Daisy in the morning
– an elephant tale
I don’t know if she really was
named Daisy behind a narrow
moat she stood with liquid eyes
watching
My father young and peanut
holding locked eyes lifted his
arm and like a master sorcerer
called ” Up Simba ” and she’d lift
Her majestic trunk and rise
Like a lifting building
Throw back her trunk
And blare a smile
Eyes locked as she
Lowered herself back to
the golden straw swirling
at her ankles and reached
With the delicate pink of roses
As sound and passion
echoed bouncing from
the walls that melted
in my trembling chest
And she reached
To my.upturned hand
And eyes still on my
father gently, oh so
sweetly, picked-sucked
the peanuts away
with laughing eyes
tickling my wet palm
delicate as dew on a
blossom
regal Queen honored
me at my father’s request
and the walls melted
Maybe it only happened
Once, maybe it was happenstance
but still I see their eyes and
feel the tile walls melt
shimmering away and
Somewhere we stand
Daisy, my father
and I
forever
free
A glorious trunk
raised in blaring
welcome as birds
lift from the trees
and red dust swirls
about my ankles
in the mist of an
ever equatorial morning
“Black Beauties”
“animals” she called them
on first day driving
sighing sanctimonious
tapping red wrapped
fingernails against
her smirking teeth
“lucky to have her”
she sighed
these “black beauties”
these third-grade-children
in the long ago charge
of one red-lipsticked
hatred-heinous
teacher
unfortunately
no twilight zoned
signpost signaled
only a cancelled carpool
consequence
and time passing
an errant dodgeball
to her empty head
dangled snatched disability
discharging her
into the wild to
roam her jumbled jungle
of manufactured malice memory…
twenty-five children saved
not unscathed
but free
nonetheless
from one scathing
Serpent
fluff puff of coal smoke
drifted through the opened door
magic
Quite an ensemble of poems here Pearl!
ReplyDeletesome beautifully penned words here Pearl ... love Daisy, she's my ideal ... the serpent is drawn as evilly as I imagine her to be, and the 'ku? One of your unexpected kittens?
ReplyDeleteAw thanks Sharon.. Means a great deal:) Delighted that you enjoyed Daisy - had fun with that one and the serpent is the kind of heinous heedless racism long ago but unfortunately still too present in city schools. Yes, the ku is of my one and only little coal puff now all grown up :)
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