The Journey A Bailey Library/WCC Poetry Club Anthology Edited by Tom Zimmerman
The Journey A Bailey Library/WCC Poetry Club Anthology Edited by Tom Zimmerman Washtenaw Community College Ann Arbor MI April 2018
Meera Martin
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Acknowledgments The Journey anthology is a joint production of the Bailey Library and the WCC Poetry Club, at Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor MI. Special thanks to the Bailey Library staff, especially Molly Ledermann, for helping make this book happen. Fonts used are Lucida Bright and Magneto. Book design by Tom Zimmerman, tzman@wccnet.edu. Copyright Š 2018 the individual authors and artists. The works herein have been chosen for their literary and artistic merit and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Washtenaw Community College, its Board of Trustees, its administration, or its faculty, staff, or students. www.wccnet.edu/resources/library/welcome wccpoetryclub.wordpress.com
Zach Baker
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Contents Words Zach Baker Maryam Barrie Nilotpal Bhattacharyya Olivia Bottum Monica Cialek Edith Morris Croake Amy Higgins Diane M. Laboda Shaina Larmee Sarah Levin Julia Ochoa-Corante Ayowole Oladeji Wanda Kay Sanders Kaylah Santure Kelly Shelley Amparo Tello Haneen Tout Cozine A. Welch Jr. Tyler Wettig KD Williams Kayla Winter Tom Zimmerman
Haunting the Mississippi River Journey West The Colour of My Faith and a Thousand Questions Persephone Beach glass Ten Years Ago Today Windstorm What I Travel With Summer with You Tilling Grandma’s Bed Through the Journey My Journey Driving down a road in the dark of night Coming Home for the First Time Echoes of Time Across the Sea Re-listed I Miss the Reno Skyline When He Writes about Her, He Writes about Persephone Lost Sweethearts’ Journey
6 7 9 10 11 12 15 16 18 19 20 21 22 24 25 28 30 31 32 33 34 35
Images Meera Martin Zach Baker Tom Zimmerman Tyler Wettig Kayla Winter Diane M. Laboda Tim Drouhard
Front cover, inside front cover, 3, 23, inside back cover Front cover, inside front cover, 4, 18, 20, 27, inside back cover, back cover Front cover, inside front cover, 10, 24, 34, inside back cover, back cover Inside front cover, 11, 32, 36, inside back cover, back cover 8, 4, inside back cover, back cover 17, back cover 29, back cover
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Zach Baker Haunting the Mississippi River the water is cold and grey enough my mind moves like a crocodile hungry in the shallows my eyes crazy as the full moon my ears full of fury sounds of midnight on a steamboat of broken laughter and broken bottles a riverboat gambler’s last raking breath my throat too salt-whiskeyed to sing his requiem and blind to north my heart spins like a toy compass but I know the river and the river knows the folds of my elbows that cradle all of N’Orleans these once belly laughs full of jambalaya and problems but my hips don’t go there anymore my knees broken in prayer my ankles little neglected globes finding steady enough atop the whirring wash of the world my toes remembrances of stars the world is a damn delicate place and I can’t let go
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Maryam Barrie Journey West My little sister was dis-invited—I think because she was scared to leave our mom. The father, who lived in Illinois with his new wife and son, mocked her to us. I don’t think my brother or I cared too much—we were excited to see the father, and to go on a trip out west. It was a road trip, and we stayed in Best Western Motels all the way to South Dakota and Wyoming. It was exciting to stay in motels, and exciting to have more access to the father than the annual lunch at Howard Johnson’s. I was the oldest, and I was amazed at how the hot water in the showers of the motels never ran out. I’d sit in the hot shower, and try to be both in the motel shower, and in the shower at home. Later in the trip, I could cry in the shower without being heard, which was great. In the car, the father always drove, and the step-mother smoked. Three days in, my brother piped up to say, “smoking is bad for you— you shouldn’t smoke.” Darkness descended in the car, and the father offered to leave the two of us by the side of the road. My brother whispered to me his plan—we should get away from him in a public place, so we could call our mom. We could get to a bus station, and head home. It was a good plan for an eight year old, but I was chicken. It wasn’t all bad—the father was entertaining when he wanted to be. He was brown, and clearly other, though Afghanistan wasn’t a wellknown location then. He started to put on an accent at the gas stations we stopped at, and pretended to be Indian, from India. He’d say to the attendant, “You know, in India, we worship dung. Great mother cow is our goddess.” In the back seat, we found this hysterically funny. We’d laugh so hard I would almost pee. He seemed as funny as Monty Python, or Bill Cosby. 7
I remember seeing the geysers at Yellowstone, and wishing we could stay longer to see Old Faithful spurt up again and then cascade far up from the earth, the water spreading out in a fountain. I remember the earth being hot, and the step-mother’s worry that we’d step off the path. I always liked her. At Rushmore, I remember a long, long staircase we had to climb. I remember driving through lands that were flat in all directions, forever.
Kayla Winter
Walk Together
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Nilotpal Bhattacharyya The Colour of My Faith and a Thousand Questions How would you see The colour of my faith? Can we really colour our beliefs? It does change, like when reason changes. And then, prevailing facts change. And then you start questioning the Colour of your own faith. Do you change, when seasons change? Do you cry, when someone dies? Do you laugh when a newborn cries? Then often, you will come to rest on a faith. And find a belief to rest Your head and your soul. That hopefully, will give you hope. And that’s one thing you need the most. And when every reason has failed, And only hope to hope for. You have found the colour of your faith.
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Olivia Bottum Persephone I spent years in a dark place Away from the light, from the flowers I craved Will I ever get home? Then, words from my mother My mother Demeter Loving me, accepting me Giving me the courage To walk out of Hades Tresses and gown flowing To the sunshine To spring.
Tom Zimmerman
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Monica Cialek Beach glass Frosty blue green brown white So much more interesting than the rocks around you Were you carelessly tossed overboard by a boater years ago Shattered and sharp Jostling among sand and stone in the turmoil of deep currents Making your way ashore becoming buffed and polished in the surf Precious little shard, frosty gem The bare feet of beachwalkers seek you out as a treasure among bands of damp or sunbleached rocks Do you know how beautiful your journey has made you?
Tyler Wettig
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Edith Morris Croake Ten Years Ago Today (April 7, 1907) Dear Husband, Ten years ago today, our daughter, Frances, came running across the road shouting “Mother! Mother!” Breathless, she gasped: “Father is dead! He shot himself in the head in our garage!” She clutched a soiled dish towel, her hands gloved in blood. I ran to their garage. Frances and our son-in-law, George, held my arms as I viewed your spattered body, stayed with me when I fainted, and watched with the gathered crowd as the police took your body away. Frances stayed with me the first night. She had seen you walk by the kitchen window, and watched you pick up baby Edith and give her a hug on your way to the garage. For a day, I could not speak. For weeks, I was numb and weak. I had no appetite. I stared listlessly out the window, watching and waiting for answers. I knew you had been sad. Both of us still mourned baby Edward’s death. I knew you had dreadful stomach pain. I prepared mashed potatoes and pudding for you 12
and massaged your temples. Dr. Wimbley prescribed a ginger tonic. What made you kill yourself? I wanted to die when you died. I was so alone. You brought me north as a bride to live with your Hoosier family. I was a Presbyterian surrounded by Lutherans. My sisters were hundreds of miles away. Yet each morning I went through the motions of living— I sat and prayed with our three teenage children, I cooked, I cleaned, I washed clothes. The Starr Piano Company that you co-owned paid me a pension. Your brother, Matt, travels to Arkansas now to buy lumber at my father’s nursery. He brings news of my family as well. After a while I began to play our piano again, the one you gave me as a wedding present. Slowly, I expanded our vegetable garden. I planted daffodils—your favorite, along our front walk. I tended our orchard next to Frances’ and George’s home, the one you planted for me when Frances was a baby. After our children left home, George built me a small house nestled in the front of our orchard. Their older children visit often and help me with chores. One night Frances and George invited me to their neighborhood party. They rolled up the carpet; George danced a waltz with me while 13
Frances played the piano. I giggled like a schoolgirl. Remember how we used to dance? Remember how we used to walk the rows in my father’s nursery arm-in-arm and dream of the years ahead? I still miss you terribly, but I have accepted the flint-edged truth that suffering you could not control overwhelmed you. And, I must do the best I can now, alone. I still walk the rows of our orchard, back and forth, back and forth, trying to mend my sorrow. I am comforted by the crunching of the earth, the whispers of the wind, the sweet smell of apple blossoms, and the knowledge you would wish me peace.
Kayla Winter
Where To?
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Amy Higgins Windstorm The wind swells and stills outside our home. Our third dog wheezes in his sleep. Come in and stay close to me; no longer roam. I obeyed and was pleasant under childhood’s dome, Controlled air weighed on me, and the world looked deep. The wind swells and stills outside our home. Young dreamers, scholars, we shared the same tome, Climbed our chosen heights, held hands and leaped. Come in and stay close to me; no longer roam. You went off to help patients, I to teach poems. Then child sounds filled these rooms with peep and weep. The wind swells and stills outside our home. We took them once to Mexico, read to them of Rome, Bid them explore while our hearts whispered, Keep Close. Stay here with us, no further roam. She’s writing her own world; he’s packing to go. I held you, we made them when we were so free. The wind swells and stills inside our home. Come here and hold me close; no longer roam.
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Diane M. Laboda What I Travel With The essentials: breath and bone, mind and muscle, soul and skin, energy and eyes. All else is optional: I take creature comforts— more than a roof with walls, a home, more than a shoe with a sole, a platform to stand on, add wheels for mobility, push faster for speed to take flight. I take a pencil to write my thoughts and a book to write them in—a living record of this journey to feed my soul. I pack food to nourish my body so it doesn’t fall into disrepair. I take a book with a story that goes on and on so I don’t get bored. I craft prayers to lighten my load, insure my safety and my sanity. I embrace my God so I won’t walk alone when the going gets rough and I lose my balance. I finger my amulets and symbols, in case God falls asleep on the job. I wear my vest of courage to ward off enemies and birds of prey. I wear my prejudices on my sleeve, 16
and walk the path of my enemy. hide behind my cloak of defense I bring a smile to cover heartache, a toothy grin to spread wit on wounds, a belly laugh to bandage hurt with humor. I carry an angel on my shoulder who I used to know by name, but haven’t spoken with her for days and then only in whispers.
Diane M. Laboda
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Shaina Larmee Summer with You Trees canopy the roof the breeze gentle on your cheeks your eyes are bright and alert your lips turn up when you reminisce on bands you've seen Your ears are in tune with their singing your heart is pounding to the familiar rhythm young features are shown in all four mirrors This path is fairly new to you, but you are not shy with asking the person sitting next to you won't let you lose your way, like good GPS tracking
Zach Baker
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Sarah Levin Tilling T.S. Eliot, in The Waste Land, wrote that April is the cruelest month, but it is in the winter, not the spring, when the pain of absent love is most exquisite, I am the apple of no one's eye. Year after year, December 1 waits for my birthday. December shades the colors of warmer months when doors are open, road trips lead to adventure, and birds sing sweetly outside my window. December 1st, God's tractor pulls the roots of trees in which I sought refuge, refuge from the terror of and yearning for touch. Now the trees that I hid underneath are lumber, its future others’ homes. I am exposed. I am a woman, like last year, and every year previous, waiting to be born.
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Julia Ochoa-Corante Grandma’s Bed A quilted rose garden On a wrought-iron cloud Where candlelight halos beam Her wisdom breaks silence Tender songs of insight play Soft wrinkled hands dance I look for myself in her Piece together my future With storied parts of the past We grip these moments Unbothered by time Just us, side by side
Zach Baker
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Ayowole Oladeji Through the Journey They ae both stranded By the ocean shore As they begin to follow The trail they seek Then they stop and rest Gather wood and leaves Sparking stone and wood To make fire They use arrows and bow to Catch and hunt fish Getting vitamins to have Energy in their bodies Closer to their destiny Stars shine like diamonds As they seek their destiny They desire to complete
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Wanda Kay Sanders My Journey My journey began in December 1964. There were no floodlights or commentators, no public announcement or speculation about what may happen next. My birth promised little to impact history—a seemingly anti-climax to events earlier in the year. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had changed where my parents could take me. It changed the place and position where my parents could work. The repeal of Segregation and reversal of legal discrimination took my birth and thousands of other black girls, black children like me and gave us potential in ways not previously possible. We now held the assurance that our lives could have a higher meaning. That the road we traveled would be a little less rocky than our ancestors before us. A dream lived out with great persistence and determination opened the door to a life where our vision for our future had a greater opportunity of happening. My own journey has had an equal balance of ups and downs. My 22
successes and failures are in equilibrium. Yet, I continue to labor, to strive to influence the world around me. My own resolution to leave my mark on the world.
Meera Martin
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Kaylah Santure Driving down a road in the dark of night Driving down a road in the dark of night The car tires squealed as we hit black ice We started spinning left and right I hit my head hard Blacking out for a while Sent to the hospital to stay The first week or so I couldn’t function When I awoke I was confused When I was up and able to function they finally told me I had gotten a brain injury The front lobe bled They had stapled the back of my head I’m finally out now But my journey has changed without a doubt
Tom Zimmerman
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Kelly Shelley Coming Home for the First Time I took a long trip with several stops back in 2005 and coming into 2006. I didn’t know at the beginning where the journey would end. I didn’t actually know where I was going at all, I was going away from rather than having a decisive place to go to. I didn’t know I was going home when I stepped onto that first bus. In September of 2005, after a lot of discussion with someone I didn’t know yet but who wanted very much to help me, I left what had been an emotionally abusive and neglectful situation. Someone who would become a friend, and eventually more than that, picked me up from the community college I was attending at that point and took me to the Greyhound station in Raleigh. I had one bag and $300 after the ticket. I no longer blame my parents because I realize they had their own issues (the bipolar that I actually ended up with too, ditto the anxiety and I almost fell into the addiction trap more than once too) and they just didn’t know how to deal with them...and they grew up in a different era to boot (my parents are in their 60s, I’m in my 30s). I also wasn’t particularly well liked in school and had the weirdness of being the only person in my high school who attempted suicide to my knowledge, if others did it, it was never spread like it was when I did it. It was a very small town and everyone knew and it was never a comfortable place for me, we’d moved from another state (Maryland) too and so I had a “weird” accent and never really adjusted to the hotter climate. From Raleigh the bus took me to Richmond, Virginia. I lived in Richmond from September until December. First I lived with some folks who were willing to let me crash on their couch for awhile. Things weren’t bad but they weren’t good and the stress of 25
the move probably contributed...I fell hard into a depressive episode with mixed features (which has happened a lot in my struggle with bipolar...I was, at the very oldest, fifteen at onset). My parents tried hard to ignore these things and I never got help beyond the medical help that it took to save me from what I’d done to myself but one of my housemates in Richmond essentially staged an intervention under the guise of taking me to lunch. She probed and found out how bad things were (and yes I was suicidal at the time) and drove me to the hospital after lunch. I didn’t fight her. I didn’t have the fight left in me to do that and it saved me. After discharge I found myself with nowhere to go and so I ended up in the YWCA shelter. An online friend ended up feeling bad for me in December, he knew I was about to end up truly homeless (the shelter had given me all the extensions they could and I had no income, I couldn’t keep a job or get government assistance) and couldn’t stand the idea of me being alone on the streets for Christmas. He lives in Chesterton, Indiana. So I took another bus, this time I took myself to the Greyhound station on a city bus (I couldn’t find a ride), lugging a heavy bag this time because the other women in the shelter were worried about me being cold in the upper Midwest and insisted I take lots and lots of winter gear. I drug that bag through more than one bus station and in Cleveland two young men on their way home (to Michigan oddly enough) took pity on me (after the driver yelled at me and then actually walked away to smoke…) and helped me lug it into the luggage compartment under the bus. The bus ride was actually very pretty. It was about eighteen hours long and I didn’t sleep, by the time I hit Indiana I’d been awake for about two days straight, I didn’t feel tired though. I watched Maryland slip by. I watched the tiny “toy towns” of Pennsylvania down in the valleys, it had snowed and it was like looking down into a Christmas village. I watched the flat expanse of Ohio turn into the flat expanse Indiana. I lived in Indiana until late February. The person I lived with was losing his house and I couldn’t stay. Again I had no job and no 26
income, I still slipped $50 under the phone when I left because this family had been so kind to me. After a debate and talking to several people I decided to move to Michigan. The person who had driven me to that first Greyhound station had a room he was willing to let me stay in until I got on my feet. I hopped on a Michigan bound bus in late February and was greeted by “snowglobe� snow. As a lifelong winter lover it was a good sign. I’d go on to befriend and then date the person I moved in with, after about a year and a half he broke it off and we became just friends but by then Michigan was definitely home.
Zach Baker
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Amparo Tello Echoes of Time The aged door sounds like a lament From the other side, a rumbling murmur joins the lament of the door, It is not possible: they become a single voice crawling around the walls and the ground I must close the timeless door. Standing in front of it, I feel the impact of hundreds of bullets going into my chest I do not like this: my eyes are crucified in my forehead I am afraid: Again, I hear the voice becoming one with the lament of the door demanding Freedom! I recognize the duo, is a child, a child from my journey! Do not dare to open it! Do not let the child come out She is screaming for freedom and a high pitch voice Please, nobody opens the door. I push it I grab its timeless golden panels. I walk in silence
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The wind opens the door. I run, run to close it again The aged door that makes the lamenting sound.
Tim Drouhard
The Road Home
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Haneen Tout Across the Sea I wonder who has sailed these seas— To waves of blue, from lands of trees— And if there’s anyone who sees What’s on the other side. I’m gazing out at this great river, Thinking more than I’d consider, Hoping it in turn delivers That which I desire. I watch the boats run through this lake, Just wishing that someone could take Me far from here, for my heart aches To travel somewhere new. I wait for the love that’ll surely be; For I know someone waits for me Somewhere across this great big sea. Till then I’ll only dream Of sailing these wide open seas— To waves of blue, from lands of trees— And finally meeting somebody Who’s on the other side. Inspired by Konstantin Razumov’s Dipping Her Toes.
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Cozine A. Welch Jr. Re-listed Re-listed: Recently refurbished Returning citizen seeks Reentry into Renamed Apparently remade American society Wildly different from the one He remembers Removed from reconstruction and recast I mean, really recast Damn near reformed but no reformation really took hold From township to city to globe, from past to present to future We reduced what was proof of the resilient to the salient Cast out front to blunt the reality of MY country's reapplied Resentments When he took a knee is this what Kaepernick meant? MY COUNTRY, built on the backs of my reclaimed identity This Recently refurbished returning citizens’ recent Upgrades include respect for himself, for life, and the Recurrent reconnections that give it Meaning A restructured outlook on this apparently Remade American society that quietly renamed him Prisoner instead of slave He is re-listed As Welch Michigan Department of Corrections number 271469 Ready for re-entry.
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Tyler Wettig I Miss the Reno Skyline My morning view is the burnt and bright and haze of last night’s burning sage: no time to waft, so nibble the remnants of the fast food and get in the truck: heading back East. Doze through Utah sulfur, wax Fitzgerald through Lovelock: Now there is a woman! But we’re closer to Gethsemane than the Riviera: stuck on the tracks in Wyoming, axle breaks in Iowa. She takes my hand and asks if I believe in God, but I burn like a Buddhist in protest: so scoop me into a cheap urn; I’ll sit on a shelf like my dad. Or just the dashboard. Can’t feel my legs anyway.
Tyler Wettig
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KD Williams When He Writes about Her, He Writes about Persephone A man at his worst is a work of art, and I wonder if your ruby lipstick will stain my dress. It swirls in the wash now, and my head is vague with reheated coffee. You gave me a hat, tried to gift your ill-fitting sweater, citing spring’s imminent arrival. Your gifts are a warning sign, but we’re trying to keep you. We’re tagging your footsteps on the beach, but you’re taking longer walks and we’ve got our own problems this morning. The skin is still tinted pink where you pressed against me—dull tongue and messy rouge. Jesus rises and we color eggs with vinegar paints. Instead of hiding, we eat them for dinner. We need the protein after all the sugar you laid in baskets on the table. You have a reason for all your gifts, but you only kiss me in front of him. Your reasons: the poem is for a class, the hat fits your head, that shade of lipstick looks so good on your bare shoulder, babe. We’re in the middle of reading the words you left on the table, but you’ve given away the ending.
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Kayla Winter Lost I run, But my feet run out of ground. Try to listen— My breath’s the only sound. I gasp, Even though I’m not drowning. I weep, But … what am I mourning? I reach out. Find nothing, no meaning. Inside me, Numbness. I am empty. Confused, Battered down by my own thoughts, I just want to know: Will I always be lost?
Tom Zimmerman
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Tom Zimmerman Sweethearts’ Journey There’s Valentine’s, of course: I wore a red necktie the other day a girlfriend gave me back in ’82. She’s gone. To Texas, I last heard. I don’t eat candy. Dad, however, grew a sweet tooth during middle age. And had a heart attack, not strong enough to kill him. Told me many times he’d been to every state, including Utah well before it posted highway speeds. He drove a ’56 Bel Air, burnt red and gray, and dated Mom, his best friend Frankie’s little sister, high on Army leave, in Boston. Honeymooned across the South soon after. Alamo, then Mississippi, Alabama, Elvis on the radio, shy wanderlust, they brought it all back home. I like to think they made me somewhere deep down there. Light snow today, but steady, not as hard and fast as yesterday, and more to come tomorrow. “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”: I tell my students doomed Macbeth is merely winter. First trip overseas, 35
our twentieth anniversary, my wife and I arrived in Scotland. That was our best summer.
Tyler Wettig
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