How You Feel After You Go Off the Diving Board for the First Time
Month: July 2010
Baby Casts Giant Shadow
Late sun. Not really a baby anymore. I was watching her play at the baby pool.
In the Baby Doll Aisle
What were we thinking? We got out of the giant toy store with the item we had on our list but had to add this plastic doll to the cart while we shopped. No real expression of desire until the baby doll aisle— WHOA! Maura became totally animated,pointing, babbling turned to squealing . Loudly. Her mom said we weren’t buying it, so we parked the doll at the front when we checked out. It really didn’t have a nice face! Maura (20 months) didn’t care what it looked like- she wanted them ALL! When she got into the van and was reunited with her doll from home, she was happy. I bought two bottles to feed her doll, the kind you tip and the liquid disappears.
Angel Food Celebration
Ten more days til the birthday but I won’t be in Columbus for the actual date. When Laura was little she called it ‘”cloud cake” Her favorite! The eager helpers, her nieces and nephews. Next frame or two Michael is up on the table helping to blow out the candles but it was so out of focus.
Swissvale Dari Delite
For Marlene and Donald, 37+ years. I know you ate a cone together at this place! Happy Belated Anniversary.
Pies on a Rack Headed into Schorr’s Bakery, West View PA
It was a really hot day Friday. Standing at the PNC MAC machine, I looked to the left. A rack of pies, an open truck, Margi the owner of old fashioned, classic, timeless Schorr Bakery – “Be Sure At Schorr’s” it says at the top of the card. She was wheeling the rack into the bakery with the pies. No website or link to send you to yet. 433 Perry Highway 412-931-0653. Schorr’s.
Pot of English Breakfast & Tea Treats
High tea on Friday afternoon in West View. AntiquiTea Tea Room. For the scones, clotted cream and lemon curd in cordial glasses with silver spoons, tiny teapots on top. Afterward we checked out the party room. An elegant way to spend a summer afternoon with good friends.
“It’s the Faces” V said, “the Faces…”
What I Couldn’t Throw Out
Purchased in 1977 in New York City at Creative Playthings. Rubbery farm animals. Nice to clutch and carry around when you’re almost two. I bought them for baby Mark who’s 34 now. Maybe the paint is unsafe for the grandchildren, plus they have a hole in their stomach so whatever dirt and mold in the basement the past 20 years is living inside them. I put them in the contractor bag to drag to the curb and I swear the cow’s eyes looked at me. I took them out. Photographed them.
“I Dug Up the Iris” by Guest Poet Liane Ellison Norman
I Dug Up the Iris
in Dorothy’s garden
to plant in the soaked
soil of mine, memorial
to her each spring
when they’ll open
complicated ruffles
and flourishes, purple
or blue with speckled
throats. They’ll rise
out of rhizomes
sprawling at soil’s
surface like the joints
of my old hands
anchoring the tall
stalks and frilly petals.
This morning
in the brief breath
of cool I dug shallow
trenches for this legacy,
this pantry of pollens
the bees prospect,
insects with lives
beyond what the mere
gardener knows.
Liane Ellison Norman, a Madwoman in the Attic, has published two books of poetry, The Duration of Grief and Keep (www.smokeandmirrorspress.com). She has published poems in 5AM, Kestrel, North American Review, Grasslimb, Rune, Voices from the Attic anthologies and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Her poem “What There’d Been” won the Wisteria Prize in 2006 from Paper Journey Press.