Haunting Lesson ((http://www.persimmontree.org/)
The cure
tested for generations
on West
African shores
remains
only a threat today
on some
Caribbean Isles.
Elders
used to string tin cans
on twines
and ropes and tie them
round tiny
waists and ankles.
The tins clang-clanged
as children
goaded with “goan, goan”
were paraded
through village streets.
Heads
hung, salty tears
streaked
small black faces
in the morning’s
island breeze.
Villagers
watched.
There was
no need for cardboard signs.
The
clanging said it all:
BEDWETTERS.
©
Althea Romeo-Mark 29. 11. 2010
Poem „Haunting
Lesson“ was selected for Persimmon Tree Fall Issue 2012 (http://www.persimmontree.org/)
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International Poets
Selected by
Fleda Brown, Guest Editor
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The poems in this International Issue of Persimmon Tree are certainly aware of aging — but always from a perspective of intense interest, of a sense of renewal and re-invention. The issue begins with two simple and subtle poems by Eva Eliav that, appropriately, “fall awake” into age. Chellis Glendinning explores the slippage of language in translation and in life in which it is possible for a poem to appear. Margo Berdeshevsky’s poem considers the cost of being human, of struggling with memories of difficult mothers. Jo Milgrom’s poem is up there, on a high wire, testing the idea of immortality. Katharine O’Flynn touchingly connects past and present with orange lilies, while Lalita Noronha playfully compares our lifetime to that of insects. Lois Elaine Heckman’s sonnet uses cutting hair as metaphor for cutting away the past. For Venie Holmgren, it is the wind that is full of the past and for Althea Romeo-Mark, what passes from generation to generation is not necessarily a good thing. Barbara A Taylor sees the rest of her life in the rich movements of everyday activities, all of it a steady letting go of the past. Mori Glaser closes the door against a past she doesn’t want any more, one that feels now like a dream. And in Malinda Crispin’s poem, which is the dream and which is real? They’re tangled in a wonderfully shimmering way. Led by these rich and varied approaches to growing old — to holding onto and letting go of the past — I have concluded this issue attempting to do the same, by means of the poor baffled squirrels in my poem. |
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