Lath, Plaster, Mother, and Father

Standing in the kitchen of a friend’s home
our host and hostess debated the nature of their walls.
She claimed to know that they were sheetrock
while he insisted they were plaster.
So I put my hand against the wall to know for sure.

“They’re lath and plaster,” I said, but
Our hostess asked if I knew for sure.
I looked at her but saw my mother
watching my father drive a hammer into a wall
of their house and ripping it out, tearing pieces away.

In the hole was broken lath and falling plaster
the work of someone thirty, maybe fifty years before
crumbling before my father’s sure left hand
as he drove the claws of his hammer in
and tore them out again and again.

I wondered how mother could so believe
in his ability to re-make the wall he was destroying
I stood amazed at the quiet power of his swing
and the silent confidence he had in his own abilities.
I dreamed of being so believed in.

I said again to my hostess that the wall was plaster
spread over thin, brittle lath and that I knew it
as sure as I knew my own mother and father
and the nature of a love that believes and is believed in,
which can be torn down and endlessly rebuilt.

Thanksgiving Haiku

November morning
one day before Thanksgiving
frost melting away

a daughter pretends
that she is the kitty cat
sun in the morning

the real cat jumps down
to lick softly at the water
a bird’s wings beating

above us in cold sky
clouds filled with tomorrow’s snow
these birds don’t fly south

For all of these things
day, daughter, cat, and cold sky
let us now give thanks.

Guiding Faith

This is for my mother
who worries that I walk without
the guiding light of faith.

Mom, I am a man of infinite beliefs,
one of which is this: I believe
that toilet paper should be substantial,
not quilted thick or gossamer thin;
that it should be unscented, white,
and free of any lotions;
that it should hang from a roller
mounted in the wall at proper height,
not from a flimsy stand or locked
in a multiple roll dispenser;
and that an extra roll should be
in plain sight or in an obvious place
within easy each.

I fervently and devoutly believe
and so do not walk or sit down
without faith guiding my every movement.

After the Results Came In

In the boxing ring, when the opponent falls
and the referee counts to ten, they raise
your hand, call your name, and give you a prize.

Things like that happen only inside tiny
roped spaces, in games and trivialities.
Outside the ring, it’s more complicated.

So, in this moment of triumph,I hear
the crowd is shouting, screaming,
hoping desperately to be noticed.

They aren’t demanding life, liberty
and the continuing, sometimes agonizing
pursuit of their happiness.

No one is holding anyone’s hand aloft.
Nothing yet has been won. Now is the time
for diligent effort on the important work
of forming a more perfect union.

Share the Story – Haibun

My great uncle owned this building, that one over there, and two going up the hill. What he kept in them I never knew. I suppose that he parked trucks in some of them, stored inventory in others, and had plans for the others. But he died before I was old enough to think of asking him anything. Now, so many years later I understand what was really driving him to buy every vacant building in Elmwood.

The trees have all died
as have all the businesses.
Elmwood is empty.

The family is filled with unreliable narrators. Grandpa told us that he had watched his own brother shot to death and that his parents raised race horses. I didn’t fall far from that tree. Even the stories I tell myself are only half-truths at best.

The memory lies
so we might know a real truth.
Elmwood is still full.

We’re building something out of memory, stone, and lies. In Elmwood I found candy at Bill’s Variety Store, my first savings bank, the mean lady who ran the store that sold soda, the school Dad taught at, and a thousand other things. There were never any elms and now the place is almost completely strange to me.

I choose to recall
a place I have invented
An Elmwood all mine.

(c) 2006 bgfay for One Deep Breath

In This Middle Place

My wife, two daughters, and I live in this middle place
between boundless wealth and the hopeless squalor,
between darknesses of blind piety and the faithless void,
and between our parents and someday’s grandchildren.

We live between the glittering thrill of cheating on
our marriage and the anesthetized stupor of withering vows,
between dancing until midnight and going to bed before nine,
between an icy ocean of silence and a boiling cauldron of passion.

We live in this moment
between summer’s sweat and the frigid winter.
We move through challenges, losses, and rewards
in this ongoing struggle.
We hold fast to one another through storms of sickness
on into our calm harbor.
And we are filled with love’s quiet assurances
as we stand together in this middle place.

(c) bgfay 2006

Reasons to Believe

An evangelical pastor has admitted
to buying drugs and getting a massage
from a male prostitute.

It would seem that even the most pious
among us turn out to be sinners just the same
as each of us.

These guys aren’t holier than thou,
they aren’t any better than you or I
no matter what they’ve said.

They’re as hypocritical as any of us
and rather than disappointment
or a well of hatred,

I feel grateful for yet another reason to believe.

(c) bgfay 2006

With the Election Approaching

I am like a boy again
waiting all season
for my team to win the Superbowl.
But worrying that
all these players who
seemed so strong early on
will fail on the big stage
and the wrong team
will add yet another ring
to their already glittering fingers.

I worry that my team
is unorganized,
has lost the playbook, and has no defense
for the dirty play
of the reigning champs.
But I’ll still tune in,
like Charlie Brown,
hoping that Lucy won’t pull the ball
and that I won’t land on my back
staring at the cold November sky
sighing, “good grief.”

About that iPod

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about my iPod entitled "My Wife Doesn’t Want Me to Buy Another iPod". She would like me to let others know that we did buy a new iPod. She’s still mad at the Apple Corporation and won’t be buying one for herself, but she likes me a little and wants me to be happy.

Isn’t she cool?

Unseen – Haiku

There were other words
written here on these pages.
Snow has covered all.

Sister Anne told us
God is, was, ever shall be.
Even mountains die.

In Benson’s Rift the
placid water lies so still.
Currents roar below.

It’s not on the clock
or the movement of the sun,
but time passes us.

(c) 2006 bgfay for One Deep Breath