Across Continents

Standing on the gray wooden back porch,
just outside her kitchen door,
she bends to pull a wet undershirt 
from a frayed wicker basket, 
clipping one sleeve, then the other,
to the line with old-fashioned clothespins, 
the ones little girls decorate to make dolls, 
drawing faces on knobs, adding gingham 
for dresses, yarn for hair.

She pushes the line out, 
the rusted pulley screeching, 
to make room for another wet garment.
Routinely, she performs her chore, 
gazing out into the backyard
eyeing pears on the tallest tree, 
wondering when the fruit 
will ripen for picking, 
She’ll wrap each treasured 
pear in a page of newspaper 
to place in the Frigidaire 
in her cellar for weeks ahead.

One clothespin after another 
connects her family’s wash to the line—
reaching a syncopated rhythm 
of screeches and slides
followed by a beat of silence 
before she pushes the line out again, 
extending hanging clothes 
like party decorations across the yard 
to the back fence where grapevines 
climb, large leaves protecting clusters 
of round green grapes with hints of pink.

She repeats the ritual with pride, 
perhaps remembering an idyllic
childhood in the ancient world 
when she clipped a line 
of pants her father dyed,
dripping blue into the soil—
the blue of the Aegean, 
the blue of the Greek flag—
each drop beading up,
then bleeding through 
the Asia Minor soil of her youth—

before the population exchange;
before living as a refugee in Chios;
before crossing the ocean in steerage
to reach a land of prosperity and promise;
before fathers, uncles, husbands
marched to their deaths;
before aunts and sisters rubbed faces 
with ash and dirt—a disguise—
to avoid atrocities performed by men, 
to escape an enemy—once friend—
who shared a sun-soaked countryside 
where sheep and goats grazed 
beside stone houses that faced a harbor 
filled with pastel fishing boats 
surrounded by white pebbled beaches, 
where grapevines crisscrossed hillsides,
providing sweet fruit and dry wine 
for shared meals and celebrations.

She returns to the wooden porch,
her reverie interrupted as she removes 
the last garment she clipped to the line,
folds it with neat creases,
places it in the wicker basket.
As she reaches up, anticipating 
slides and screeches,
she pulls the line towards her 
to release the next clean shirt.
The syncopated rhythm in reverse
serenades her as the fresh scent 
of clean laundry wafts in the breeze,
reconnecting her
with her place of peace.

Earlier version in Peace & Identity, an exhibition book designed by Antonella Manganelli (2018)

This is Just to Say…

haibun for Mom

temperatures drop
Mom goes out
just to see the lilac

Last summer—the season of banana peels and eggshells. I mix shells with soil to nourish garden planting. I stuff banana peels two at a time into yogurt containers with clear tops. “Fill them with water and wait two days,” you instruct me. “Pour around the roots, especially the lilac. The plants need potassium like we do.” You read and learn “in the computer.” I follow instructions, and in its third spring, your lilac blooms.

small purple cones
lilac buds sprouting
rockets to the sky

This summer—I toss peels and shells in the trash. You don’t notice as you struggle in scorching heat. Spells of near fainting keep you away from the outdoors you love, roses—red, pink, yellow—climbing trellises, geraniums lining our walkway, awaiting your return. They may still crave potassium, but they thrive. The lilacs tell their own story.

lilac leaves browning
three days of watering
still dying

…I’ve been unable to tell you I no longer save eggshells and banana peels.

pruning the lilac
hiding dead leaves
from my mother

Dancing Days

After Lindy Hop, 1943
Photograph by Gjon Milo/LIFE

As she rests in the hospital,
it’s difficult to imagine her 
dancing the Lindy Hop, 
but in 1943, her time in 
junior high, Grove Street School,
I know she danced, 
following the lead of her 
older sister and cousins
on her mom’s side.

I can see them
leaping into laughter, 
gripping hands, 
bending knees to rise 
higher in the air 
before the free fall, 
grounding with delight.

Her pied piper cousin
orchestrated afternoon play
especially when they shared 
the building beside the brook,
families separated by floors,
after the crash, their 
Long Island restaurant shuttered.

But even in summers
at Rockaway Beach, 
the same pied piper 
choreographed weddings—
she played the bride, 
Mom the bridesmaid—
and strolls on the boardwalk
pairing boys with girls
so they could hold hands
until they reached Playland
where they rolled 
Skee-Ball bank shots
for the highest points, 
devoured frozen Milky Ways 
and dripping ice cream cones.

The jitterbug and the Jersey Bounce 
brought Mom and Dad together 
on New Years Eve, 1955,
at the home of a cousin, 
on her dad’s side, where they 
danced into marriage
with a Bermuda honeymoon—
dance contest winners 
at the Elbow Beach Hotel.

Her dancing days over now, 
not a day goes by that Mom’s mind 
isn’t racing to the past 
triggered by music and dreaming
reveling in stories she urges me 
to know, to tell, to write.

Dressing My Mother

I’ve never worn pants to church at Saint Sophia Cathedral, 
named not for the saint but for the concept of Holy Wisdom. 
My mother didn’t either until her late eighties and nineties 
when shoes of comfort and security dictated her wardrobe.

In Greece, when we traveled in the 70s and 80s, signs  
were posted at churches and monasteries letting tourists  
know they shouldn’t wear shorts or pants in church  
but rather carry a skirt to quickly pull down over,  
a sign of respect. Even the travel guides from Fodor’s  
to Frommer’s–Europe on 5 Dollars a Day in the 70s,  
10 Dollars in the 80s–let you know to pack a skirt  
to fold small into a bag and unfold free of wrinkles.

So although my mom hadn’t worn a skirt in years, 
I decided she’d wear a skirt for her last visit to Saint Sophia,  
her beloved domed cathedral, with its intricate Byzantine 
flourish of gold and blue mosaics, Christ seated  
on a jeweled throne in the cupola surrounded by angels,  
stained glass windows capturing streaming sunlight.

I chose a gray skirt complimented by an embroidered 
pink twin set we picked out in person at a small shop. 
The skirt’s elastic waist would facilitate ease of dress 
and fit, and it didn’t smell of moth balls, a fragrance  
that lingered in her upstairs closet of misfit sizes.

Yet it never occurred to me that those experts 
in the business of dressing the beloved would stoop 
to tucking a sweater tank into an elastic waistband 
for all to see. Doesn’t everyone know those waists  
are made to hide, never to be seen by judging eyes,  
and yes, even I was judging and disappointed  
enough that I whispered to the funeral director  
and we closed the sweater so barely an inch of elastic 
poked out in the middle of the cardigan’s opening.

We hoped the shine of Mom’s favorite gold Greek key 
earrings, necklace, and bracelet, and her christening cross 
would redirect wandering eyes and halt judgment. 
Once the funeral director removed my gold inheritance,  
we sent her off with another pair of earrings, since she 
felt naked and rarely left the house without them, a cross 
she could take with her into eternity, and at the last minute 
two sprigs of red violet azaleas I cut that morning in her garden.

Circling Back

Ocean City, MD

Distorted magic, 
fun house carnival mirrors, 
Wurlitzer music

draw him to Trimper’s 
historical carousel, 
summer fairy tales,

where carved creatures dwell— 
turquoise sea serpents, curled tails, 
bearing tongue and teeth,

stately ribboned steeds, 
cascading rose wreaths, 
in fixed canter leads—

creatures his sister cherished, 
ride shared before she perished.

 From I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth (2023) 

The River

At the yellow house on West 29th,  
in the year she read Tomas Tranströmer,  
Sweden’s 2011 Nobel Laureate,  
the college girl, my daughter, 
discovered the spring  
on her running trail along the James,  
Buttermilk Trail, near Riverside Drive. 
She carried glass jugs  
in her backpack to collect  
cool clear water from Buttermilk Spring,  
a historic site near Canoe Run Park  
and Canal Lock Ruins, where workers  
once stored cans of dairy— 
milk, butter, buttermilk— 
to deliver throughout Richmond.

Images as fresh as spring water populated  
Tranströmer’s poems, images as fresh  
as fish pulled from the James, 
as fresh as the Great Blue Heron  
standing statuesque, sometimes  
in a twisted yoga pose on shore,  
until the moment of flight,  
soaring low over mirrored water,  
darting up to tree canopy.

River creatures comforted the college girl,  
by reminding her of home, beside a reservoir, 
the dammed-up Occoquan River.  
Tranströmer’s poems consoled her  
at a time when a concussion  
challenged intellect but sparked creativity,  
a painting frenzy, until the walls 
of the yellow house were covered in art.

I never joined her on this river run,  
but today I trace her steps, imagine  
the rush of spring water,  
the sound of life crashing out  
from a natural tap, taste  
the refreshing snap  
of her spirit as I swallow.

Once, Tranströmer found his way  
into my writer-daughter’s poem,  
but she revised him away.  
Each time I read the new version, 
I missed him there.  
Perhaps it was the reversal: a daughter  
introducing her mother-teacher  
to a new poet. I wanted to honor him,  
to remember him inside a poem,  
to recall what she’d given me— 
The Half-Finished Heaven— 
so I wrote my own poem  
beginning at the same yellow house, 
where she lived only one year.  
Now more than six years have passed  
since she joined Tranströmer,  
where even the ghosts take a drink,  
where water glitters between the trees,  
and I see them together  
through the window of the river.

Includes phrases from the title poem in Tomas Transtromer’s The Half Finished Heaven (translated by Robert Bly): “Even the ghosts take a drink” and “Water glitters between the trees.”

© Carol Hailey, all rights reserved