A Way With Caraway (NaPM edit)

When we cleared Mawmaw's house
even the closet shelves were adorned,
edged with flat bands of crocheted bells;
originally from Norway, her father lost at sea.

Her daughter was steeped in ancestral tea:
sleek enameled silver, intricate
tatting starched into bowls, heavily
salted homemade food laced
with cream, brown bread slick with butter.

December heralded the baking marathon,
Alice knocked out a new cookie
every few days for two weeks, stacks
of tins piled high on every surface.

One year, missing some Christmas favorites
her family wouldn't touch, we dove
into a day-long recipe, a loaf of caraway
seeded meat in aspic, the start
of our late month lunches together,

her grinning face lit with youth.
Now the recipe is mine but today, checking
the spelling of Kalvesus, all I could find
was the Swedish Kalvsylta, no caraway.



Alice Welcomes Winter

Her parents were from Norway;
her grandfather lost at sea,
which her mom said was common.
When we cleared Mawmaw's house
even the linen closet shelves were adorned,
edged with flat bands of crocheted bells.

Alice was steeped in ancestral tea:
sleek enameled silver,
intricate tatting starched into bowls
heavily salted homemade food laced
with cream and butter that no one could resist
and thinly sliced brown bread
topped with egg and anchovies.

December began with the first cookie bake;
she knocked out a new type every other day
for two weeks as the stacks of tins
piled up on every surface.

One year, missing some Christmas favorites
her family wouldn't touch,
we dove into a day long recipe that resulted
in an a loaf of aspic, meat and caraway,
the start of our late month lunches together,
her grinning face lit with youth.

When she could no longer handle
the many steps I did, but today
when I went to check
the spelling of Kalvesus
all I could find was the Swedish kalvsylta,
no caraway.

Draft 1 - Going Ghost

Awake. Engines whir outside.
Red lights strobe into the room.
The dark is heavy with the bulk of night.

Almost a year spent reciting a script
to strangers, sitting in the same space
where I sleep, staring out the window
at a hollow building
across an empty parking lot. Crows outside
communicate discovered repasts
with fellows of their murder.
I do not notice my own building
has been empty too,
until another living person
imparts the sacred knowledge. By then
the world will have always been imparting

when the body remembers how to see.
Right now it is already dark. I observe
the bed cannot be made. This hour
so much of the world
becomes shadows and reflections:
lights left on by construction,
neighboring windows of empty rooms.
On the balcony I sip cool coffee and smoke.
Everything is shadowed by a genocide.
Is there time to do the laundry.
Can I water the rotting bonsai.
Can dust collect another day.

Draft 1 - O Martyr

I know why the wind is without birdsong
and mothers humming
infants to milk-drunken sleep.
I have seen enough, how it could all end
in an instant, or an instant's
aftermath. My voice forms words
you cannot hear; I'm scared that
I’m too far away to know their gravity, or
the pull of home beneath my feet.
Though in your heart I've hid
this sadness, an unflinching pact
to earth that I'd return to see
through your garb of existence
and struggle, its memory is faded. Then,
I was not sure I hid anything at all.
Whoever it was I was, I am
called by light to bloom
and how these roots run deep.

edit1;

My mind is going, entering
a space I only notice when
it’s gone

These last three days
three words returned too late
that had been inaccessible
not found by thought
or alphabet
when concepts needed names–

snare: hand-twisted noose
caught out, I couldn’t name
that simple rabbit-catcher
when a child desired
to trap a leprechaun

Kurds: lost name for
one brave people snared
in four countries
and their aspiration
to restore a nation

Etruscans: secret name
lost tribes of mystery
awakening from murmurs
of Tuscany last night
as lost words do

How much of my mind’s
proud vocabulary
has evanesced for good
hidden or erased
soft-sunk for what of life is left
in a room so finely
padded with absence
that its walls
cannot be seen or felt?

original version;

Senescence Blank


My mind is going, going
but I feel it only when
it’s gone.  Just in
these last three days
I rediscovered three words
lost for hours that
had been inaccessible
not found by even
alphabetic search
and prompting when their
concepts needed names–

snare: I could not express
how rabbits are caught
when my grand-nephew wished
to trap a leprechaun
only make pulling motions
with my fingers

Kurds: (just had to alphabet
again) when discussing
their place in Iran,
their aspiration
to be a nation

and Etruscans: wondered
how they related
to Sea Peoples of
a YouTube documentary
(and just had to find
them now, minutes later
yet again by way
of “Tuscany”)

How much of my mind
my vaunted vocabulary
is gone this present moment
hidden or erased
absence unremarked
senescence-walled forever?

---

This is pretty raw, from a succession of unnerving experiences (of being "at a loss for words").  I expect the first suggestion will be to remove the examples.  Almost a journal entry... worth editing?