Every Son

 by jeanne rené

Marty Jr.

 

His eyes were soft
A careless light blue
Hair just plain brown
Tossed about his shoulders
And swept across his face
In the morning’s flurry

He crossed over a lane of traffic
With baited anticipation
Looking, so in character
Vintage, dirty way-baggy jeans
Dragging under his boots
Fatigue jacket, swollen backpack

He was young
And old
In maybe some nineteen years
His smile white-washed
Whatever pain he felt
From the thorns in his side
And the pebbles in his shoes

Thank you, ma'am
To the five I held out the window
I looked at him, in explanation
I have two sons
and smiled back
Perhaps
He knew what I left unsaid

He spun around quickly
A hotfoot back to the island
Between life’s metered routine
Of off-ramp or on-ramp
Cardboard and marker prayer
I want to go home
Please help

-------

Marty launched himself on the couch
Disturbing my peace
What ya’ doing, mom
Leaning against my side
With a calculated grin
So seldom done anymore
His shoulder length hair
cast across his face


jeanne rené 10/03

 

Ahh, humanity!

by jeanne rené

photo jeanne rené

They’re bruised and bony
but …

I’m down on my knees today
to converge upon the living
who scuttle between the common garden stone
and shelter under forsaken rose petals,
Focusing my manufactured lens
on the honey bee zig-zag
or zooming in and out on the finer, more intricate subtitles
of scaly appendage or iridescent thorax,
I try to find the gleam, glint of fragile wings
capture it, post it, paste it
segments of sanity
membranes of memory to linger upon God’s finer points of creation.

I’m down on my knees today
looking for my prayers,
God’s finer course of dialogue
for I grow gray and cracked, as time shuffles haphazardly
between yesterday’s perception and today’s reality.
I need the camera, its shameless sight
to clarify my personal perspective.

Outside the camera my garden agonizes,
blundered, burdened.
The hydrangea withers, its flower-head bent.
Untethered the dahlia snaps.
Barren,
I cannot heal my children,
cannot exhale after inhaling.

… I covet the compound eye
lenses in triplicate times triplicate
mankind in mosaic medley 360 degrees composition
I beg,
let me hover with the house fly above brow and bed,
and squeal … antennae twitching enthusiastically “Ahhh, humanity!”

Today I cannot heal my children in portraits black and white.
I’m down on my knees
digging for daylight.


jeannerene 8/2010