*
“Boy Picking Flower,” Colored by Five-Year-Old
One fat fuchsia petal upstages
a macaroni-and-cheese sun,
the blue-legged boy, and
parallel lines of neon grass.
The blossom basks
front of center, rising on its red-
stemmed adrenaline
to stretch across seven fresh
inches of 8 1/2 x 11.
Magenta arm meets
a petal's edge, the rim of
a burnt sienna cave mouth
large enough to stand in,
thick tab tall enough to hold
a wild-tangerine head high.
Thumb-sized boy plucks
the plate-sized psychedelic daisy,
its striped center a set
of slanting books
thrust in a porthole,
its round of petals a ring
of arched doors, its stem a stout rope.
*
May Snowstorm
Blue white purple orange
construction-paper circles cut
on the folds, snipped to neat angles:
zigging peaks or jack-o-lantern teeth.
Happy in scatters of cuttings,
smiling at the kisk of scissors,
his two-dimensional sculpting, he
barely flinches at a zag of lightning
near the window, its concurrent crack,
intent on his own falling blades, his own
live slices electrifying the tabletop,
mind burning, bare hands
forging ice with fire.
*
This Kid
Clenched words ricochet
off my imperfect pitching.
My seven-year-old craves
three hits in a row, needs it
like caffeine or his father's approval.
Heat folds over us, and I throw.
The ball swings outside, wide
of the bat's reach, wide of his
cold-sweat confidence and the square
of ratty carpet called home plate.
Anger steams off his skin
lifting like a flock of crows,
loud black cloud.
“Sorry,” I flick an apology,
shake my head. This perfectionist kid.
I concentrate. He squints. Each missed
connection makes the next harder,
like eye contact after I stood up his dad
ten years ago. My future husband
stirring a three course meal turned low.
My good excuse, no excuse.
The boy's hair glistens with sweat; I pitch.
Summer heat jostles the molecules, blurring
the ball, home plate, words I could offer
if he misses, and the memory of
which of us offered Breakfast, my treat.
A hit. Two. I walk a small circle,
boring a hole in the tension settling around us.
My son grips the bat. What is this,
the World Series? Why three, I ask,
to loosen the molecules. He looks at me,
his eyes on simmer.
My throw is high, but I hear a thok.
The ball flies like true words, a sailing jay.
Happy silence is the best response.
Good job! would ruin it.
He allows himself a smile. Relief
rolls over the grass. Each connection
makes the next easier.
*
For A Son
I am telling you
for the last time now
how it happened,
why we had to go,
what little we took with us,
what we brought back.
But what I want you to
remember is this:
we traveled three years,
Odysseus spent ten. Christ
took only days, coming back
with his identity whole, known.
Your journey
will set its own time.
Length is not important.
And even if you never return,
know that I understand
and will have joy.
*
Newton's Laws of Family Motion
1
An object in motion tends to stay in motion; an object at rest tends to stay at rest.
My mother's because I said so
moving through DNA
at a constant speed
comes out my mouth.
The shape of your body at rest
under the comforter.
Me late from work, aroused;
remaining at rest
remaining aroused.
2
The rate of change of momentum of a body is proportional to the force acting on the body.
We accelerate three swings
one stroller
then, throwing bread to
gathered ducks,
the children move us.
Person A: 160 lbs.
Person B: 110 lbs.
Who can most easily be pushed
to tears?
3
To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Ponytail rings,
underwear, waistbands.
I'm sorry comes back as embrace.
You give me your life;
I give you mine.
*
Teeth
Tiny chimney brush,
a dandelion seed
wafts down, its black tip
a weighted handle – ballast,
Mary Poppins perfect-postured
under her umbrella
drifting toward a housetop,
tufts of magic in her pockets,
and wasn't it England
where I first ate dandelion
greens, where a hunched woman
called it dent de leon, and I
laughed, thinking, teeth? saw instead
the sun-tawnied mane
the fuzzed muzzle and wished
to carry dandelion honey
through customs to the children
and tufts of magic to their father
who sometimes drifts
toward the house
sometimes brushes past.
“Don't gather in summer,” she'd said.
“The leaves are too bitter by then.”
*
Sweeping the Kitchen
oatmeal flakes,
stray grape
skin cell dust
sand carried in pant cuffs,
and every spoken syllable
lost to our ears, sifting down
from mouths to linoleum:
the dream you told me Sunday
which fell from my hands,
the couldn't you stay home tonight
I exhaled instead of speaking
Regrets are fuzzy grays
piled in corners that
the broom can't reach.
*
Impasse
They are standing close together,
but at angles. One more silent minute,
and she will go to the kitchen to cook
or maybe out to the garden where
empty stalks twist and curl.
He will stand at the window,
in the shadow of oaks opening
their fists of leaves,
staring at his own empty hands
pressed against the glass.
*
Pompeii on the Discovery Channel
He crashes through the door
in steel-toed boots. She becomes
that open-mouthed moment:
sky jolting loose, ground a sheet
shaken at either end.
Palm strikes her cheekbone;
Lava floods the streets.
A clay child is discovered
in an inner room, knees tucked
under chin. She crou
ches
in the shower as he slams out the door.
Archeologists find a skeletal tangle,
hand bones clutching others' shoulders
or waists, linked elbows, fingers laced.
No one in this family divorces.
Only one head raises; only one torso turns
a single hand reaches.
Just one thinks: Run.
*
Retreat
She came in winter,
but did not speak
until March, and even then
took her meals in silence.
We could not ask what happened.
We only knew that years before,
she had married.
Every day she walked,
in any weather, after breakfast,
after supper, sometimes after dark.
The fields of her girlhood knew her.
While she stayed, she ate alone,
walked alone. When she left,
the ground was still frozen hard,
the wind cold.
*
Is the self
a place I'm bound to arrive—
sun-flooded clearing, fire-lit room—
the destination of every possible road,
a place left early, rediscovered late, or
a bowl of stars, so weightless
I forget where it rests, forget if
I've left it somewhere,
or a thing I excavate for lifetimes,
each day an archeological brush-swipe,
each experience a shovel-full of sand.
*
Self-Forgiveness
Sky hangs low today,
and gray. Clouds snag
in treetops.
A tepid light
falls coldly over
each mistake:
thistles I place
on my tongue.
Only I can
swallow them.
*
Prayer By Kite
Around his first finger,
the barefoot boy
curls his question,
winding the paper strip
until its spiral holds.
Unlatching his trust,
he fixes slip to string, and words
ride skyward, wind propelling
his plea along cotton.
Penciled letters, all capitals,
ask the question Mother shouts
in the streets.
"W": downstrokes followed by ups,
a fence to hedge emptiness.
"H": hitched opposites,
a slim bar connecting
tiny coffin's straight-backed no
to shovel handle's vertical yes.
"Y": braid of love and loss,
one string fraying to two.
His question mark follows a curved path
that straightens, leaps across a chasm,
lands on a still point. Its hook hoists
a weight from his small frame.
*
Questioning the Flood
Imagine the family of Noah,
the limp hair of the daughters-in-law,
Mother hanging woolens to dry
optimistically near the fire,
Stiff feed bags slowly softening.
Perhaps a young girl spent hours
watching clouds, gray rags
shredded by lightning.
Twisting hair around a finger,
scratching the sill with a fingernail.
How old the indoor games must have grown,
hopping on one foot around
the upper deck, morning chores . . .
Did she squelch an urge to leap
to a passing treetop? just to be out,
or alone, to escape Uncle's storytelling
after dinner, stories of a world already
receding. Or did the child
compose her own story
of raccoons trapped in high limbs,
the swimming bear who followed the ark,
a playmate's mouth filling
with water, or a child like herself,
disciplined by a voice
half velvet, half thunder?
Here, where skies are dark also,
where we hear of dams breaking
downstream, where three times in two days
water has carried a car away
or closed over its roof like an eyelid,
here, I am the pensive child
watching water, trying
to make room
in my velvet word, Love,
for thunder.
*
Ferry Crossing
It was this same river,
though further upstream,
that swallowed you whole last spring.
Summer sun has made it lean again,
and it does not look so violent
as I remember.
That day was all motion.
one mass of water
stampeding down its course
ripping at each bank
crashing rocks on branches on boulders
roaring, roaring mixing with your screams
and me on shore
shouting into nothing but air
the bank unraveling under my feet
and my own soul unraveling
But today is calm.
Each ripple licks the bank with
almost motherly care, like our old cat
bathing her single kitten.
The gate man is signaling.
She leaves in three minutes, he says.
I'm looking for some sign of you,
some leftover trace,
but all I see is a robin
ailing towards the south.
Winter will be here soon.
There is nothing to do
but cross.
*
###
(Back to Top)
Teacher's Guide
1. Exploring Figures of Speech
Objectives: Identify figures of speech. Create an original metaphor.
In the poem, “Shoe-shopping,” mark the figures of speech. Decide why “quarters” and “bank door handles” are appropriate comparisons. What about the fire department language? What emotional tone does that convey?
Exercise: Create your own metaphor for love. Start by writing “Love is,” and follow this with an object, such as a door, a blanket, a plate, etc. Then write three more sentences that explain your comparison. Share.
2. Exploring Sound Devices
Objectives: Identify sound devices in poetry. Use sound devices in original writing.
In “Ave America,” the poet uses sound in a variety of ways. Find examples of rhyme, repetition, internal rhyme, assonance, consonance, and rhythm. Sound play helps the poet develop the metaphor of life as a dance. How is “dance” appropriate for the theme of this poem?
Exercise: Recall a moment in your life when you entered a new place (new school, new town, took a trip, new class). Describe the place using sensory details. Convey your feelings about this place by showing your actions (such as skipping, smiling, collapsing to the floor, slouching to a chair). Now rewrite your piece, adding sound play. Try repeating consonants, vowels, words, or phrases. Try rhyming words that appear next to eachother or close by, not allowing end rhymes to be the only rhymes. Share your second piece and talk about your process of adding sound play.
3. Exploring Character
Objectives: Identify and discuss themes in a poem. Write a poem that conveys a theme.
In “Guatemala,” what is the speaker grappling with? She wants to repress her heritage by stuffing it “inside [her] closet.” Is this working well for her? What else bothers her? Does she fear the Dairy Queen boys or does she fear something in herself?
Exercise: Think of an object inside your own closet (or garage, attic, basement). Describe the object in sensory detail. Personify the object by having it speak. Let the object give you advice;
it knows something you don't or that you tend to forget. What is it? Share.
(Back to Top)
Reading Group Discussion Questions
1. The speaker navigates between two cultures and two languages. Where do we see mixed feelings, negative feelings, and positive feelings about this dual identity? Where can we find a sense of loss or a sense of gain?
2. One theme the book explores is language itself. Where do we find misunderstood words, silent exchanges, inadequate language, language as connection, words as barriers? What is the meaning of the quote at the book's opening by Richard Feynman and how does it connect to the the book?
3. In “Guatemala,” why does the speaker shove everything into the closet at the end?
4. Several poems refer to the language-delayed twins. How does the speaker handle this challenge?
5. Several poems explore married life and parenting. What joys and hardships does the speaker experience? How does she cope?
6. What does the ending of “Ferry Crossing” convey? How does its theme apply to the book as a whole?
7. A few poems in this collection are prose poems, written as paragraphs. Do these qualify as poems? Why or why not?
(Back to Top)
About the Author
Rebecca Balcárcel serves the students of Tarrant County College as Associate Professor of English. She took her MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars where she was awarded the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize. Her essays and poems have appeared in over forty literary journals, and she received an Individual Artist Grant from NE Tarrant County Arts Council in 2010. Rebecca gives talks at libraries and schools. On her YouTube channel, she offers writing tips and literary analysis. Rebecca is mother to three and enjoys taking walks. Her past adventures include biking 1300 miles, skydiving, and nursing twins.
Connect with Rebecca online
Twitter: r_balcarcel
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedit.com/pub/rebecca-balcarcel/a/a92/688/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebecca.balcarcel
Blog: https://poettopoet.blogspot.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SixMinuteScholar
Main website: https://sites.google.com/site/rebeccabalcarcel/home
Coming soon from Rebecca!
Quijana, a novel in verse
Meet Quijana, a bi-racial teen who struggles to find her identity, help her developmentally delayed brother, and turn her friendship with Jayden into a romance. Join her as she discovers deeper truths about her heritage, her friends, and herself. From the new manuscript:
Quijanita
Dad says “Quijanita” as he tucks me into bed.
I settle into sleep thinking, -ita is
three drops of honey on his tongue,
three swirls of cinnamon stirred into my name.
It's a squeeze of sweetness,
a fling of flower petals. It's a kiss
on each eyelid and the tip of my nose,
and the reality, suddenly believable,
that I belong right here.
(Back to Top)
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends