Recuerdo
Not the blooming plumeria reflecting off water,
the full moon this morning falling out of the sky,
not my hair, well maybe some,
not my strong muscles or breasts, smooth skin, youthful
and mid-life beauty, not even my breath or this house,
its walls, this car, the awesome
tires, plants in the garden that I water and trim.
But I can keep the ocean, sky and moon, dirt and air and space
between my cells, but not
the whales, not the bats that bolt from Mexico in winter.
I can keep the animal part of me, sternum, scapula, clavicle,
the part that notices bits of clouds gathering together like lace
in the northern sky waiting to dissolve, the chance to rest
on a featherless pillow, and nap
on the veranda Friday at noon, the part that insists
on standing in the shade to escape the heat or rifling through
the calendar growing thinner
in my fingers, as the dog races around with her blue ball,
its light flashing like an ambulance.
…..
This poem is from the book In The Thaw of Day by Cynthia Good (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/in-the-thaw-of-day-by-cynthia-good/
Good’s poetry collection chronicles the speaker’s escape from an abusive marriage and coming to terms with trauma experienced over the course of a lifetime, and the journey to recover while finding deep meaning and joy in the smallest things earth offers: …the ocean, sky, dirt and air, and space // between my cells… Believing it’s essential to express what burns inside us, even at the risk of ridicule, the author grapples with big questions including impermanence and why we are here, how the wind off the Seine /crawls under your scarf. The black / and white photo from the museum, / an image of Basquiat between us / tells me Basquiat is dead, / and in this photo, all of us are memory. The collection is bursting with the natural world, filled with whales and wild mushrooms, taking the reader from Paris and Mexico to Los Angeles, Atlanta and the moon. The book looks at grief following the loss of the poet’s long marriage, the death of her mother, and her father to suicide, while always finding something to be thankful for, even if it’s, the way a leaf / still shudders after the wind.
Cynthia Good is an award-winning author, journalist and former TV news anchor. She has written six books including Vaccinating Your Child, which won the Georgia Author of the Year award. She launched two magazines, Atlanta Woman and the nationally distributed PINK magazine for women in business. Good’s poems have appeared in many acclaimed publications such as Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Penman Review, Awakenings, and Terminus Magazine.
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