As he grows

And as he grows
I am reminded to
Pay attention 
The days of his total
Dependence are
Almost forgotten
He can open the
Refrigerator and take
Out the jelly 
Demanding it spread
On his uneaten peanut
Butter only bagel in
His lunch box
He has a lunch box!
How quiet are our nights
How quickly his mind expands
Telling me the red thread
On my shirt
Reminds him of red blood cells
Magic School Bus!
I kept a list of his words
When he was first saying
Mama and Daddy 
And bug and moon
All the things I forgot 
To write down 
To capture every moment
As if it wouldn't escape
Me anyway

4/3/15

Still Waiting (1)

Many things can wait. Children cannot. Today their bones are being formed, their blood is being made, their senses are being developed. To them we cannot say “tomorrow.” Their name is today.
– Gabriela Mistral (Chilean teacher 1899 - 1957)


Still Waiting

You did not specifically say
Tomorrow I will break
my promise
You never even promised
Somehow I knew that to 
ask you
every answer
Would leave me

But even though
the bay window
of my lookout days
is as forgotten as
the smashed glass in a once
up and coming dream

Though a new generation 
arrived and they barely speak
your name, if ever

Though I filled the hole
a thousand times
Spilled over my cup 
with distractions and delights

Though I have lived my life
without you and I am 
strong

Though over the hill,
It is your car
Your arrival,
knowing that I don't actually 
want what is real 

Though you don't know me
or my child 
and You missed the window 
for pride,
I am still waiting for your return

S.R. Lazar. 6/26/17

Still Waiting (2)

Still Waiting (2)
10/3/18

My dad may die tonight
There is a helplessness taken hold
Left outside the door like his own
Father confused and lost down the street
Who just needed to get out of that Apartment
but could not find his way back
Frightening sure
but fine all the same
While the worry settling in from this Late summer-
the worst kinds of moons
Rattled tides and washed up triggers
Send it back
I am not interested in the humanity
Of these memories

My dad may not die tonight
But I may not sleep
There is too much
not to do that
I will look for a list to make until
My restlessness will overtake me
And in it, a staggering realization
Like his mother knowing her mind was gone or
Slipping but too late to even succumb
To anger
I am numb
until I can wait no longer

We are leaving without you

The Diamond or the Egg (excerpt)

The Diamond or the Egg

Samantha Lazar

The wrapper, melted onto the candy, made more noise than Alex could take. She had finally found a place to be alone, buckled into the back seat of the Toyota Starlet, directly behind her mom. She held the candy in her lap, and desperately scraped her nails against the slick plastic.

“How was Grandma’s?” her mom caught her eyes in the rearview mirror at a stop sign.

“Fine,” Alex said, “but practice was hard today.”

“You are getting so strong! Did you have to do underwater drills today?”

“Mmmhmm,” Alex looked out the window. Tiny beadlets of rain drifted down the window. Alex played a game she often did with raindrops. Each drop was a traveler, and she had only a moment to name them and give them a story before they traveled to the end of the window. There is Sally, on her way to New Zealand. She will meet a sheep herder and have a baby…

After a minute, her fingers felt the edges of the wrapper, and Alex was as determined as she had been to get to the end of the pool without coming up for air, mind over matter…mind over matter, her lungs burning, but her want to win burned more. “Nope, start over! “Her coach called out at the edge of the pool when Alex’s head gasped above water only five meters left.

Now the candy was finally free from its sleeve and without looking for her mom’s eyes in the rearview mirror, she popped it into her mouth.

Strawberry fireworks and dreamy sugar- it was so worth it, she thought.

“What’s in your mouth?” It was her mom.

“Candy,” Alex drooled a little bit when she said it.

“Where did you get it?” The car drifted over the line; her mom turned around in her seat to look directly at Alex.

The tears just flew out. She couldn’t stop. She did not understand why she took it. She just could have asked her grandma for the candy. But the Pick-a-Mix station was too inviting. It was just too tempting, and she wanted it. She didn’t want to ask for three cents. She told herself they were free samples. Everyone could just have one, right? Ten minutes later, she paid the grocery store manager for the candy and apologized through tears for stealing.

It was Saturday again. Alex spun around in her bathing suit. The thick soft carpet of her grandparents’ living room hugged her toes. Her long brown hair was still wet from swim team practice, and she danced pretending she was the prima ballerina. She could smell the barley soup cooking on the stove, and she could not wait to eat. Her grandma hummed something that sounded like “You are my Sunshine” in the kitchen.

As she spun and leaped on her tippy toes in her imagined ballet slippers, she smiled at the familiar painting above the couch, a boy and girl walking in the woods. Then there was the other stuff she had always known: the bird house clock tick tick tick tick, the bronze chicken statue, the collection of eggs on shelves, blue marble, and blown glass, ceramic and plastic- gifts from over the years from clients of the Egg Company, her grandparents’ business. Around she spun: boy and girl in the woods, tick tick tick tick, chicken and eggs, kids in the woods, tick tick tick tick, chicken and eggs. She felt quite dizzy when she stopped in front of the egg collection. Applause and roses rained down on her from all corners of her mind, and she stood transfixed.

At eye level, there was a miniature basket of eggs. Alex giggled. It was the cutest little basket. It had woven fibers and the littlest blue eggs. Alex imagined it sitting on the littlest kitchen table in her doll house. Tiny and secret and easily hid. And the next moment, the basket of eggs was in her palm and then in her swim bag that hung on the pegs.

The front door startled Alex, and it was her grandpa, grinning slyly at her. His grey hair was slicked over to the side, a golf bag slid off his shoulder.

“Hello, my beautiful!” He picked Alex up and spun her around, “What’s cooking?”

“Soup is ready!” her grandma called them in for lunch.

Elixer

Give me a feeling that I can feel

 What side effect is this age
 Of chasing the screen and panic abater 
Push back harder against my cold shoulder 
This manic elixir that keeps me drawn further 
Beneath what could cut my willingness to bleed 
Give me something worth worrying about 
But don't, because running will lapse all the spinning 
I've been here before 
On the brink of inspiration 
 But I may have shrunk this year 
And it's on the top shelf  
that not even partnership can reach 
Give me a heartbeat worth swooning about 
Lets run ourselves wild  
like we did when the edge of getting caught 
 was enough to keep us  
awake all night

Little (excerpt 2)

When I was little, I was a flying champion swinger. I could swing for hours and hours, a little aspiring trapeze artist, although we only had about 13 minutes of recess. And that was only if we weren’t made to stand silent on the painted footprints on the black- top, our backs turned toward the screaming delight of our classmates. Standing silent on the those footprints meant we had gotten our names on the board with a check, and possibly two checks if we had been especially naughty. Our music teacher, Mrs. Gish, was constantly putting our names on the board. It was just that she was a source of ridicule. She had been seen, at some legendary date, putting what we thought was lipstick, on the tip of her nose, where a small wart lived. She was seen, probably by a sixth grader, the source of all things known and unknown in the school, applying some cosmetic while hiding behind a cubby in the band room. From then on, we third graders had a really hard time singing for her, playing our recorders for her without short bursts of contagious laughter behind her back. She could only guess who had started it. And so it went that the last child left smiling when she looked up from the piano, was sent to stand on the footprints at recess.

When I was not in trouble, I would often participate in the flying contest. It was not so much about the swinging, as it was about the leaping off from your swing and landing on your feet, no matter how badly the stab to the heel and then up to the knees. To win you had to land on your feet and from a great height, furiously pumped. There was the one, two, three, and all would leap that forbidden arc. One day, when I was involved in this contest, feeling quite confident in my abilities, I found myself flat on my back and unable to move.

Little (excerpt 1)

When I was a little kid, I saw visions often. My brain would tell my eyes to see things, and there they would be. It was often when I was trying to fall asleep. I would see little things floating in front of my eyes as if they were on a carousel. Sometimes it would be items that made sense together- like toys- a rocking horse, a jack in the box, some marbles, a doll- floating in a rainbow arc and around in a circle. Notice me, they would say. They would be there with my eyes open to the twilight coming in the window. They would be there when I shut my eyes- blue black with flashing yellow. They were real to me. Sometimes, the visions would be unpleasant- like ants in a pile or a wasps’ nest. I knew they were not real, but I thought I could still play with them- no matter how much I wanted them to go away. I would squeeze my eyes tighter- shutting out any possible thing from attacking me through the slits of my eye lids, and there the floating visions would be. Once I saw people, strange small monsters walking towards me. They kept coming and would never reach me, but they kept coming, There they were in three dimension- I may have been able to shake their hands- find out what they were really about, but they never quite reached me. They would just back up and then come towards me again. I always wondered where these visions came from.

I sometimes would try to play games with my own mind. Sometimes during library time, I would try to feel dead. Just blank unknowing. Nothing. I found it quite impossible though. I would think about these things as 7 year old. Use my imagination to manifest a feeling. I was quite good at it. I could alter dreams- have control over the outcomes. I could will myself into a flying dream- or into something I wanted to actually feel scared of. I thought I had control over what happened. If I wished hard enough, something would happen. If I willed it, a bunch of wrapped presents would appear under my bed. Or my dad would come home and play with me. Of course I did not have control over these things, but it did not stop the little me from trying and continuing to wish.

When you wash your hair

Tomorrow or the next day or Monday morning, you will remember the purity of your skin. The places of pleasure and unspeakable longing for healing are both the same. The water will remind you that your lungs are working and the pulse of your next move does not need to be decided by the time soap spirals down the drain. You will be gentle with your bruises, and you will lather the lavender on your beautiful strength. And this momentous morning, the same as tomorrow, will help you gather the days of your wisdom.

Phoenix

Phoenix
S.R. Lazar
9/29/18

There was a moment
not too long
after the turn of the century,
or at least it felt soon after,
where they tried
one last desperate
attempt to cling to their grandfather’s insistence of genetic dominance
determined by gender
when all could not sleep
A night that made anxiety
Weak in the knees as we watched
A decision of the shameless
Of powerless deniers
Of absolute enablers
Because to look in the mirror
Would remind them of all of
The Mothers and maybe their
Fathers who made them
And how they too are both
Victim and lost
To convenience of amnesia
But we were watching
We knew this would happen
Another symptom of excuses
Of excess
And no accountability
But it was time.
Because this was the straw
That broke the straw on top
Of the last thing that happened
We thought we were past
Already we were all
ready
Enough.

At the homestead

At the homestead
all is familiar- my baby picture
my sister’s and our family photos
as we all grow and grow
My son’s artwork scribbles
My niece and nephew show
time pass through off season
holiday artwork
curated by little hands
In the barn a tricycle
wears cobwebs and hay dust
I dream about when I will clean it
scooping grain for the pony
all are aging
Autumn light of a waxing three quarter moon
shines the dogs’ path and fig trees
and peach and apple that sometimes promise
depending on the year and the deer
the gravel crunch and purple martin houses
and oh the constellations missing from my city
landscape
all is the same
all is love
but the tilt is different this week
it is not the fading light
nor the angle at which birds fly
the orbit I sense is pressing a new gravity
one of discomfort and palpable worry
the weight of our era
is shifting reality and in my evening walk
not even home feels home
This morning a momentum to stay and build
to protect and nourish courses through
and I am grateful for renewed hope in
that I can still stand upright.

11/12/16