Category: poetry

Family, Latino culture, Parenting, poetry

Poetry as a Gift to Ourself

Mona Alvarado Frazier
gettyimages-Fraser, Colorado
gettyimages-Fraser, Colorado

I’m really missing my kids who live in Colorado.

It’s hard to believe they are young adults making their own way, not only in another town, but another state. Sometimes I get comments about this fact, “How could you let them go so far…” For many Latino families this just isn’t done. But that’s another story, for another time.

A couple or three weeks ago, the “polar vortex” swept through Colorado. My flight was cancelled and I didn’t make it up there to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. That sucked, but better to be safe than sorry (my daughter’s words).

Last time I was there, in December, I experienced my first snowy Christmas. We took a walk. The air felt frigid, the snow crunchy, my toes had no feeling.

Inside was the best way for a Southern California resident to view the snowfall.

My journal captured some thoughts which I developed into a poem.

Outside My Window

Layers of snow cover

a multitude of sins,

which no longer hover

below the blanket of white.

Cold truths against the light,

making beautiful the wrongs to right,

softens the landscape

against the morning light,

see how things can be made right,

Cushions of snow,

light and fresh,

unmarked drifts of possibilities

to keep the wrongs right,

to begin anew,

erase the dark.

A canvas of white

illuminated against the daylight,

soon to be crushed by black stripes,

criss crossing

making sludge of white

I’m glad I recorded my thoughts. They take me back to sitting at the living room window early in the morning, looking out to the balcony and street below.

Snow layered itself over hedges, trees, and cars. Pretty soon cars started driving by, and the morning woke up.

I made the kids some vegan Mexican hot chocolate which we stirred with cinnamon sticks. The spicy fragrant drink and the heater in the apartment warmed us from the inside out.

Memories about one’s kids are one of the greatest gifts about being a parent.

Poetry is a gift to ourself.

poetry, poets, Strong Women

When Lemons Make Poetry

Mona Alvarado Frazier
The last roses until spring-alvaradofrazier.com
The last roses until spring-alvaradofrazier.com

This morning I have bunches of pale yellow roses that are the last of the season from a bush I just pruned-a month late.

My rosebush was transplanted, to my backyard fifteen years ago, from someone who tore up their garden to put in kid friendly landscaping.

I also have a dwarf lemon tree.

Which made me think of that platitude, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” That cliché sucks-big time.

Lemons = Lemonade

 

This phrase makes a euphemism for disappointment, a sorrow, or a hurt seem so cheerily remedied. 

Life doesn’t give you lemonade.  

Life gives you lemons. You give you lemonade. 

 

The last lemons from my tree-alvaradofrazier.com
The last lemons from my tree-alvaradofrazier.com

Making the lemonade is not an easy process. There is a knife involved. Cutting, twisting, squeezing, and getting a sting from the lemon juice that found the microscopic cut on the side of your fingernail.

After that, you strain the pulp and seeds and pour the result into a pitcher. You’re still not done. Some people don’t want to go through these steps. You have to stick with it, be strong. 

You have to stay with the process, feel the pain, deal with the sting, the squeezing, the separating, look for the honey, the sugar, something to sweeten the tart acidic taste.

It’s a series of steps, it’s not a Lemon=Lemonade instant drink.

And when you stick with it, you have fantastic lemonade which you garnish, with berries or mint. 

I was mulling over all this when I came upon an email from a friend, Michelle Wing.

Michelle is the inaugural featured writer of a new website, Off The Margins, dedicated to women writers.

Her artist statement captivated me. Her poetry, this one in particular, blew me away.

Body on the Wall

They send me a slip of paper
Anger Management – Certificate of Completion
And his name.
As if.

As if twelve weeks of one-hour sessions,
of talking about his feelings,
of tips on counting to ten,
could make him into a new man –

could undo the damage.

I know too well he can con anyone:
Police. Lawyers. Landlords.
Me.

And this piece of paper is the last slap
I am ever going to feel.

I walk to my closet, and get my dancing dress,
the little black one that twirls when I move,
that reminds me of freedom and the time before.

Do you want to know what he is like?
I’ll need some tools.

Scissors to slash the hemline.
Blades to rip open sleeves.

A lighter to torch the fluttering strips.
Dirty boots to grind out the flames.

Then a razor, to nick my forearm
so I can smear blood across his name
and pin that piece of paper to my ruined dress.

I bandage my arm, find a hanger –

It is my body on the wall, bruised and battered,
and nobody, nobody, can say they don’t see.

 

After reading, my lips formed the word “Wow,” my head nodded. I thought of the lemons in my past.

Lemons didn’t only make lemonade, they made poetry.

 

Go and visit off the margins. Read more excerpts from Michelle’s new book of poetry, “Body On The Wall.“ It debuts May 15, 2014.