THE TELLING ROOM
The small, cramped chamber dug into the hillside
behind my grandfather's tool shed was where
he stored his wine and the root crops
and where he smoked his pipe.
It was not that Spanish cave dating back
to Roman times, 'el contador' that came to mean
"to tell a story" where villagers would gather
to share secrets, dreams, histories, and wine.
For those few boyhood years when I knew him,
he would take me there to "check on things,"
and we would talk about the garden's progress,
in autumn about harvest, in winter checking
that the bottles were cold but safe from freezing,
the heavy door he built from scrap lumber
looking to me like a door to a medieval castle.
Now, a lifetime later, I sit on his bench in there
and let his stories return to me along with remnants
of wine, sweet smoke and the earth that surrounds
me cool and lightly this hot summer day,
unlike his shroud of dirt with its firm grip
on him and the stories that he never told me.
Charles Michaels
THE PILLS
Sitting appropriately though not purposely,
on top of Huxley whose song slips out
“Hug me till you drug me, honey.
Kiss me till I'm in a coma.
Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny.
Love's as good as soma.”
but lacking love, there's only
the pills.
One to sleep, two to drift away,
more to make the world sleep
or drift away.
The pair of them I slide over his eyes
so that he is staring at me.
The book, the pills, the song,
all beckoning and me without anyone
to tie me to the mast.
Katie Milburn
THE GENERAL STORE
Generations of Hildreths
tended the general store
and post office, long before
Moses split the Bronx and paved
Long Island, and a runway
for Piper Cubs and Cessnas
demanded a tower, and
the artists ceded summers
to young Wall Street wives in Land
Rovers, speeding to lunch dates.
Once the village carpenter,
back from Nam, hung pigeon holes
on a wall, each with a small
keyed door and a brass number,
Mrs. Hildreth grew as wary
as curious about handing
a mailbox key to a new face
even though title had changed.
Familiarity was lost
in a haze of beforetime.
A Topping child holding a
parent's hand, eyeing glass jars
of taffy and fudge. So with
the Bensons and the Comforts,
who had sold off, over time,
their acres of potatoes,
their tractors and plows, and watched
the sandy land bloom stick-built
bungalows, then grander homes
of impractical design.
Few of the keys, decades old,
are still handed down to son,
to grandchild, all of whom had
grown to know a Hildreth who
sorted bills and letters and
angled them into boxes
as the one-room schoolhouse rang
its opening bell, calling
to a new generation
of Halses, Piersons, Toppings,
whose after-school chore,
was to greet Mrs. Hildreth
before using their mail key
and bring the envelopes home,
unlike the Wall Street wives,
who never see a Hildreth,
or hold a mail key. The house
staff will drop the children at
tennis camp or the stables.
Wives wait for their phones to charge.
Rob Friedman
MORNING AT CASTLERIGG
Trudging an hour uphill with backpacks, soon
We rose toward the rising Sun. The dew
Still gleamed upon the fields well before noon.
At last we reached the shrine we sought to view.
Blencathra, Skiddaw, Lonscale Fell, all turned
In prayer to face the sky. The cows and sheep
Grazed calmly on the withered mountain fern,
Outside the Circle, in the stone walls’ keep.
“What is it you have come to see?” they asked,
Just glancing toward us when we glanced at them,
Then turned again to munching leaves of grass.
We were but reeds that trembled in the wind.
All History upon us had devolved.
Five thousand years passed—who could tell us how?
When Moses smashed the Tables of the Law,
Those rocks had grown as old as Christ is now.
Did Druids worship living Stars by name,
Or Stone Age men here bargain for an axe?
The Dead surrounded us; but whence they came,
What Spirit world unknown, we knew no fact.
The soul of Saint John’s Vale became our own,
Through which all creatures dwelt in us to be.
We sat together on one timeless stone
And smiled before the camera. Suddenly,
A military jet roared through the clouds,
Maneuvering toward Keswick, where it shied
And vanished in the future, roaring loud.
Old England’s glory flashed before our eyes.
Lee Evans
SEA HAVEN
It’s been five years. two cancers and one pandemic
Since we visited the family summer home
There have been some changes —new windows
Queen size bed in the master bedroom
The spirit of the place remains unchanged
Grandma’s painting of the one room cottage,
Around which Dad built a three-bedroom house,
Still hangs above the old stone fireplace
Family photos decorate the walls and bookshelves
Smooth stones and ragged shells, gathered from the beach
By noisy, treasure seeking children
Line the low stone wall that rims the flagstone patio
The cove beyond the rip rap seawall
Calms a rising tide, that licks the rocky beach
Ingesting seaweed covered rocks that disappear
Into its blue-gray, undulating gullet
Once we’ve settled in, I begin to hear the whispers
The house sighs, as if content
Now that it is occupied again, by kin
People who’ve patched walls and painted shutters
I think I hear feint sounds of children laughing
Dogs splashing in the surf, the Ferry’s whistle
I swear I smell beach fire, burnt marshmallow
See Mum waving us goodbye with her white handkerchief
I do not know what spirits dwell beneath these eves
What ghosts of summers past will show up next time we’re here
I only know that when I’m here, this old house speaks to me
Of family gatherings, jigsaw puzzles, long hikes and quiet nights
This is a place where time is free to roam, untethered
Past and present coexist but future seldom visits
A solera that absorbs the energy of generations
From which we then draw an inimitable elixir
Frank Kelly
MY FATHER'S CROSS
Not just a cross
Not the kind you wear on a chain
But an ornamental wall crucifix
I would’ve guessed it was much larger
But it is not quite one and a half by two and one half feet
I know because I just measured it
It once hung above my parent’s bed
No doubt there when both my sister and I were conceived
And there too when another child stopped moving within the womb
Was there spirit within the wood and copper
That both rejoiced and cried at these moments?
Mom and dad – a Protestant and Catholic union
Were no longer churchgoers
Dad excommunicated and mom still weary
of her many days spent there as a young child
With her devout and loving Methodist grandma
Did the cross grieve their absence?
Celebrate their differences?
I never thought too much about it
It neither scared nor inspired
Like unrefreshed artwork at home
After a while you no longer see it
Did it try to pull me nearer?
Or did it allow me space?
Hoping, knowing in time I’d draw closer on my own
I’m not sure mom would have chosen to display it
Maybe, maybe not
But she said it belonged to dad’s parents
And it meant something to him
Which meant it mattered to her
I have it now; have had it for some time
It’s in a closet
I’m not sure I’ll ever hang it up
Maybe, maybe not
But I know I’ll never not keep it
It was my grandparents’
And then my dad’s
Which means it matters to me
A cross without shadows yet valued
Gives me pause to think more about it
Like a tell-tale heart of sorts
I wonder is its pull stronger now
Due to its age or mine?
There’s a superstition that claims
One does not accept or take another’s cross
Lest you carry over the burdens of its past owner
But my burdens are my own
Not transferred and non-transferrable
Symbolic of love, salvation, hope
Things I am not willing to let go of
Things I will gladly carry
The cross a conduit of history
familial and worldly - mirrored though my own
It speaks many languages
I, the receiver, do the translating
But either way it speaks
Has always spoken
Patiently, silently
To those before me, to me now
Even when I thought I wasn’t listening
I hear you
Terri J. Guttilla
THE THINKER
He took no notice of them,
those smiling people
standing around
taking selfies
with him.
I wondered what he was thinking.
He looked thoughtful,
thoughtful, but strained
as though he had a problem,
which made him uncomfortable
as he sat there statuesque with effort.
I touched his foot,
I felt his tension
and I knew then
that it was thinking
that was his problem.
He knew
that ideas don’t come when you strain,
they float into your head dreamlike
as you stretch out your arms into infinity
and then leave like a flood of gold
relaxing and relieving you
when no one’s there
to watch.
He was striving for that sweet relief,
that’s what he’s telling me,
I think
therefore I am
still.
Lynn White
THE ROCKS' RETURN
The signs are there for a reason.
Several, actually, mostly around respect:
for the land
for the ecology
for the Indigenous beliefs
for the Old Gods
and, specifically, for Pele.
Every year, thousands of people ignore the signs.
Choose a volcanic rock—
just a small one
that no one will ever miss,
that will surely make no difference.
It’ll look good on the bookshelf.
Where’s the harm?
Every year, thousands of rocks are mailed back to Maui
by people who were shown
answers to the questions;
Where’s the harm?
What difference can it make?
What’s the worst that can happen?
And each one must be lovingly (and ritually?) stored
in a deep freeze
for a full lunar month
to kill any invisible
bacteriological hazards
that may – or may not –
have returned with them.
Does this mean that the Curse of Pele is real?
Is the Old God of the Volcano really so possessive
of every fragment of His domain
that he willingly rains down bad luck and ill fortune
on all those who ignore the signs
and help themselves
to a piece of that sacred mountain?
Possibly.
Or does the story of the Curse of Pele
become so embedded in the heads of the rock-snatchers
that they start to feel an ill wind when all is, in fact, calm;
seeing bad luck where there is nothing out of the ordinary?
Do they eventually convince themselves
that Pele followed them home?
Maybe.
Are all those volcanic rocks returned
as a result of a curse,
or because of delusion?
The end result is the same,
so how can we know if the story of the curse
brings on delusion
or if delusion operationalises the curse?
Robert Best
