I sent a letter of desperation
To an acquaintance from church,
Feeling prompted, perhaps,
By my own life situations.
I wanted to hear that
Adoption is not always destructive.
But . . .
She was not the one to tell me so.
It is hard, very, very hard for her, too.
Saturday night, the start of my Sabbath,
I suddenly thought,
“I want color.”
So I spent a time spreading color,
Acrylics on a small canvas
I’d kept for some years.
The result was not what I’d hoped—
Colors not my favorite, with a canvas to keep.
But it was soothing, to listen to worship songs.
And I read poetry,
A collection I’d grabbed on an impulse.
Robert Frost has many of my favorites,
But his earliest publication surprised me:
So many ghost poems!
I had no idea.
And I almost quit, fearful I had read all the good ones.
But then came a poem so tremendously sweet,
I could do nothing but sit and quiver.
Then, for the first time in months,
I slept through the night.
Nine full hours.
In Roman times,
Adult males were adopted
For purposes of preserving the lineage.
Today, children
Are adopted to nurture.
In the families I know, this has been
Shockingly,
Tremendously,
Destructive.
My new 9x12” mixed media sketchpad
Is my paper whiteboard.
I have not yet dared doodle,
But these enormous sheets of whiteness
Make me happy, just to see them.
Manjiro, shipwrecked,
Survived, barely.
Became a whaler
And a sailer.
Longed to return home.
Back in Japan,
He survived trial after trial—
Eighteen in all—
Before, ten years after his departure,
He returned home.
In the end, he became
An educator
A translator
An integral part of opening Japan.
Born in the year of courage, indeed.
When I read my poems from years ago,
I am always amazed by how much I love them,
Followed quickly by remorse that
I don’t write
More.
I mostly manage to avoid gluten,
But every once in a while on a Friday night,
I am hungry enough,
And the oozy cheese and salty pepperoni
And crisp and chewy crust
All call to me loudly enough
That I thoroughly enjoy
My pizza dinner.
