipped the wild horses north.” The park ranger told me.
“They couldn’t survive here.” -
where the trout swim
Loving you prepared me for Walmart
where greeters are friendly but the merchandise
is made by strangers in dark, distant rooms.
Losing you prepared me for Reductions in Force
Being told “You’ve worked hard. This isn’t personal.
It’s about stock price.”
Watching you leave broke me like an egg
Nothing I knew was true – zip – zero – nada.
I must start again from the beginning.
Starting over prepared me for God,
who waited at the still bottom of a life
emptied of passion, distraction and theory.
Not the stand up sit down God of my childhood
But the God who put a rainbow over the barn
And showed me where the trout swim.
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GREY
Grey’s the hair color you can’t buy. I tried. I urged my hairdresser to change my entire head. “Not possible”, he said “although new grandmothers often ask.” It’s good perhaps some things remain beyond our grasp Time’s provenance to bestow If we’re so blessed. My grey hair like my mom’s lifts from my brow on just one side. I’ve left it pale since the February day she died.
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SHALIMAR
My mother's scent was hers alone familiar from the start just like my own. Shalimar and lipstick salt air and steam irons beige powder dusting her dressing table, scattered sweaters, a turquoise negligee. Once, invited to the Waldorf for a DuPont dinner, she spent a fortune on a formal dress. Arrived in lace and pick satin to face women clad in cocktail clothes. Edna, ever the Indiana girl. How many Manhattans did it take to kill those feelings? After her death, I asked Sister Jose Hobday “Will I ever smell that scent again - touch her soft white hair?” So much of me left with her I am my mother’s child. Peaceful in all worlds, Sister Hobday laid her hand on mine and smiled.
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MORNING PRAYER
Be with me, God As I am Merely mortal, graceless, small. Hold me, Lord In your hand Watch me as you watch o’er all.
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BOB’S ADVERB
Who named the adverb bastard child?
Is this because it fails to stand alone,
leans always on another
for meaning
so much like us
at our worst (and best)
we shun them?
In the time when fans spoke quietly
before the days of scream and riot,
we stood with Dylan after a concert
behind the Mosque in Newark.
We talked, shared wine, laughter.
He and Suze invited us to party in the city.
We declined, I had a curfew.
The next year in that same spot,
a mob ran past us. A fan returned
hand in air, shouting “I’ve got his hair!”
So ended gentleness. It’s clear why
Dylan sometimes plays -
his back to the audience.
Adverbs in my mind describe how
translucent Dylan’s skin
bright Suze’s smile
tiny their Volkswagen
high that fan held her cruel hand.
A WELL TRAVELED HEART 