I Was the Fourth

My thoughts have been so much on family for the last few days. With the loss of my sweet Uncle Glenn this week and all the trappings that come with it, it's no wonder, really, that my heart has been beating in rhythm with my dear ones on the other side. My thoughts have been full of my sisters and  mother, wondering if they have been close to us as we wept goodbye and they smiled hello. I often think of them, but the ache is a bit more poignant with the new grief.
My Momma... she was one of those moms that seemed to come knowing what a "real" mother was. There were eventually nine of us, or ten, or eleven or maybe twelve when you take into account foster children and a miscarriage. There were six sisters born all in a row, then three brothers.  As I have grown into adulthood I've considered the effect of six girls on the dynamics of a family. Can you imagine, in days before sonograms, what it must have been like to hear the announcement from the Dr. that it was a girl? ...again?
Mom and dad loved us.  It didn't seem to matter all that much that it was girl, after girl, after girl, or at least it appeared as if that were true, to the six of us before the boys came.  Only now, realizing the humanness of my beautiful mother, do I understand there must have been moments...

Another Head of Hair


A girl again. Another head of hair
to comb, and worries later on, along
with bras and fits of tears, long-legged boys.
But that, with any luck, was still some years 
away.  Today her fears for fierce-eyed girls
were few.  Her guarded thoughts would hold no more
than toes of mottled pink, a mewling mouth,
a pursed, exacting pout of innocent
insistence, siren, demanding more of her
than merely life.  This fragile doll,
diminutive, with Heaven's Breath still clinched
inside her fists, her feather wisps of hair
still drenched with perfect evidence of grace,
was now another care, another need
of her.  She stretched her tired, pliant neck,
her scarlet-ribboned stomach empty now,
it's fullness broken. She bent, kissed tiny curls.


Susan Nielson
Fourth daughter born to: 


Neva Joy Lee

Delamar Ghosts

We have a gold mining claim, "we" being my Dad and his brothers, all of whom are gone now except for my own dear 88-year-old Father.  It's been in our family for decades and I love hearing stories about it today just as much, or more, as I did as a kid.  It has mysterious beginnings that will require another post to discuss...you'll just have to trust me when I tell you it'll be worth the wait!
The claim is located in a wind strafed, other worldly desert in South-Eastern Nevada. Joshua Cactus have nearly taken over and rule the barren expanse of rocky outcroppings where the historic claim is located.  It's closest neighbor is a ghost town known as Delamar, once a booming gold mining concern, with a populace of about 3,000 miners and their families.  All that's left are toppled stone buildings, lonely graves, and tales whispered on the breezes that ruffle the overgrown Cheat Grass covering everything. There is a feeling there, and at our claim, that is equal to a delicious shiver!  I am thankful for the shared history that binds Delamar and my own family. With the passing of my beloved Uncle Glenn this week I have been filled with desert longings and a need to share his passion for the bit of unwieldy earth known as "The Lee Boy Claims".  I'll forever listen for his voice in the warm winds murmuring over Delamar and into my heart, claimed long ago.


Delamar Ghosts


Wind hushes
 itself to hear
whispers in tumbled walls
and open stone.
Spiders on Prickly Pear
spindles loom poems
ancestral...
thin, woven white
ciphers worn by the sky.
Life with pick and shovel
once bent here,
breathed air ripe
with coyote cry
and blistered earth.
Myriad small eyes
watch tattered shadows 
cross over  
Dog Weed
and Cheat Grass,
   then 
        vanish.


Susan N.
  

Where Have all the Moments, Hours, Weeks, Months, Years Gone?

I took down my Christmas tree today.  Christmas, and the wonder of them past, present, and future, came close to me again for a few precious moments, as I lifted down an extraordinarily colorful Shrinky Dink star from the tree. It was a gift to me 11 years ago and has a picture of my 5 year-old Chris in the middle of it. I looked at his adorable smile, a tooth missing, gone to grace the collection of the Tooth Fairy. Wasn't this picture taken just days ago?  
Oh no, now I've done it!  I wiped away a miscreant tear sliding down my cheek, and wrapped the star carefully in some crinkly, re-cycled year-after-year tissue, and nestled it gently into the lap of my other Christmas Tree treasures, back into the storage box I had removed it from just a few short weeks ago. A bit of my heart found its way into the box, as well. It's just not possible for a mom to let her five-year-old leave for a whole year without going, too!
The warm memories stored in each ornament will be there waiting to tell me stories again next Christmas, and I'll be just as enthralled then, lifting them up to the twinkling branches for their command performance once more.  I have to wonder though, as I do every year when I put Christmas away, will my tiny bit of heart find it's way back to me from the box or will it be gone with him to some far off Christmas of his own choosing, complete with a Kindergarten picture of his own small child pasted onto a brightly colored star?

Remembering ... Always, Forever, and No Matter What

Over the time frame of about twenty years I have lost two of my darling sisters to cancer and my adored Mother to Parkinson's Disease.  This week a much loved Uncle joined them and my heart returned to the old ache it has borne before. I wrote a poem at the time my sweet sister, Robyn, left us and have revised it many times since, trying to get it just right, to allow it to speak for me of the nature of things I don't truly comprehend. It is an experimental form poem, wherein the title becomes the first line.  It is also a negative space poem, meaning it addresses something that is empty or vacant or...maybe free is a better description, such as the space between the typed letters you see here. It speaks of the holes in a snowflake that create its beauty and compares it to the hole of the grave that doesn't really hold anything more than just bones, thereby defining the beauty of Heaven.

lovely


nothing, arranged
inside a crystal riddle
of happenstance ice. minuscule


perfection, shaped by shifting
chance, like unformed thoughts
that hold a poem. lovely


nothing. only cold bones
are clothed for burial, body
dressed to songs of tears. lovely


nothing, offering up emptiness,
a chrysalis redeemed,
A pristine hope of fullness. Oh, lovely


nothing, hidden, hollow,
empty of hurt, defining Heaven
and snow with a hole.

S.N.

I love you Uncle Glenn. You'll be missed.

Recipe For a Homemade Princess

By Grandma Susie

Take ten tiny fingers and ten or so toes,

a squeal and a giggle, and a small, upturned nose.

Stir all these together with a tear and a pout

(For a prize winning Princess, you can’t leave these out!)

Next mix in pink cheeks, with a pinch of surprise,

a fringe of fine lashes, and two twinkling eyes.

Blend in a bow and a bright crown of curls,

 a sweet, impish grin that’s select to small girls.

Bake in the sun on a swing or a slide,

then remove when well done, with a piggy-back ride.

Frost with sweet dreams and then proudly bring her

to Mommy and Daddy, wrapped ‘round her little finger.

Princess Charlee,
my "next thing to
perfect" Grandbaby!

What a relief !

Ah...the scary giant half face is gone!  I have a brilliant 16 year old son who knew just what to do.  He pushed keys and opened that, then closed this, cut and pasted several items, then said, "Mom, what did you do?" looked at me like only a 16 year old can, then pushed more keys, opened and closed more windows, moved things around, mumbled something about a widgit..a widgit? What in the heck?  He fairly dazzled me with his clicks and swishes and his profound intensity, his head bent low, his nimble fingers flying, and then -  TaaDaaaa!  The frightening apparition had disappeared from the screen!! My relief was short lived however.  Chris stood, stretched his intertwined fingers outward until they popped and said, "So, did you get all that Mom?"

What in the heck am I doing here?

One has to be fairly secure in ones computer skills to attempt a blog, and while I like to think I am computer savvy, after several hours of trying to set up a blog site, I'm here to tell you I am not!  ...secure in my computer skills that is, and as to computer savvy,,,we won't even go there at this point in time.  I have inadvertently posted a picture of myself which is half my head, and yet larger than life...it's spooky!  If I were hoping for followers I think this first look would scare them off very effectively, if not leave them in a state of sheer panic. I'm about at that point myself.  Someone had better slap me quick!!!