They speak of gifts
from former lovers:
vases
or black eyes,
rings
or babies.
They carry
former intimacies:
horrors and tragedies
traumas and ecstasies.
I have no
former lover,
I carry only
years with you;
no horrors mar our history,
just monogamous longevity–
our effort at ontogeny.
.
.
My daughter
prefaces every story with,
“You can’t put this
on your blog.”
Sigh.
I grew up
a pampered princess
a late life arrival, long desired.
I felt my father’s
fondness every day-
a travelling salesman
who never missed a moment
of my active life.
But you
lost your father
along the way, lost sight
of him over the barriers
your mother built between you.
What was it like to find him
as he was dying, knowing
he had never stopped
loving you, though you
were equally lost to him?
Once you found him,
he slipped into eternity.
As I watch you, so
polished at your work,
on this career high,
I wonder,
Are you still a lost boy?
Or did the chance to embrace him
at the end of his life,
to know how proud he was of you,
help ease the sorrow
as you set him free to fly?
I forgive you
for not meeting me for tea
And I wonder,
what kind of father
will you let yourself be?
.
.
(For S&D)
On this day
I remember a ghost anniversary,
the day in 1976
when my sister was married.
My 12 year old figure was
encased in my mother’s girdle
beneath a hideous rust bridesmaid gown.
I sported a new Vidal Sasoon bob,
felt bold and grown up with
my uni-brow plucked.
I remember my father’s scowl
when a groomsman with waist length hair
obeying rattling spoons, bent to kiss me,
and the resulting blush.
The marriage lasted four years.
My daughter wore the hideous dress
when she was twelve.
She called herself a princess;
rust suits her.
Too bad my sister
never saw it.
.
.
.
You know, that whole girdle thing is really weird. I was not a pudgy child by any reckoning. I probably weighed about 95 lbs around the time of this wedding. I recall it was my idea, so I must have been self-conscious of a little paunch, which at 12, was not paunch at all. Very strange how girls are, isn’t it?
.
I looked for the wedding photos in the album, but it looks like I took them out of those photo eating ‘magnetic’ glued albums, and who knows where I put them. Sorry!
one quarter century
one half century
one century
blood linked
chain,
a circle
of life.
.
.
.
Happy birthday to me, in a rather auspicious year in our family.
Small gawky boy
Nose like the beak of an eyas,
I pass a glance to his hands
bronzed and thin upon the table
and find myself time travelling.
Immersed in visions of those hands
Stroking keys, coaxing music,
Mesmerizing me. Those hands
On other arms years ago.
I blink back to now and stare as he stumbles,
Endearingly uncoordinated, into a wall.
I watch him in a crowd, catch the flash of his smile
And am transported into that smile
Gleaming at me in another time
from another face.
Wondering at my sanity,
I check his files,
Find the name I know from long ago
and understand:
History is written in our blood
And carved upon our bones.
The tilt of our heads,
The rhythm of our laughter
The angle of our shoulders,
the shape of our souls,
Are revealed in the genetic mystery
That can be read through time,
by those who see the story.
The Americans
are gone.
The internet
is quiet.
Apparently,
Thanksgiving
really is about
face time.
How wonderful
to be thankful.
I bought
an adorable black hat
at Goorin Bros.
Tilted the burgundy brim
to the perfect angle
Grabbed my new
wooly black ruana,
draped it around my shoulders
with a flourish, loving the fall
of the ruffled edges,
the weight, the warmth.
I felt my creativity
shouting through the garb,
felt Bohemian, wild, and artistic.
Then I grinned in the mirror
and saw the echo of my
great-grandmother’s
Salvation Army cape and bonnet.
We never get too far away
from home.
Your story is locked inside
You won’t talk, instead
you find a new subject:
clothes or garden.
‘What’s done is done,’
you say.
‘That was another day.’
History locked away
inside a vault,
leaving fathomless mysteries
names on birth certificates
and censuses.
Secrets saved as treasures,
Truth tucked tightly behind
closed doors
you won’t unlock.
I was just writing a note to a person on an exchange student forum, and I thought I would share my thoughts with you. We were discussing how some areas of the world don’t understand the purpose of Rotary Youth Exchange, and therefore, don’t do anything to support the student.
Year after year our club has fantastic, interesting, and delightful exchange students. How do I know? Because we integrate our students into our club and get to know them. Students chosen for this program tend to be talented, fascinating kids who are travelling to broaden their experiences and to prepare to make a difference in the world. We send fantastic kids abroad to share them with another part of the world. I am sad when I hear about clubs who miss the opportunity to know the amazing kids that they have under their noses, so here is my advice to Rotary Clubs all over the world, prefaced by my core belief that when a club agrees to host a student, EACH member of the club has an obligation to that student.
Each member of the club should make an effort to,
1. make them welcome to the country, city, and club
get to know who they are, greet them on the street, and invite them to attend club meetings, projects, and events, and personal activities.
2. include them in club activities
that means when exchange students are at a club event, you integrate them by having them sit with members, you speak to them, you encourage them to participate in the program somehow. Listen.
3. show interest in them, their experience, their home country
Ask them about their hobbies and interests, and how things are similar and different in their home area. Your way isn’t the only way. Your students have experiences to share with you, just like you have experiences to share with them. Listen.
4. welcome them into your home and family activities if you can.
Even if you are not able to host a student in your home, you can include them into your activities. When you know your students’ hobbies and interests, you can more easily identify opportunities to include them. The student likes sports? You can invite them to a local game- even free ones played by your grandkids. Your student plays an instrument? You can invite them to attend a recital or concert. Your student loves history? Take them to a local site you know well. If you know what your student hasn’t experienced, you can invite them along on simple family events. One of my more memorable experiences in Finland was foraging for mushrooms in the woods with a family!
5. share in their local experiences.
Consider yourselves the students’ family. If they are participating in a concert, a sporting match, or speeches, go along to cheer and celebrate.
These inclusions are fantastic for everyone involved. Your club learns more about the world, and more about your country by seeing it through the eyes of another perspective. You will improve your club’s experience with your students, and your students will have a more memorable, and more valuable exchange year by having the opportunity to know you all. You will feel blessed by experience.
Don’t waste your exchange students. Celebrate them!
Shawn L. Bird 