REFLECTIONS ON A GIFT OF WATERMELON PICKLE…AND OTHER MODERN VERSE
The pages are yellowed
like old piano keys
untouched for years.
The first page is dated February 27, 1969
in my handwriting.
I purchased the paperback
through a school book order
in a winter of big rains.
Bullied by rain we stayed indoors for days,
only going from home to school and back,
rain washing out our school time and weekends,
no outdoor play for weeks,
a thorough washing.
While the rain fell and fell, I fell
into the warm, dry arms of the book’s pages.
I savoured the crisp smell of new book,
fresh pages full of poems
(some with pictures!)
written by poets I had never heard of:
Carl Sandburg
William Stafford
Donald Hall
Maxine Kumin
May Swenson
Langston Hughes
Edna St.Vincent Millay
and so many more.
(I was only twelve!)
Through the years
I forgot the book
sandwiched on crowded shelves,
shoulder to shoulder with other books,
hidden in boxes.
I cradle the book in my hands
for the first time in decades.
Its brittle pages are cracked like dry skin.
Who knows when the light greencover came off,
the lost limb of a brave soldier
taped lovingly back on.
(Now the back cover is about to come off.)
Reading the poems now
I remember the days of the long rains
when the book and I were still new,
before either of us was torn or cracked,
fifty one years ago.
Surely this book was the seed
of my love of poetry.
Surely those heavy rains
watered it all those years ago.
Those once unknown names took root.
They have filled my life
with their endless branches,
their eternal blossoms.
FIRE OCTOBER, 1967
The hills were evil that autumn,
scary and full of fire.
The fires raged for days.
We could see the night skies
bleeding flames far away.
I was sure
the fires would crawl
on orange knees and elbows
to our house.
The fires followed us everywhere,
breathing smoke all over us.
There was nothing to think about
but burning things,
nothing to smell
but the eye-watering sharpness
of the burning.
It was as if God himself
were on fire.
Smoke blindfolded the sun.
Dirty skies hung heavy
over the town.
Warm winds brought ashes
to the backyard,
dropping them like tiny white flower petals.
It seemed heaven was falling.
I was a child catching ashes,
amazed to see bits of houses and trees
on my skin,
scraps of people’s lives in my hands.
So this is how God feels,
I thought.
Maybe even the Devil.
SYLVIA 1979
I envied your darkness,
the glamour of your madness.
I wanted to be like you.
I waited for depression
to drop blue curtains
over my life,
searched for excuses to be unhappy:
nights spent alone,
the sadness of mirrors,
the imminence of death.
I picked pain from my days,
collecting it like overripe
blue-black fruit
bleeding with seeds
and sickening sweetness.
Everyday of your life was autumn,
everything falling,
falling down.
How lucky to be so lost,
to crave death like a cigarette.
How simple a life
with no hope.
How easy to be so empty,
to earn an endless supply
of suffering,
to have the right to write
the poetry that only you
could write,
to be so broken,
to be you.
Kathryn de Leon is from Los Angeles, California but is now living in England. She started writing poetry more years ago than she cares to admit. She has been published in several small magazines in the US, and very recently in a few UK publications, including The Cabinet of Heed and Poetry Wivenhoe Poems.
Kathryn de Leon, I loved your poems. Beautifully written. It’s such a joy when one discovers the joy of words.
I was a child catching ashes,
amazed to see bits of houses and trees
on my skin,
scraps of people’s lives in my hands.
How perfect an image.
Thank you.
Rose, thank you so much for taking the time to read my poems, and for sending such nice comments! I’m really happy you enjoyed them!
Kathryn
And I shouldn’t have used joy twice. But, w.t.h., double joy it was.